Category Archives: TV

Twilight Zone S4 – Mute (01/31/63)

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tzmute01At a meeting in 1953 Dusseldorf, a group agrees to dedicate their lives to developing telepathy in themselves and their children.  Eventually they will create a colony where all communication will be mental.

Ten years later in the freakishly appropriately-named German Corners PA, one of the couples from the meeting has their house burn down as thinking 9-1-1 did not bring the fire department in time.  They die, leaving their daughter Ilse an orphan.  The firemen find her safely outside the fire, but she does not respond to their questions.

The Sheriff Wheeler takes her back to his house.  She stays in the room of the Wheeler’s dead daughter Sally.  The sheriff doesn’t understand the girl’s silence — Ilse, I mean, not Sally.  He says, “I know she’s not deaf, dumb or retarded,” hitting the non-PC trifecta.  He says it is as if she doesn’t know how to talk.  Ilse awakens in Sally’s bed and telepathically calls to her parents.  Being a small rather than a medium, she gets nothing.

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Sheriff Wheeler really doesn’t seem to get the concept of a mailbox.

Wheeler recalls how he had tried to get Ilse’s parents to enroll her in public school, but they wisely declined.  Naturally, Cora sees her as a surrogate for Sally.  Ilse reads Cora’s mind and sees what happened to Sally.  She seems happy to fill in, but really perks up when she hears that some letters from Europe have arrived at the Post Office.  Demonstrating that famous Aryan commitment to diversity, she really wants to be taken back to the other children who are exactly like her.

The Postmaster would not let Wheeler open the letters, so he writes letters back to addresses on the envelope.  Cora retrieves the letters and burns them.  She is witnessed by Ilse and damned lucky she doesn’t go all Carrie on her.

tzmute10Wheeler asks Miss Frank from the school to come by.  She communicates without words, too — she snaps her fingers summoning Ilse to her.  Ilse sends out a message to Cora, “Please, don’t let her touch me.”  Miss Frank is creepy enough to make me take that in the worst possible way.

The next day Cora takes her to Mrs. Frank’s class.  The kids seem to be about 5 years younger than Ilse.  Miss Frank stands Ilse up in front of the class and says, “We are going to work on her until she is exactly like everyone else.”  Guess that’s why they call it German Corners.

Eventually the Germans roll into the country, as Germans were wont to do [1].  They are upset that the Wheelers sent her to school.  Cutting to Miss Frank’s class again we see they are right to be concerned — Miss Franks is continuing to badger Ilse to say her name. When Ilse comes back to the house, the Germans try to communicate telepathically with her. Her mind has been so corrupted by public school that it just sounds like gibberish to her.

tzmute06Ilse finally manages to speak, “My name is Ilse.”  Then again.  Then again. Then again.  Then again. And she breaks down in tears.  The tightly wound Cora has been on the edge of hysteria the whole episode and this sets her off.  She shrieks that she will not let Ilse go, that the girl needs her.

Sheriff Wheeler drives the Germans back to the Greyhünd Bus [2] station. They have decided to leave the girl in America.  Mrs. German says she is better off with people who love her, and not just as an experiment.

An entry from Richard Matheson is always going to be welcome.  The production had a couple of problems, though.  The main issue is the craziness of the women in this town. Mrs. Wheeler seems perpetually on the edge of madness.  She has the Patsy Ramsey crazy-eyes and is not shy about shrieking.

Miss Frank is equally unbalanced but is, at least, more low key.  There is also an oddly unexplored plot point that Miss Frank’s father had attempted to develop psychic abilities in her as a child.  This undermines the main plot by 1) making Ilse not quite so special, and 2) introducing a blatantly supernatural element into a largely secular story.

These two performances and a lousy score bring this episode down a notch.  The performance by Ann Jillian, and the concept were very good, but didn’t quite win the day.

Post-Post: 

  • [1] Ironically, Germany is now famous for other countries’ citizens rolling in.
  • [2] I don’t think an umlaut was required here, but it just makes it look more German and less typo-y.
  • The episode is a more faithful adaptation than some film novelizations.  Except the kid was a boy.  Except for that.
  • Ann Jillian went on to be a cutie in the ’80s.

Bad Language – Lost

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Sawyer’s con-man boss asks why he needs to borrow the seed money to finance his latest con.  After all, he has run some scams that he brought him some big scores.

The line as delivered makes no sense.  The point is to convey that he likes to spend money.  Surely, it was supposed to be “I like spending it as much as I like earning it.”  As part of “earning ” it was banging his victim’s wife, there is enjoyment in both sides of the transaction.

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Tales From the Crypt – House of Horror (10/27/93)

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tftchorrorhouse01I don’t really get the whole fraternity concept.  But then I’m not much of a joiner; also not much of a being-asked-to-joiner.  The episode starts off with almost-naked Wesley Crusher in just his tightie-whities scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush.

For anyone thinking of doing their own blog, let me offer this advice:  If you are viewing this episode at Panera Bread, sit with your screen facing a wall [1].  I also have to think Subway would be a little sensitive to this scene also after recent events.

We open at the frat house, populated as always on-screen by drunk bullies reading naughty magazines.  Kevin Dillon enters swinging a pledge-paddle — another tradition I don’t get.  Wesley, kneeling, addresses him as “Grand and Glorious Pledge-Master Wilton, Sir.”  Dillon helpfully points out the dog poop that he has just tracked in.  Before Wesley can get to work, Dillon tells him to kiss the bottom of his shoe.  The last pledge who refused was hazed to the point of having a nervous breakdown.

Polynesian Night?  What the hell kind of cultural appropriation is that?  Trigger warning!

Mona from Delta Omega Alpha drops by offering her new chapter to be a sister to the frat; although a sister you could totally do it with. She invites them over for dinner just to assure them it isn’t a “doghouse.”  That night, Wesley and 2 other pledges are blindfolded and taken to a haunted house.

Then some stuff happens, and the episode ends.  Its all perfectly fine and perfectly predictable.  The fake haunted house is really haunted.  Well, not exactly haunted, but there will be blood. The ending is a non-sequitur, not the ironic twist you hope for in a good TFTC.

The high point is Kevin Dillon who is excellent, really getting into the campy spirit of the series.  The rest of the cast covers the talent spectrum, but there are some brutal line-readings here.

I rate it a 1.5 out of π.

tftchorrorhouse04Post-Post:

  • [1] More Panera advice: try the Mediterranean Egg-White Breakfast Sandwich.  Holy crap!
  • Title Analysis:  I give it a pass assuming they were going for a “frat house of horror” reference.  But no great shakes.
  • Seems like a campy show like TFTC would have done more with the selection of the frat’s Greek letters.
  • But then, it took me a week to get Delta Omega Alpha’s acronym, so maybe I’m missing it.
  • There actually is a Gamma Delta Omega fraternity.
  • Based on 30 seconds of thinking back many years, it seems like some Greek letters are heavily favored over others.  I can understand not wanting to be identified as an Iota, but where are all the Mus, Rhos, Upsilons and Omicrons? Everybody can’t be an Alpha.  Just me, baby.
  • OK, Mu might be just asking for trouble for a sorority.

Tales of Tomorrow – What You Need (02/08/52)

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Peter Talley of this episode: 4.

Brought to us this week by CH Masland & Sons, makers of Masland Beautiblend Broadlooms.

Peter Talley has a shingle outside his shop which states, “I have what you need.”  On the window, it specifies Curios although surely they also sell  knick knacks, bric-a-brac and give a dog a bone.  Is it possible to have a 2-for-1 sale on bric-a-brac? [1]

Reporter Tom Carmichael stands outside; as a customer leaves he makes notes.  This being the old days, the reporter a) wears a trench-coat, and b) actually exerts a few calories and confronts the shopkeeper.  While he is there, a dapper old man comes in to pick up “what he needs.”  Maybe this is set in Detroit because, in his case, it is a pistol.  He hands the shopkeeper $5,000 which is what I need.

While we all might occasionally need a pistol once, Carmichael notes that he has seen people leaving with an egg, rubber gloves and a test tube.  Presumably not all for the same guy unless he works at an in vitro fertilization clinic.  Getting nowhere, Carmichael takes a different approach and says that he would like to be a customer. Talley does hand him what he needs and asks that he not return to the shop.

Turns out, what Carmichael needed was a pair of scissors.  He shows it to his thoroughly unlikable, unsupportive, unattractive and uncreditted [2] girlfriend.  I think I know what he needs the scissors for.  While he is nagging his publisher for an advance to pursue the story, his necktie gets caught in the printing press.  He really needs a pair of . . . wait a minute!  His publisher grabs the scissors and cuts him loose.  Of course, had he not gone into the shop and gotten the story, he would not have needed the scissors.

ttwhatyouneed04At the end of Act I, we get a commercial from CH Masland, makers of carpets and now hunting gear.  The announcer shows off their new fishing vest which he points out has many pockets suitable for fishing gear and cigarettes.  He also points out the many rings for keeping your hands free to handle fishing gear and cigarettes.

After the break, Carmichael comes back to the shop.  Talley says that he was a scientist with an interest in astrology; maybe the only one.  That led him to invent the machine which gives people “what they want” — when the orgasmatron didn’t take off, he invented the What-You-Need machine.

Carmichael is not happy to just be alive, he plans to blackmail Talley into sharing his secrets with him.  Talley sends Carmichael a pair of shoes which cause him to slip and be hit by a car.  Overcome by guilt, Talley smashes his machine — the one that he earlier said had been responsible for the invention of the polio vaccine [3].  Sorry, kids.

So while Carmichael really was an asshole and a member of the media, Talley was ready to destroy a machine that stood to save millions of lives via a polio vaccine and who knows what else.  Who do you root for in that stand-off?

ttwhatyouneed07Post-Post:

  • [1] Basically the same gag as George Carlin observing that if you break a crumb in half, you have 2 crumbs. Except his got a laugh.
  • [2] Despite having significant speaking parts, Talley’s wife and Carmichael’s girlfriend are not credited.
  • [3] This episode aired 3 years before the polio vaccine was invented.
  • Based on a short story by Henry Kuttner, and also the basis for an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Tombstone (10/30/92)

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Another director with RBT as his only directing credit.  Usually, the episode that follows makes this understandable.  In this case, however, the episode immediately got off to an interesting start.  The dust flying from the chiseling of the titular tombstone, then the car silently going across a bridge.  Mix in some interesting camerawork, and this had potential.

Walter and Leota Bean are in town looking for a hotel room in an unnamed city (presumably not Tombstone).  The first one they try has an inexplicably repulsive guy renting the rooms.  It is a little bizarre as Walter goes to what is clearly just a room at the hotel with the word OFFICE on it.  No front desk, no ledger, just a guy in a stained wife-beater with a Bud in his mitt.  Even at this dump, there is not a room.

When he goes back to the car, he is berated by his wife Leota, who you would expect to be getting by on her personality.  As a funeral procession goes by, Walter says there ought to be at least one room free in the city [1].  I guess this is Hotelville where everyone lives alone in a hotel.

At the next hotel they try, Walter is nearly knocked over by a man running out.  They get the last vacant room, but when they are taken to it, they see a large, black, oddly phallic tombstone in the middle of the room.  It was left by the running man who was disconsolate over misspelling Whyte as White on the stone.  Why the man chose the 2nd floor of a hotel to chisel the 2,000 pound block of marble is not mentioned.

Leota is convinced the room is haunted, but they stay there anyway.  That night, the chiseler comes back to retrieve the tombstone.  As he chats with Walter and Leota, in the background we see the 60 year old clerk take the stone away on a handcart.  Either this ain’t a real tombstone, or this guy possesses the alien technology that enabled the building of the pyramids.

rbttombstone07Turns out that another person has croaked and just happens to have been named White.  As the Beans are checking out, Walter notices that Mr. White had the room below theirs.

The ending is kind of a mess.  So Mr. White had the room downstairs — so what?  The noises the Beans heard which Leota interpreted as haunting were clearly from the living Whites below.  The noises from above might have been questionable, but the Whites were not staying above.

Mrs. White takes possession of the tombstone locally.  Strangely, the hotel clerk is even on-hand, apparently having more jobs than Kirk on The Gilmore Girls.  So why was the local couple staying in a hotel?  And yeah, I watch The Gilmore Girls.

As the Beans get back on the road, Walter swerves to hit a black cat.  Hunh?

rbttombstone09There is a shot of a Maryland license plate clearly intended to trick the audience into thinking this was not another New Zealand production. However, the last shot of the episode has the car going past a big sign for NZ alt-band Bailterspace.

Thus endeth 6 seasons of Ray Bradbury Theater.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Walter Bean, portrayed by Ron White, is not as funny as the other Mr. Bean, but is funnier than the other Ron White.
  • Never considered:  Mrs. White murdered her husband!
  • If nothing else, I learned that epitaph and tombstone are not synonyms.  The epitaph is an inscription written on the tombstone.
  • Did you ever really think about the fact that there is an American city named Tombstone?  Most people have heard of it, but just think about that — weird.  Now it is no longer a thriving community, just a tourist attraction most famous because of the gunfighting.  Like Chicago.