Industrialist — and has anyone outside of a Hollywood production ever been called that? And have they ever once been the economy-driving, job-creating, philanthropic good guy? — Deidrich walks down a long hallway filled with secretaries who will soon be replaced by computers, Mr. Coffees and younger, hotter secretaries. He is going to see his former protege William Feathersmith.
Both of the men are immediately unlikable. Deidrich checks his watch and insists “I’m a busy man.” Feathersmith bites the tip off his cigar and spits it across the room; plus he’s bald. To his credit, Deidrich is appalled by this — the cigar thing, I mean.
Deidrich had hired Feathersmith many years ago when they were both young men, despite his appalling manners. He soon found Feathersmith to be “a predatory, grasping, conniving, acquisitive animal of a man. Without heart, without conscience, without compassion, without even a subtle hint of common decency.” Maybe Feathersmith is just getting even for a bad reference when they parted ways.
Feathersmith has called Deidrich in to tell him that he has bought Deidrich’s bank note which is payable upon demand; and that he is demanding it. He takes great pleasure in stealing the company from Deidrich, destroying everything he has worked for. Feathersmith cackles boorishly as the crushed man walks from his office.
Having ruthlessly achieved every-thing he ever wanted, he tells the janitor he is thinking about his youth in Cliffordville. By coincidence, the janitor also grew up in Cliffordville. They apparently had a pretty good school system because he tells Feathersmith he is like Alexander the Great who wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. Though a janitor, like Hans Gruber, he clearly had the “benefits of a classical education”. Feathersmith wishes he could go back to Cliffordville and do it all over again. And this being a zone with twilightish qualities . . .
As he is leaving, he accidentally exits the elevator on the 13th floor. He is unable to recall either the elevator, or the nearby Devlin Travel Services owned by the lovely Julie Newmar. Serling is working from the Cruella DeVille book of villain names here. This isn’t intended for 7-year olds, but let’s not quibble.
She offers to send Feathersmith back to 1910 Cliffordville. All for the low, low price of oh, say, everything he has except $1,400. He regrets not having the time to bang the banker’s hot daughter because he was so busy working. He wants to experience the excitement of rebuilding his fortune and ruining the lives of countless men. He agrees to give up $36 million because he knows the future and this time will bet on Harry Truman, the 1969 Mets, Pet Rocks, Japanese Cars, Microsoft then Apple then Microsoft then Apple, VHS, Blu-Ray, and take a short position on Hillary Clinton. Both times.
Of course, being TZ, things don’t work out the way he planned. He blows the $1,400 immediately on land that turns out to be worthless at the time. He woos the banker’s daughter and finds that she is er, not the beauty that he remembered. Everywhere he turns he just misses opportunities, misremembers details, and realizes that he doesn’t know how anything works so he can’t preemptively invent anything. He tells people repeatedly that he is “not a crummy draftsman, or a two-bit blue-print man. I’m a promoter, a financier.”
The Devil gets the last laugh. She mocks Feathersmith for being “a wheeler and a dealer, a financier, a pusher, a manipulator, a raider. Because you are a taker instead of a builder, a conniver instead of a designer, a user instead of a bringer.” In other words, “You didn’t build that.”
Feathersmith begs Ms. Devlin to send him back to the future. His last act before leaving 1910 starts the wheels in motion for another well-played twist. The execution is slightly bungled, but it is still very satisfying. Unfortunately, Serling is not finished typing. He has to insert one last jab at capitalism. In his world, it is impossible to have money without being an asshole (although, I suspect, he excepted himself).
I could point out that it has some similarities to an episode just 3 weeks earlier. The aging make-up and bald-caps were sometimes too obvious, but this was not filmed for HD; it is actually kind of charming in a high-school production sort of way. The main negative is that Feathersmith is so obnoxious and so grating that it isn’t even fun to watch him; not even as his own arrogance dooms him.
Nonetheless, Another good episode in the much-maligned (sometimes by me) 4th season.
Post-Post:
- Julie Newmar went on to be Catwoman in the 1960s. She excelled at roles that required pointy things on her head.
- It seems impossible that Albert Salmi (Featherstone) could have been in this episode and also in Caddyshack. It’s one of them things that shatters your perception of time.
Dennis Mahoney (played by the unfortunately-named 
Mahoney does regain consciousness, but that’s all he regains — he awakens in Brautigan’s body. Of course, he tries to tell this to his court-appointed attorney and comes off looking crazy; even for a serial killer. Holy crap, the attorney says Brautigan is wanted for 26 murders and 19 kidnappings. Mahoney protests that he is just a banker, probably expecting a bailout or a bonus for his body’s reign of terror.
Visitor’s Day: Brautigan tells Mahoney he is sorry the way things worked out, but that it is God’s will. Brautigan considers this his chance at redemption; and at boning Kathy. His attorney returns and tells him that tapes have been found showing him “raping and murdering entire families, one by one.” I hope that sentence is grammatically incorrect. It might be possible to avoid the death penalty by disclosing where the bodies are buried.
Tragically, Kathy and Sean have been killed by Brautigan in Mahoney’s body, but Courtney is still alive. When the police ask who killed her family, she points at Mahoney, now back in his own body. It is a nice ending unless you think about it. A man who has killed 26 people breaks into the house of this nice church-going family. Not only that, Mahoney has been stabbed in the chest, beaten with a frying pan, thrown through a glass table and strangled. Are the police really going to take the word of a traumatized 9 year-old girl against the likelihood that Brautigan was the killer?
Intro: “What would you do if you thought someone from another world was watching you?” What do you mean thought?
Vanneck agrees to meet Cave much to the chagrin of his 28 years-younger girlfriend. Cave arrives with the egg and Vanneck quickly dismisses it as an ordinary crystal. After Cave leaves, however, Vanneck takes the egg into his lab where it begins glowing. Vanneck sees a vision in the crystal and says he is certain that “this landscape is not of this earth.”
When Cave comes to retrieve the egg, Vanneck shows him the landscape. He clearly does not want to give up the egg so when Vanneck’s back is turned, Cave grabs the egg and runs off. Vanneck does not pursue the 80 year old running with a heavy crystal egg.
Kate Morris’s alarm goes off at the crack of seven. Her husband David shuts it off, opting to awaken her by lightly squeezing her nostrils shut. This is the creepiest affectionate gesture since John Travolta — no, the one in 
Her husband suggests that going to a doctor might not be a bad idea. Kate disagrees and begins chopping bell peppers with a ferocity that I think is supposed to have some meaning other than that they’re having stir-fry tonight. If there is some significance to this, please let me know.
When they refuse, she jabs herself with a syringe, going back to coma-world and her happy family.
Stephen Baldwin is getting the crap beat out of him. Shockingly, it is not by his brother 
Amanda takes charge, burying the man. Even Baldwin thinks this is a little extreme. He goes upstairs to get his guitar. When he is at the top of the stairs, one of the dogs goes up on his hind legs and shoves Baldwin down the stairs. He wakes up in Amanda’s bed with a broken ankle. She has set the break using her mad vet skillz. She must also have some mad weight-lifting skillz as he is, for some reason, now upstairs again.
Amanda shows up and literally calls off the dogs. On the other hand, she does plunge a syringe into him. He awakens in the basement chained to the wall. Blah, blah, blah . . . she is treating him like a dog.