Category Archives: TV

Ray Bradbury Theater – Tomorrow’s Child (08/14/92)

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rbttomorrowschild03Wow.  Just wow.  This one is like the 12:55 sketches from 1970’s SNL, or the set-up for an improv team, or a bit of Théâtre de l’Absurde. Actually, this episode would be a better definition for that  phrase than the one that is in the dictionary.

And not just because it stars Carol Kane.

Polly and Peter are in a self-driving hovercraft on the way to the hospital for Polly to have their child.  Peter, clearly having missed The Demon Seed, says they’ll be home in six hours as these new birthing machines do everything but father the child.

A lot of this seems very much like Star Trek.  The method used to birth the baby is basically a transporter to beam the baby out.  While sitting in the waiting room, Peter orders “Tea, Earl Gray, Hot” from a food replicator.  OK, actually he orders coffee, which the machine screws up, but at least doesn’t write Race Together on the cup.  If this institution can’t get Mr. Coffee working right, my confidence in Dr. OBGYN would not be high.  And for the love of God don’t give them the research grant for Mr. Fusion.

rbttomorrowschild06Soon, the doctor comes to see Peter in the waiting room.  Polly is fine, but he asks Peter to follow him.  The surgical team is gathered around the baby.  Congratulations, Mr. Horn, it’s a . . . pyramid.  In the course of beaming out the babies, on rare occasions, a baby is beamed out of the womb, right the f*** into the 4th dimension!

Of course, Peter is as furious as Michael Sarrazin’s limited acting range is able to convey, but the doctor assures him that this pyramid is his child, alive and well.  We in the three dimensional world are just unable to perceive the extra dimension.  Polly enters the room and sees the pyramid.  She is freaked out at first, but her maternal instinct takes over and she accepts that this is her healthy baby.  I can’t stress enough: All of this is played out 100% seriously.

Kane says she will wait for the technology that enables the doctor to truly birth the baby — who she has named Py — back into our dimension.  Back at home, she very calmly and optimistically tells Peter that she will give this 6 months, then kill herself. I don’t know if that line is supposed to be funny or sad, but it is delivered sincerely and perfectly by Carol Kane.

rbttomorrowschild09The doctors repeatedly try to bring Py back into our dimension, but are unsuccessful. Polly starts drinking; can’t do any harm now (well maybe to her liver). But Polly wants to see her baby. Finally the doctors offer another solution.

The doctor can replicate the machine error that launched the baby into the 4th dimension, and transport Peter and Polly there to be with him. They would see no change in themselves, but they would see Py as a real baby.  To our world they would appear as geometric shapes, obelisks, the doctor suggests.

Sounds like a great idea to Polly, but it takes some time for Peter to agree.  The doctor transports them into the 4th dimension where they can finally be with their baby who hasn’t been bathed, changed or — more importantly — fed in weeks.  The doctor was correct as the family now appears as two obelisks and a small pyramid in the lab.

This episode is so dedicated to its bizarre premise, that it might be my favorite.  I can’t imagine another show tackling this story.  It was worth sitting through 47 episodes to see this . . . well, let’s not get crazy.

rbttomorrowschild10Post-Post:

  • The doctor seems pretty blase about working with the 4th dimension.  Shouldn’t NASA — or more likely China or India — be consulted on this?
  • They aren’t proper obelisks because they don’t have the little pyramid penthouse which would have actually made a tiny bit of sense.  Also a little too much angle to the taper.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – On the Nose (02/16/58)

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ahpnose03Fran and Ed are having a nice breakfast before he goes off to work. He notices that she is not wearing her watch and she says that it is being fixed.  Ed mentions that the race track has just re-opened and questions whether she might be going there today.

He asks her if that is why her watch is missing.  This would be one pro-active chick — not even waiting for the bookies to threaten her, she is hocking her watch before the track opens just to get some scratch.  Ed tells her that if she is betting again, there will be no excuses, and no tears — they are through!  You know, unless she hits the trifecta.

After Ed leaves, she goes to the pawn shop and gets her watch back.  When she gets back home, her partner-in-gambling Lana Shank is waiting at her door.  Lana is ecstatic as she hit the Daily Double yesterday, presumably not on Jeopardy, for $268.  She wants Fran to come back to the track with her today, but Fran tells her Ed threatened to divorce her if she started betting again.

ahpnose04Picking up the newspaper, she notices a horse named Pink Angel, then hears a song on the radio by that name.  Armed with this ironclad information, she calls her bookie to place a bet.  Luckily, she is able to control hersellf and hangs up.

Coincidentally the bookie calls her seconds later.  There is the small — literally small — matter of $26.40 she owes to him.  She hasn’t even been to the track since it re-opened, so I’d say this is the most patient bookie on earth.

He comes over, but Fran is only able to come up with $1.55.  Wow maybe $26 wasn’t so small back then.  In the closet, she goes through her husband’s pants but finds nothing. Maybe if she had gone through the bookie’s pants, her problem might have gone away.

ahpnose05Then she gets a bright idea.  A pretty snappy dame when she smiles, she goes downtown and tells a series of strangers that she forgot her purse and needs $.15 for the bus.  She does OK with the suckers (i.e. men), but a woman getting off the bus tells her to ask the police for money. Seeing that she will never make it to $26 that way she shoplifts a $50 compact.

Outside, a man busts her and puts her in a car.  As they are driving, he offers to give her a break.  She doesn’t know how to thank him, but he says, “I’m sure you can think of something if you put your mind to it.”  He peels off a $20 and drops it in her lap as he admits he is not a cop, but can still help her out of a jam.

ahpnose06He says to “pretend I’m your husband for a few minutes”, so she nags him he’s going too fast.  She hits him in the face with her purse, causing them to swerve into a light pole.

She flees the scene, but leaves behind her purse which allows the police to track her to her apartment. They found the $20 and put it in her purse.  After a day more antic than the 4th Indiana Jones movie, the bookie shows up and Fran pays him off.  He offers to place another bet for her, but she tells him she is through forever.

She gets a call from her husband that he suddenly has to fly to Washington.  She remembers a horse named Washington Flyer, so calls her bookie immediately.

A nice, enjoyable episode.  I really thought it was going to end on a happy note with her not gambling again.  Guess I’m just one of those suckers (i.e. men).

ahpnose07Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Tharon Crigler still hanging on just as she was in The Motive which just aired 2 weeks earlier.
  • AHP Proximity Alert:  Carl Betz was also just in that recent episode.
  • Fran’s last name is Holland and she is “in Dutch” with the bookie.
  • They live in Apt 3-D but I got nothing for that.
  • The $.15 for the bus would be worth $1.24 today.
  • The $26 for the bookie:  $215.
  • The $50 compact Fran stole  $413.
  • The $20 to be her “husband for a few minutes” — priceless.

Night Gallery – You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan (11/12/72)

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ngmillikan02I’ll bet this was quite a casting coup in 1972, having Ozzie & Harriet in an episode of a horror anthology.  They were before my time, but I get the sense that their TV show made Leave It to Beaver look like The Wire.

Here, Ozzie is a bumbling inventor. He must have been successful at some point, though, because he lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion.  Also, he has managed to lure some of the “finest scientific minds of our time” to his place for a demonstration.  Perhaps a free meal was mentioned.  Or strippers.

He reveals his scientific breakthrough to be the ability to turn a common rock into gold — alchemy — by boiling it in Palmolive liquid for 30 seconds.  Any self-respecting scientist would have walked out before the amuse-bouche (that’s why you always put the strippers on first).  And really, by 1972, wasn’t this idea pretty corny?

ngmillikan03He applies a flame to the beaker containing the green liquid and rock. It begins to boil, then explodes. The fact that there weren’t big nuggets of gold handed to them as they entered the door should have been a tip-off that this hadn’t even been tested.

Dr. Burgess (frequent loud-mouth Michael Lerner) chews Ozzie out, calling him a charlatan.  He reminds Ozzie that he was just in his home one year ago to witness a alleged perpetual motion machine Ozzie had invented.  OK, Ozzie might be an eccentric dreamer, but Burgess is the credentialed dumb-ass who falls for every scientific boodoggle.  Although, noting his heft, my meal theory might come into play.

ngmillikan04Ozzie is distraught as they file out. Harriet dutifully tries to console him, but it becomes clear to him his wife is slipping into dementia or what would now be called Alzheimer’s.  She is very forgetful, constantly late, etc.

This inspires his next scientific break-through.  He has devised a potion that will bring the dead back to life and give them immortality. Rather than test it on a freshly dug-up corpse like any normal scientist, he poisons his wife to create a perfect test subject.

She soon croaks, and Ozzie carries her down to the basement with no doubt that she will be back up cooking & ironing in no time.  Their nephew George, a physician, gets wind of this experiment and calls the police.  Ozzie is still so sure of his creation that is baffled why the police would even be interested.

ngmillikan06When George finally makes Ozzie understand that Harriet isn’t coming back to life, he retires to his room to await the police.  After the police arrive, George discovers that Ozzie has killed himself.  In an O’Henry twist, Harriet, late as usual, comes up the stairs and asks where Ozzie is.

It’s a fun little episode despite the idiotic science.  The ending is muddled, however. Harriet indeed arises from the dead, and speaks normally and we don’t see her lurching like a zombie. So is she 100% recovered?  This is brought into question by her pallid face.  Granted, she was dead for a few hours, and was no spring chicken to start with — maybe it takes time for the blood to started recirculating.  And is she really immortal?

In any case, this is the invention that will finally make Ozzie a rich . . . oh, yeah.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  Don Keefer and Lew Brown were each in 3 episodes.  Stuart Nisbet was in 1.
  • Title Analysis: 75% non-sequitur.  She is indeed Mrs. Millikan, but who is giving her permission to “come up”?  And from where?  The basement?  Death?
  • The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet ran 14 seasons.  Their son Ricky had some credible hits like Traveling Man and Garden Party.  Although he seemed to have some sort of grudge against truck drivers (either you get it or you don’t).
  • Palmolive / Palm-Olive.  Never made that connection before.
ngmillikan07

The dude with his back to the camera was the Mayor in Animal House.

In third season rarity, there is also a short sketch in this episode — Smile, Please. It is worth noting only because it means the first segment was not as padded out as it could have been.  And for the second NG appearance by a very cute young Lindsay Wagner — sporting an English accent and snappy 1970’s hat.  The story is just shit, however.

Tales From the Crypt – Showdown (08/01/92)

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tftcswhowdown05Outlaws Harley and Quintaine are pursued by a posse. They think they lost them 3 days back, but Harley is in pretty bad shape from a gunshot wound.  When he can no longer stay on his horse, Quintaine shoots him. The not-so-lost posse finds Harley’s fresh grave — which Quintaine idiotically marked; and with his partner’s initials — and continue their hunt.

Quintaine rides into a small frontier town, leading Harley’s horse.  Somehow, the posse has beaten him to the town and Texas Ranger McMurdo is waiting for him.

With no discussion, they walk out into the wide, dusty street and have a duel, which is not the way I remember the Texas Rangers operating; not even when George Bush owned them.  McMurdo takes a slug seemingly directly in the heart with trademark Peckinpaw-ish projectile bleeding, but stays standing,  The 2nd bullet takes him down.

tftcswhowdown02He goes into the saloon for a whiskey.  A stranger tries to sell him a miracle elixir, but Quintaine is quite the negotiator.  Refusing to buy, the medicine man gives him a bottle for free and says he will pay Quintaine a dollar tomorrow if it doesn’t live up to his hype. He takes the bottle and chugs it.

The “snake oil” is fast acting as Quintaine hallucinates that he sees Doc Holliday, a bounty hunter that Quintaine killed.  Maybe there was more than one gunfighting dentist by that name in the old west — the Doc Holliday most people know died of TB (see Val Kilmer wheezing in Tombstone).

tftcswhowdown03He begins to see other of his victims in the saloon.  Among the dead . . . Harley, Frank Little Bear, and Tom McMurdo, still, freshly dead in the street.

McMurdo tells him they are all in Hell. Quintaine screams like a little girl for them to all go way.  When he raises his head, the dead men are gone.  In their place is a gaggle of tourists being shown the saloon which has “it’s very own ghost, the legendary Billy Quintaine” according to the guide who surely regrets dropping out of high school now.

The tour guide relates the story that McMurdo’s posse cut down Quintaine after McMurdo was shot in a duel.  It might have been helpful for the posse to have been a little more pro-active.

Outside the saloon, Quintaine see a modern scene — a hot-dog cart, people on bikes, kids running around. I assume with a bigger budget this would have been a commentary on consumerism, capitalism, or fat American tourists in shorts.  He goes back inside and calls for Tom, but no one appears.

tftcswhowdown04What follows is not clear.  It is either a flashback to what actually happened after the duel, or Quintaine is getting a second chance.  We did not see the first iteration, but this time he is clearly aware there are other shooters, and he impressively kills several of them before finally being shot down.

Also not clear:  We see some modern tourists gawking at the grave markers of McMurdo and Quintaine.  After they leave, McMurdo and Quintaine ride up on horseback to see their own graves.  They are chummy and in pretty good spirits for a couple of guys in Hell. Also they are part of a bunch that all have horses and the freedom to ride off wherever they want to.  Is this Hell or a Dude Ranch?  The guys in City Slickers weren’t this chipper.

And where exactly are they riding to?  Back into the past to pick up the next gun-fighter who is killed?  Does the group just get bigger and bigger?  Does anyone ever actually go to Hell?  On the plus side — probably many houses of ill-repute in Hell. [1]

Great episode as far as performances and directing, but a little muddled on the story.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Meh.
  • McMurdo says, “Heaven or Hell, whatever you want to call it. It’s warm here; it’s quiet.” Another man says, “We’re all here — those who lived by the gun and died by the gun.” So the murderers and and lawmen and even the innocent trot-by shooting victim are in the same place simply because their deaths were gun-centric?
  • And don’t get me started on why it took the posse 3 days to catch them.
  • Written by Frank Darabont, so I’m sure I’m missing something.  Unless they ejected him half-way through like on The Walking Dead.  Darabont should have come back from the dead like McMurdo and collected the dumb-asses who stuck the Walking Dead group at that farm for a whole season.
  • [1] I’m fairly libertarian myself, so would not consign the houses of ill-repute to Hell; or would at least locate them conveniently near the entrance.

Thriller – The Watcher (11/01/60)

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twatcher04A really — to be charitable — unattractive man is holding down a blonde girl’s head, and not in the good way.  He drowns the the girl and washes the blood from his hands.

Freitag, the titular watcher, is spying on a couple in a car in front of his house as the indulge in some 1950’s style necking, perhaps even heavy petting.  As Larry gets out of the car, and Beth drives away, Freitag typewrites a threatening letter to Sheriff Matthews:

IS THERE ANOTHER CORRUPTOR ABROAD?

I MUST BE SURE BEFORE I KILL AGAIN.

The next night, Freitag sees Larry leave the house, probably to see that hussy Beth. Freitag puts on a suit, tie and hat and takes off following Larry.  Surely he is disappointed to see that Larry just went in for a little OT at the boat shop where he works.  Freitag goes in and tells him what a great boy he is for taking care of his aunt.

twatcher05He tells Larry “a good-looking young man like you doesn’t have any trouble finding female companionship . . . it must be a problem for you.  I mean, avoiding unwelcome attention.”  Well, maybe it was annoying for Richard Chamberlain, but I personally never felt burdened by hot babes calling me at all hours.

He continues, “I’d really like to help you.  An older man can sometimes help keep a boy straight.”  Ahem.  He does everything but start massaging Larry’s shoulders.  Larry says if he ever need’s Freitag’s advice, he knows where to find him.  Down by the elementary school would be the first place to look, I imagine.

Beth leaves her house after getting chewed out by her mother by going out totally nude — no wait, she’s wearing blue-jeans, which was apparently equally taboo back then.  She goes to see Larry.  Standing out in the rain, Freitag sees the silhouettes of them stripping off their wet clothes.

twatcher06Later on a picnic in the woods, Larry asks Beth to elope, but she wants everything out in the open.  Which it kind of would be after they came back from eloping.  They think they see someone watching them from the rocks above but find no one.  When they get back to the car, however, it has a flat tire.

Not having a spare, Larry wheels it back to a gas station until he is given a lift.  Freitag suspensively creeps up on the car where she is now sitting.  When she spots him, she lays on the horn for so long that he cleverly pops the hood and disconnects the battery. Beth helpfully faints, but Freitag does nothing with her.

Back at the filling station, which is apparently do-it-yourself, Larry is working on the tire. Freitag knocks him out and lowers the car lift onto him.  The police take Beth home where her mother is so relieved to see her alive that she calls her a tramp.  Luckily Larry survived due to a tire rim blocking the lift.

twatcher07Larry is taken back to his boarding house to recover, where the owner also calls Beth a tramp.  Freitag has a good vantage point of all the activity from his room across the street.

When the landlady goes out to the drugstore to pick up a prescription for Larry (luckily the neighbors have not burned it down like in Baltimore), Freitag sneaks upstairs.  Beth catches him and brains him with a ceramic pitcher.  This is apparently enough for him to stagger around until he falls from the window and beaks his neck.

A decent episode carried by the casting and performances of the actors.  An extra layer of entertainment is found in the clearly homo-erotic overture in the boat shop.