Category Archives: TV

Tales of the Unexpected – William and Mary (04/07/79)

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At the burial of her husband, Professor William Pearl, do I detect Mary Pearl exhibiting the slightest smile?  I believe I do.  And, if the first episode is any indication, it is the perfect kick-off to the series.

After an edit worthy of OJ Simpson, Mr. Pearl’s executor Arthur Baxter goes to see Mary.  They meet in a room with more books than a quarantined “journalist” on cable news.  Funny how all these idiots just happen to have their laptop facing a bookshelf.  Sorry, dummies, that does not make you look smart. [2]  And the 80% of you that have a guitar in the background — it does not make you cool.  It makes you look like you bought a guitar, didn’t even buy a case, carefully positioned it in the 15% of the room (i.e. 2% of the house) that is visible on the screen, and are stealing cool from Bob Dylan. [1]  I have yet to see anyone with a piano in the background of their breaking Orange Man Bad scoop.

Mary says she knows William did not leave her much — just the house and £3,000.  She says, “I guess I will just have to go on living in the style to which I am accustomed.”  There is a sealed letter that is to be read by Arthur to Mary.  It says for Mary to make an appointment with Dr. John Landy.  William’s letter also issues a few rules to Mary: 

  • Do not drink alcohol.
  • Avoid television at all costs. 
  • Do not use make-up.
  • Do not smoke cigarettes.
  • Keep my rose-beds well-weeded.
  • Disconnect the phone now that I have no use for it. 

Mary’s stoic response is, “He really did genuinely care about me didn’t he, Arthur?”

That might not read like much.  You might not even find it humorous on the screen.  But the absolutely droll British delivery made me laugh out loud.  It is easy to imagine Frasier Crane delivering that line, but much more tarted-up for American ears

Mary goes to see Dr. Landy.  He knew William through their work on criminal psychopathology.  Landy invented a prefrontal lobotomy technique to remove abnormal parts of the brain that was “not unsuccessful”.  Six weeks ago, he visited William and found him to be a perfect candidate because of his “first class brain”, which was believable in a professor 40 years ago.  Bottom line:  he tells Mary that her husband is alive and just in the other room.  He feels justified, using the “from a certain point of view” theory of English Common Law.

To explain the situation, Dr. Landy shows Mary a picture of a dog’s head on a plate.  The severed head is still alive, with a functioning brain.  He says tubes carry nutrients into the dog’s head and other tubes carry waste to a bucket, or the carpet if he is nervous.  The legitimacy of the scientific feat is called into question, however, when a Korean chef briefly appears in the background.

Landy explains to a stunned Mary that he removed a portion of William’s brain just before he died.  He was also able to retain one optic nerve, but unable to save an ear.  The whole disgusting sentient blob is in a metal box.

Before he takes Mary in to see her husband, he explains that the eye never shuts, and can only look directly up at the ceiling.  To be honest, not a lot happens after that.  Mary insists on taking the box home with her.  She revels in the opportunity to pay back some of William’s years of passive-aggressive abuse.  She breaks all of his rules, wearing make-up, drinking booze, smoking, and I’ll bet those rose-beds are as unmanicured as her . . . er, let’s just say, he probably liked things neatly trimmed.  She even has a little angled mirror set up over the box so she can cruelly force him to watch John Oliver on the telly.

We know of William’s agitation because of the beeps coming from the oscilloscope hooked up up to him.  As she callously laughs, blows smoke into his eye lens, and flaunts his rules, the beeps become more rapid than the telegraph on the Titanic.

Dry as it was, I really enjoyed the episode.  You first sympathize with the widow Mary.  As she begins to have her revenge on William, however, can you really enjoy that?  I dig a good lady’s revenge flick, but the dude’s an eye in a freakin’ box!  The thought of that hellish existence would have given me nightmares if I saw this as a kid.  Not only is he trapped silently in the box, now his wife is going to torture him for years.  At least Stephen Hawking got some fresh air and had depth perception.  Well, he did have to listen to his wife.

In the intro, author Roald Dahl oversells the episode a little by calling it a “very nasty tale.”  Disturbing might be a better word.  Nasty is fleeting, but disturbing stays with you.  I will think about this episode for a long time. 

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  Would also have accepted Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, or Jimi Hendrix.
  • This was actually the 3rd episode.  The first was The Man from the South.  I saw that on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and I can’t believe they could do better here.  The second was Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat, also seen on AHP.  In that case, I don’t think I could do any better.
  • Kudos to the British ethic of ignoring looks in casting.  They cast based on talent, not on age, a nice smile, or a hot body.  That freedom from preconceived cultural norms of beauty enables their shows to be much more grounded and emotionally accessible.
  • No, seriously, get some babes in the next episode.

[2]  OK, Megan Kelly gets a pass.

 

Science Fiction Theatre – Survival in Box Canyon (10/12/56)

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“At an atomic test base in Nevada, preparations are underway for the detonation of a nuclear device.  The purpose of the test is to measure metal resistance in military planes for heat and shock waves generated by a nuclear blast.”

Dr. Raymond Michaels looks at the weather report.  A low pressure area is forming to the west, and will be here in 18 hours.  It will be a week before atmospheric conditions are stable.  Dr. Michaels decides, because of the storm, to move up the nuclear bomb test, which sounds like the kind of thing that could be arbitrarily rushed through with no ill-effects.

The only problem is that Dr. Barton is visiting his family in family in Los Angeles.  Hey, it’s TV’s DeForest Kelly from TV’s Star Trek!  He and his son are looking at complicated formulas on a blackboard.  Mrs. Barton tells her son that his father works on physics all week, so he probably doesn’t want to look at it in his off-time.  She got this theory from her sister who married a gynecologist.  Turns out Barton and his son were working on a formula to see who would win the World Series, where e = steroids and the Astros were stealing the cosines. [1]  Barton gets a call from Michaels to come back to Yucca Flats.

Sadly, his plane’s ETA gets later and later until it finally just disappears from the arrival board like a Delta flight.  Like Lindsay Lohan, it is no longer even a blip on the radar.  As a precaution, the scientists opt to delay the nuclear tests, although why there is an FAA approved flight-path over a nuclear test range baffles me.

There is an extended sequence of stock footage which prompts credits at the end thanking the Civil Air Patrol, the Uncivil Air Patrol, and the Antifa Air Patrol which just harasses travelers at the terminal food court.

The Civil Air Patrol finds an aircraft rudder and amusingly runs it back to the lab.  One of the CAP dudes says, “That was Barton’s tail section alright.”  OK, but why wouldn’t it be in the same vicinity as Barton?  He wasn’t hit by a missile like TWA 800 after all.  OK, maybe he bailed out.  Or had an escape pod like the President in Escape from New York. [2]

Back at the base, the CAP commander says they can’t find the rest of the plane.  He surmises that it has disintegrated on impact and the pieces disappeared like Flight 93 or the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9/11, although his intimate knowledge of those future events is problematic at best.

He continues to believe that Barton is still alive.  He calls the base meteorologist.  By feeding the computer the last known location, time of bail-out, wind-speed, and Dr. Barton’s weight, they hope to calculate where he landed.

At 13:47, the audio went out on the Dailymotion video I was watching.  I  will try to follow the story just from the visuals.

They input the data into the computer which is, appropriately, as enormous as a 1956 computer.  It gives them a range where Barton might be.  Major Sorenson goes out into the desert and finds Barton in a box canyon.  Barton thanks God that Sorenson showed up because he was about to cut off his arm to escape.  He then complements Sorenson’s firm buttocks, although that is just speculation since the sound is out.  I could be thinking of other movies.

He is taken back to the base.  Thank God he is in no danger, so the base can perform its A-Bomb test which is visible to Barton in the hospital, tourists in Las Vegas, and soldiers at the base, leading to all their early deaths decades later.

This series is impossible to rate, but I will miss it when it is gone.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  I know more about cosines than sports, so apologies if the Astros reference makes no sense.  I blame Google.
  • [2]  Did ya ever think how goofy that was?  The President ejects with no Secret Service?  Plus, that must have been a rough landing with no parachute.  And WTF is a Limey doing as our President, anyway?
  • Truman Bradley earned his pay this week as there is a huge amount of narration required over the stock footage.
  • DeForest Kelly was paid a princely $150 for his work on the episode.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Last Escape (01/31/61)

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Keenan Wynn is struggling in a strait jacket.  No, his fellow actors did not have him committed for voting for Nixon last year.  He is playing the self-titled Great Ferlini, a member of the only modern profession other than Russian Empress or actor to exalt themselves that way — Escape Artist. [1] His assistant Wanda brings out a screen to block the audience’s view which, frankly, is not usually required in this stunt.  C’mon man, Harry Houdini did it hanging upside down from a crane.  Martin Riggs did it in a Police Station.  A few seconds later Ferlini emerges holding the strait jacket and blows Wanda a kiss.

In the dressing room, Wanda says his agent Harry is taking them to dinner.  She asks Ferlini not to bring up the “water trick”, in which he drinks a glass of water and a waiter actually returns to refill it before the check comes.  She says it is dangerous at his age, which enrages him.  He says, “I seen 10 new wrinkles on your face in the past week, sugar!”  He roughly grabs her head and shouts, “Who you calling an old man, hunh?”  He berates her for not keeping in shape like him.

At dinner, Ferlini tries to convince Harry that the water trick will work.  Even though it’s old, the new generation has not seen it.  Harry finally relents and asks how Ferlini would do it.  He maps out a strategy including controlled breathing, ropes, chains, a skeleton key, hand-cuffs, razor blades, and a sack — all stuff he fortuitously picked up from the kink.com auction.

The next day when Ferlini is swimming in the lake, Harry goes to see Wanda.  She says every day is getting worse.  She even saw a psychiatrist in Louisville for a while, but then Ferlini got a gig in Vegas working for Moe Greene at the Tropicana.  Wanda is in tears because Ferlini thinks about nothing but his work, even while asleep.  She says he sometimes throws off the covers and takes a bow.  C’mon man, who among us . . . anyhoo, she spots Ferlini’s hand-cuffs and gets an idea about switching the keys. [3]

Harry announces the event.  He has Police Chief Wallace put hand-cuffs on Ferlini.  A couple of locals get the honor of tying him up.  He is then placed in the sack like a bottle of Crown Royal.  The men are directed to put Ferlini into a trunk.  The trunk has many holes in it which Harry says are to help it sink; or are maybe collateral damage from the Moe Greene hit.  Chief Wallace locks the trunk and it is tossed in the middle of the lake.  After 38 seconds, it is clear Ferlini is not going to resurface; even though David Blaine can hold his breath 17 minutes.

We join Ferlini’s funeral as the pall-bearers set down his coffin.  The preacher says, “Who is to say that Joseph Ferlini, in his last moment of earthly glory, was not happy in this choice that was made for him by the almighty arbiter of life.”  I don’t know . . . drowning seems like a brutal, horrific way to go.  I say that based only on Kurt Russell’s death in the Poseidon Adventure remake.  And I know from brutal, horrific pain because I sat through the Poseidon Adventure remake.

A man interrupts the preacher and asks if this is the Ferlini funeral despite the water leaking out of the coffin.  He tells the crowd he is from the Coroner’s Office and his daughter is selling Girl Scout Cookies.  Also, he has orders to collect the body because the Coroner wants a second examination.  Hmmm, underwater for 30 minutes, bound by ropes, chains, hand-cuffs, stuffed in a sack, and locked in a trunk.  Yeah, let’s take a second look there, Quincy.  If they are in Florida, it will be listed as a COVID death.

The pall-bearers, luckily not union men, are called into service a second time to carry the coffin to the caretaker’s cottage.  The Deputy Coroner opens the casket and it is empty.  Wanda shrieks in horror at the cash she wasted on the casket.

Later, in the Coroner’s Office, Harry explains.  Ferlini had made him promise that if he died, Harry would abduct the body.  Harry slipped the Undertaker $50, and hired an actor to play the Deputy Coroner.  That way, Ferlini figured, he would be remembered forever . . . longer than Houdini.  Yes, his years of toiling away in Dinner Theater would obscure Houdini’s innovations in magic and escape, international stunt performances, movies, books, and pioneering the debunking of seances and mediums.

Unfortunately, they didn’t quite nail the ending.  The final shot is of Wanda in a strait-jacket.  Done right, this could have had the same jaw-dropping impact as the last shot of The Changing Heart; especially knowing how Wanda might be treated in an asylum 60 years ago.  They lobotomized a Kennedy [2], what do you think they’ll do to her?

Ironically, both episodes endings fall apart if you think too much about their last shots.  Why is Wanda in the strait-jacket?  She must know Ferlini is dead — that was the plan all along.  I guess we are supposed to believe the Coroner didn’t go public with the disposition of Ferlini’s body, so she is waiting for him to return like Ted Danson in Creepshow.  Maybe Harry came up with another $50.

Hey, maybe Harry can recoup the cash by going on tour with Wanda.  You know, if she can wriggle out of that strait-jacket like Ferlini did.  Even better, if she can take off her bra without removing the strait-jacket, like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance.  What a feeling!

There were missed opportunities with the final shot and, as Jack notes at  bare*bones, a flatness to Ferlini’s escape and the coffin reveal.  However, Keenan Wynn was a powerhouse as always, and the lake location was almost worthy of One Step Beyond.  Reworking the final shot in my head, I can get this up to a 7.0.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  See also famed stunt-thing Gonzo the Great.
  • [2]  Referring to Rosemary, not Ted.
  • [3]  Come on, man.  Houdini didn’t use no keys.
  • Born in 1874, Houdini could have maaaaaybe been alive when this aired, if some punk had not sucker-punched him.  Proof that the séances were fake:  He didn’t come back and whip that kid’s ass.

One Step Beyond – The Return of Mitchell Campion (04/07/59)

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For those keeping score, this is the 6th out of 12 episodes of this American series to be set in a foreign country. [1] Host John Newland tells us we are on the Mediterranean island of Cabri Horma.  There is no such island, but I’m sure all the other facts in this based-on-true-life paranormal tale are accurate.  Kudos to the show for giving a Longitude and Latitude that are actually in the Mediterranean Sea.  Even The Twilight Zone struggled with navigation.  I’m not sure Science Fiction Theatre would have put it on the right planet.

Mitchell Campion [3] of the Ohio Campions is visiting Cabri Horma solo since the Thailand flight was booked.  He goes into the Hotel du Sud and the desk clerk seems to know him, calling him by name.  A waitress also recognizes him, calling him by name, and even remembering his favorite dish which is a puta who also recognizes him, but as señor Smith. He tells all of them he has never visited the island, and one of them his room number.

Baffled, he goes out for a walk.  He stops in a bar called Mario’s which is like going to a pizza joint called Miguel’s.  He is also remembered there, but less fondly.  A young man punches him in the face.  But he went to an island bar wearing a suit & tie and ordered a cognac.  He was really asking for it.

He goes back to the hotel and demands that the clerk show him his name in the register and how a Snickers costs $6 in the mini-bar.  A señorita followed him from the bar.  While the clerk is doctoring Snickers invoices like they were “original” factory auto dealership invoices during the Labor Day Sale [2], she also calls Campion by name.  He seems to recognize her and she runs away in tears.  He says, “Francesca”.

John Newland, you were the Spielberg of 1950s TV!

He runs outside, but loses her. He is drawn to a nearby house.  As frequently happens in every series I’ve watched in the past 5 years, he feels fine opening the door and looking around.  Before he gets into anything interesting, the woman returns.  She asks, “Is it true, Mitchell?  You really do not remember?  Or do you prefer not to remember?”  She says, “I release you!  You have no responsibility here!  Just go!”  I’m getting turned just hearing that from a woman.

Mitchell says he thought everyone was playing a joke on him, but he does remember her.  He goes back to the hotel and looks at the register.  He is utterly baffled that his name is not in the book that he earlier swore it could not possibly be in.  Then he realizes that his passport was only issued 10 days ago so he could not possibly have been here before that.  

An old man shows Mitchell a photo taken on the island a month ago (left to right: old man, Mitchell, Francesca).  Mitchell says that was not possible because he was in the hospital in a coma after a car crash at that time.  Turns out his heart stopped for four minutes and he apparently teleported — their word — to the island. In fact it was more like Astral Projection (AP), a Near Death Experience (NDE), an Out of Body Experience (OBE), or the Jimi Hendrix Experience (LSD).

He was drawn to the island when the doctor told him the best treatment was a long vacation now that his insurance ran out.  I’m still stumped how he teleported there, then 1) rented a room, 2) bought meals, and 3) banged this chick — yet his name was not in the register.  All three of these tasks require a physical presence and, in my case, cash.  So why would signing the register be a problem?  

I’m sure it was explained in the press.  Host John Newland says it was covered in every newspaper in the country.  You know, if they weren’t too busy calling Eisenhower Hitler, and covering for the Democratic Party to steal the election from Nixon in 19 months.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  Unlike CNN, I use the word “foreign”.  Also “riot”.
  • [2]  This has always sounded like a scam.  They advertise selling cars at cost, but has anyone ever taken this to court?  Seems pretty easy to fake an invoice.
  • [3] Campion was also the name of the soldier who spread the plague outside the lab in The Stand.  No relevancy here except I hope they don’t screw up the new adaption.  At least the Hollywood standard of casting only dudes with beard stubble and 2% body fat will make sense in a post-apocalyptic world.  Although, unlike the COVID world, I suspect hair salons opened in The Stand the next day.

Tales from the Crypt – Ear Today . . . Gone Tomorrow (07/12/96)

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Glynn Fennell has his titular ear against a safe as he listens for the tumblers.  He spins the dial as frantically as me when the 1-877-Kars-4-Kids jingle comes on the radio.  It doesn’t help that there is an alarm blaring, and a Ray-Ban Wearing French New Wave hipster nagging him to hurry.  It also doesn’t help that the hipster knocks him out.

The hipster is revealed to not be French as he is named Henry and not Henri.  And knocks a dude out.  He is just a black-turtleneck, Ray-Ban-wearing rando; not even a randeau.   The lights come up, the alarm stops, and Henry rehangs a picture over the safe.  He apologizes to his boss, Mr. Lawson, for wasting his time auditioning this loser.

Mr. Lawson says, “I’m not ready to give up yet — I’m a problem solver.”  The solution apparently involves tying Glenn spread-eagle on the pool table and breaking a cue across his chest.  Lawson had expected Glenn to use his safe-cracking skillz to pay off gambling debts that he owed to Lawson’s gangstas.

Kate Lawson enters.  Mr. Lawson says, “Her beauty is not so much a tribute to the hand of God as to the meticulous craftsmanship of some of this country’s finest surgeons.”

Mr. Lawson again proclaims his disappointment in Glynn.  As he is leaving, he orders Henry to kill him.  Hey, what happened to Mr. Problem Solver?  Señor Solucionador de Problemas?  And what was the point of tying him up, anyway?  Its almost like the writer had never written anything before.  Or since.

Glynn explains to Kate why he couldn’t open the safe.  During his last stint in prison, he was beaten so badly that his hearing was damaged.  Due to the abuse in prison, he can no longer function as a safe-cracker.  Or any job that requires a lot of sitting.

Kate lines up a pool shot, aiming right between Glynn’s spread legs.  This looked to be a fun bit of business, so naturally they did nothing with it.  Jackass got there first anyway. [2]

Mrs. Lawson has an idea for Glynn.  She whispers it to her husband and he orders Glynn freed.  Mr. Lawson says if he repays his debt in 10 days, he can live.

With time and money being critical, Glynn naturally hangs out at the pub.  Mrs. Lawson finds him there.  She dips her shades and he sees that she now has cat eyes, with vertical slit pupils.   She wants Glynn to break into her husband’s safe and promises, “You’ll never have to worry about money again.”  She says he better agree because her husband is going to kill him in 5 days.  Wait, has he just dicked around for the first five days?

She drives them back to Casa de Lawson, and makes an appointment for Glynn with her surgeon.  Then she gets completely naked.  Her husband wasn’t kidding about the surgery!  The boobs have had some work, but overall, Mrs. Lawson is amazing!  Kudos to TFTC for going out with a bang. [1]

Blah blah blah.  Frankly, anything after that nude scene is going to be a let down.

Like the writer, the director has no other TV directing credits on IMDb.  There were, however, a few flourishes that I enjoyed.  Most of the cast did their best with what they were given, especially the wacky surgeon.  An over-the-top ending redeems the episode.  In fact, if they had taken more crazy risks like that, the season would have been much better.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  This is the last live-action episode of the series.  I need a new series, stat!
  • [2]  Actually, Jackass started 4 years later.  Also, I know the clip is of them using a croquet mallet, but close enough.
  • Even the novelty / relief of this being the last episode was not enough for me to be interested in this episode.  Maybe because I still might watch the animated finale.