Well congratulations to Warren Cribbens who was just promoted to Loan Officer at the bank. No time for a bear claw and looking up his neighbor’s account balances, though. Vern Slater was waiting for the bank to open so he could talk to the previous Loan Officer, Mr. Simmons.
The meek Cribbens accidentally bumps into his cute new secretary Sandy that he inherited from Simmons. Amidst the carnage of dropped papers and files are Cribbens’ glasses with a cracked lens. Luckily, he says they are just for “up-close work.”
There is a scene in his cubicle which doesn’t really fit his character. He bruskly says to a caller, “I didn’t take out the loan, you did!” It is unprofessional and makes no sense for someone who was established as being mild-mannered and fastidious about his work.
After getting all worked up, he emerges from his cubicle. He puts on his cracked glasses. Across the bank, he clearly sees one of the tellers accidentally knock a $100 bill into the trashcan. Although, with reading glasses, at that distance she should have just been a blur. When he confronts her, he sees that there is no bill in the trash. He apologizes, but as he backs away and takes his glasses off, he sees her knock the bill into the trash again. This time it is real, and the teller is baffled; also really overweight.
Bank President Cutler calls Cribbens into his office to talk business. He has a map on the wall with color-coded pins denoting 1) property the bank owns, 2) untouchable land belonging to corporate farmers, 3) property the bank holds the mortgage on, and oddly, 4) the nearest Popeye’s Chicken [1]. He reminds Cribbens that many of the farmers are operating at a loss and “we have to call in all loans as they come due.” By no coincidence, a new highway is going to be built and Cutler wants the bank to own the property.
Vern Slater is shown into Cribbens’ office. Wait, this all seems to be the same day. Slater was there when the doors were unlocked. Has he been waiting all this time? Is this Bank of America? Slater asks for an extension on his mortgage. Cribbens quotes both Presidents Cutler and Coolidge that, “The business of America is business.” He puts on the broken glasses and sees Slater as an old man. Slater counters that the business of America ought to be people, and that his farm is his life.
The next day, Cribbens goes out to the Slater farm to see if they can work something out. Unfortunately, he is not authorized to extend the loan and their equipment is pretty old, so he recommends selling off some land. He tells Vern that Cutler wants to foreclose. When he puts on his broken glasses, he sees the farmhouse as vacant and dilapidated with a flapping front door and broken windows. Warren, dude, they’re just cheaters; you couldn’t have dropped by CVS for a new pair for $7?
Slater says he isn’t going to sell. Cribbens gets back in his car. In a strange continuity error, Cribbens backs up looking like he is going to accidentally run Slater down. They cut to another angle, and Slater is safely to the side. It’s just strange. Seems like the actor would have been genuinely concerned about being accidentally being killed for a dopey 1980s TZ episode. At least Vic Morrow was in a TZ movie.
The next day at the bank — and this must be the busiest bank in America — he vaguely describes the Slater problem to Sandy and asks her opinion. He slips on his glasses and has a vision of her falling off a ladder. He asks her to cut a cashier’s check out of his own account and tells her to be careful.
Cribbens’ solution is to loan Slater the money himself. Slater accepts and swears he will pay Cribbens back. When Cutler hears about this, he chews Cribbens out in front of the whole bank, and fires him. As he is packing up, he sees Sandy on a ladder. She falls just as in his vision, and he catches her.
Dammit, I was so happy to bust them on another error! But I guess it is the same sweater, but just decolorized in the vision.
This accident further shatters the lens. Cribbens says he won’t need them anymore and drops them in the trash. What? He wasn’t interested if they still saw the future? Didn’t he want to see if future Sandy had his ring on her finger? Or maybe now they gave the wearer x-ray vision! At least try the x-ray vision out on her! [UPDATE: Read in the light of day, that was a little too #METOO. Maybe it would work on scratch-off lottery tickets].
Or does he not need the glasses because he will make so much off the new highway on Slater’s land that he won’t have to work again? Was there profit participation in the Loan Agreement he gave Slater? And why does Cutler say Cribbens’ bail-out of Slater “cost me a fortune”? The bank would have repossessed the farm, not Cutler. Cutler said earlier he did not own the bank, he just worked there.
This episode is the 1980’s Twilight Zone in a nutshell:
- 1960’s TZ: Broken glasses result in a cruel, ironic denial of the one thing Henry Bemis loved; and that on top of the crushing loneliness of being the last man on earth, and eking out a miserable survival in the post-apocalyptic ruins.
- 1980’s TZ: Broken glasses result in saving the family farm and getting the girl.
Take it to Hallmark [2]. I know it was filmed in Canada, but does it have to be so nice?
Some of the premonitions after the first one are just a mess. When Cribbens sees Slater as an old man in his office, what is the point? OK, he is still alive, that’s good. He got older — welcome to the club. Still has a nice head of hair — screw him. He apparently didn’t lose an arm in the thresher — isn’t that a point in favor of him losing the farm?
Cribbens’ vision at the farmhouse is equally nonsensical. If the bank were to foreclose on the farm, the house would not become run-down and abandoned; it would be torn down and paved over for the new highway. Or maybe a Cracker Barrel.
So, another simple yet promising high-concept is fumbled.
Other Stuff:
- [1] OK, not really. They are finally building one near me and my excitement at that news is a sad commentary on how my life is going.
- [2] Hallmark replaces Lifetime as the sappy go-to channel. I had actually typed Lifetime, but its website was plugging a movie called Deadly Matrimony.
- Title Analysis: Another mess. Kudos for it being sight-related and having the word vision, but the 20/20 part is like one of those Tales From the Crypt titles with only half a pun. Why 20/20? The future in his visions is changeable, so they are not perfect (i.e 20/20). Even the cinematography of the visions themselves is inconsistent, so that’s not perfect either. The term 20/20 isn’t even relevant for reading glasses, so the whole thing makes no sense.
Peter has brought his work home with him. Sadly, he does not work in a bakery or modeling agency, but in a lab that produces toxic chemicals. He tells Anne he has created “the perfect serum”. Wow, does it cure cancer? Maybe reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s? Spit it out, man! He tells her, “I gave a shot of this stuff to the monkeys at the lab to see how they reacted. Instantly, they lost all their behavior control and their inhibitions.” Yeah, that behavior-control that inhibited monkeys are so famous for.
Anne wants to go out to a movie, but in addition to bringing his work home with him, Peter has brought his work home with him. He pulls papers from his briefcase. He plans to begin work immediately on an antidote which will bring out the good intentions in people. Well that’s not really an antidote unless the people are only a**holes because they took the first drug. What about those who are just naturally a**holes like Robert DeNiro and Peter Fonda? [3]
He returns home and confronts Anne about a call she received from his lab assistant the previous night. She lies about it. Then she giddily tells him she poured the serum down the drain and “burned your precious formula!” She is happily in his face as she proudly confesses, even trilling the R’s in precious — a great choice by the actress. “She taunts him that she “destroyed everything you care about.”
Meh, not the worst episode of the series. In a three-person cast which included Rod Steiger and James Dean, only Margaret Phillips’ name was announced at the top of the show — and she deserved it. Rod Steiger is the same mumbling, erratic, inexplicably praised lump he would evolve into. As the lab assistant, James Dean — also inexplicably revered — wasn’t given much to do, but at least he didn’t 
In a few seconds the old woman’s face relaxes and her eyes shut. The overly-optimistic Bondar does not check her pulse, but rather asks, “Mrs. Canby, do you know me?” He tells his students that not only is she not asleep, but some are her senses are more acute than when she is awake. He drapes a handkerchief in front of her face, and has a student hold an open book behind it. She astounds the class by being able to read the text, although she mistakes a booger for a comma.
Back at home, Julie Bondar is saddened by the loss of her husband’s cushy job. She suggests that maybe if he had concentrated less on the para- and more on the -psychology, he might still have the gig. He says she was never supportive and considers his work “the foolish fumblings of the family idiot!” Sing it, sister!
Bondar is uncomfortable having his crazy beliefs put to the test like, you know, science. He argues that such skills can’t be turned on and off like a water tap. The Dean, quite appropriately, accuses him of not really believing in this stuff himself. Bondar says that psychics usually have a possession of the victim to work with, like an article of clothing. Whew, guess we can’t test my beliefs, nosiree! His wife helpfully reminds him that he has a letter from Mannheim, and Bondar almost does a 
That does not work either, so Bondar tries using light as a stimulus. Maybe they were still using the fungus, because he shines a spot in Mrs. Canby’s eye, then shines it in Julie’s for no reason I can figure. Trying to put Mrs. Canby under, Bondar counts slowly from 1 to 29. Think of that — on network TV, they had a scene where absolutely nothing happened except a dude counted slowly for 30 seconds. Maybe that earlier 10 second countdown tested well. Mrs. Canby freaks out at the pressure they put on her and is taken away.
Like Tales of Tomorrow, you really have to grade this series on a curve. Objectively, the episode is awful. However, considering the budget, the times, and compared to the rest of the series, parts of the episode are just a masterpiece. The metronome, the editing, the counting, the shot compositions . . . there was just a lot to like here.
Not that it matters, but that is the same beach-house that was in 
His plan is to then start a rumor that Betsy Blake is still alive. Plan B is to concoct a back-story for her — the real Betsy Blake that no one ever knew. That’s why he needs a writer to help him. Steven refuses to lower himself to such a spectacle; until Jimmy offers him $300.
Turns out, there was a blonde on the boat she hit that had a similar build and blood alcohol level. When the police fished her body out of the water, they just assumed it was Betsy Blake. So Betsy took this opportunity to escape from her horrible, horrible life as a movie star. Just as well. She had sworn to leave the country if Nixon became