Category Archives: TV

The Outer Limits – A Stitch in Time (S2E1)

Posted on by
5

olstitchintime01In 1966, an old man stumbles into a hotel room.  He crumples up some voyeuristic photos he has taken of young women on the street, jogging, etc.  In a dark corner is a woman with a gun.  As she is played by the frequently crazy Amanda Plummer, I don’t like his odds.

She clicks a lamp on and tells him — in a scathing indictment of our judicial system — that in 1994 he was executed for the willful murder of 8 women.  Then she does the right thing.  After shooting him in the melon, she opens up a portal and returns to the future.

Back in the present, FBI Agent Pratt (Michelle Forbes) is baffled by 17 deaths, all caused by the same gun since 1956.  Strangely, they have just found a set of 30-year old prints on a lamp that match Dr. Theresa Givens (Plummer), however, she was in kindergarten at the time of the murder.

olstitchintime10

If there is trouble on the set of American Horror Story, they’ve got it covered.

Pratt is at home when she gets the news.  We get a complete role reversal where, instead of the standard nagging TV wife, her boyfriend does not see how solving a murder might be more important than necking on the couch.

Pratt attends a lecture by Givens and interviews her afterwards in her office.  This tips off Givens so she goes back in time, cleans her prints of the lamp, and returns to the future.

Even with the fingerprint evidence erased from this timeline, there is further evidence implicating Givens.  A gun that was issued to Givens by the NSA in 1988 was used in the 17 murders which date to 32 years before the gun was manufactured.

Pratt hears on the news that Jerome Horowitz, a man she had sent away for 17 murders, including her best friend Allison, was just executed.  Givens hears the same report and uses the Wayback Machine to go back to 1980 and kill him.  It is interesting that she points out that she waited for the “just and legal” sentence to be carried out in the future before she kills him in the past.  She also gives him an awesome triple-tap.

olstitchintime05Back in the future, Pratt goes to see Givens again, but for the first time as far as she knows in this timeline.  Also, with Horowitz killed before he committed the murders, her friend Allison is still alive.  Givens slips up and admits her connection to the murders. She proudly shows her time machine to Pratt.  Sadly the time travel is giving her brain damage.

Givens travels back to when she was kidnapped and raped as a child 15 years earlier, the event that motivates her vengeance.  The man holds young Givens as a human shield and tells old Givens to drop her gun.  Unfortunately for him, Pratt followed Givens through the portal and uses her practice at killing two-headed freaks to drop him. Sadly, not before he got off a shot and killed older Givens.

Young Givens witnesses Pratt going back through the portal.  Once back in the present, all the equipment begins to disappear as Givens no longer had the motive to pursue her vengeance.

Back in the FBI office, she realizes the impact of that last execution — since it took away Given’s motivation for vengeance, it has undone all the other pre-murders so all the 80+ victims are dead again including her friend Allison.

Pratt finds present day, clearly less crazy Givens, who recognizes her as the one who saved her 15 years ago.  This Givens also created a time machine, but simply put it in storage after her funding was cut.  Pratt goes back to re-kill Horowitz (his 3rd death in the episode).

This was the one kill that would return Allison to the timeline, but I suspect we are meant to viscerally feel that Pratt will continue as a bad-ass killing all the others.  That is unlikely, though, as she saw the brain damage suffered by Givens for her repeated trips.

A great episode.

Post-Post:

  • Guns don’t kill people; crazy physicists kill people.
  • Pointless Duplication: The 17 murders by the gun and the 17 murders by Horowitz seems to be a coincidence, but it is just bizarre the writer would use that confusing stat for two separate investigations.
  • Amanda Plummer won an Emmy for her role, which doesn’t seem right.  She’s a great character, but not much of an actress.
  • Hulu sucks.
olstitchintime02

Optical Illusion: Is this a Soda machine or a KY machine?

Ray Bradbury Theater – Hail and Farewell (S3E10)

Posted on by
6

rbthailfarewell01Young Willie is chased down the street by some older boys.  Turns out it was a race, but they are mad when Willie beats them, just like he always beats them, just like he gets all A’s in school.

He walks away from the bully when he sees a little girl walking home from school.  The actor playing Willie was 13, and this girl looks pretty 10-ish, so it seems a little creepy. But the creepiness ain’t even started yet.

When they arrive at the girl’s house, he sees her mother and their eyes are locked on each other in breathless recognition.  Willie sees her as the grown up little girl Charlotte he loved 25 years ago, and she recognizes him as the same boy she loved back then. So clearly she is a lot sharper than Lorraine McFly.

rbthailfarewell02Cut to Willie writing a letter to his adopted parents.  He periodically tracks down parents who have lost a child and allows himself to be informally adopted as a replacement.

It is time for him to move on to another family because Willie never gets any older.  After 2-3 years, people start noticing he never ages, and he must disappear before the government kidnaps him and dissects him to make super-soldiers in a richly funded program run by some senator’s brother-in-law.  That last part is not in the episode, just speculation on my part.

When Willie first realized that he was not aging, he ran away from the orphanage where he was picked on as a runt.  He ran away to the circus to be a freak as “The World’s Oldest Kid.”  But it doesn’t really work out as he just looks like a normal kid.  The rubes would have to wait around for 3 years to really get the effect, which makes me wonder how the Hunger Artist got away with his shtick.

He recalls meeting an old woman in the park who lost her young son 30 years ago, and her husband just recently.  He stays with the old woman for 2 years until she croaks.

As he is leaving town, he has one last confrontation with a bully, but he seems to have grown a little — he is able to throw a baseball faster to the bully’s surprise, and to more adeptly handle a bare-handed catch.  This scene makes no sense as he is still not aging, yet he seemed stronger.  Hearing the train whistle in the distance, Willie heads out leaving the bully even more baffled than me.

rbthailfarewell03He passes by Charlotte’s house and she is outside trimming the hedges.  Again, their eyes meet in recognition.  We hear her thoughts, “I was in love with you.”

We hear his thoughts, “Was?”

“Willie,” the 40 year old woman says.

“Charlotte,” the 12 year old boy says.

We immediately cut to a whistling train barreling down the track.  Bradbury seemed like too much of a good egg to have the train go into a tunnel.  Can’t say it was just a simpler time because Hitchcock used that same gag 30 years earlier.

Willie has found another obituary and heads to the house to use his old “I think I’m lost” spiel to insinuate himself into their home.  He has been a kid for 40 years now and thinks to himself that this is his “job” as he heads up the new family’s steps with his suitcase in his hand like Willie Loman.

This is a good episode after one iffy and one god-awful episode.  Maybe it helps that they are back in the USA and are using directors that actually have other credits.  Josh Saviano (The Wonder Years) doesn’t have as much of the trademark Bradbury flowery writing to sell, but he has been one of the better actors in pulling it off.

rbthailfarewell06Post-Post:

  • This is the 3rd highest rated episode on IMDb’s always-suspect user rating list.
  • Saviano has done virtually nothing in the last 20 years.  I hope he’s enjoying his Wonder Years loot.  Or doing something productive that wouldn’t show up on IMDb.
  • Wearing the same hat for 40 years might not have helped him keep a low profile,

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Martha Mason, Movie Star (S2E34)

Posted on by
Reply

Mabel shuts the alarm off at 7:30 am and yells for Henry to bring her coffee. When Henry asks what’s for breakfast, she instructs him to see what’s in the kitchen.  Mabel is just the latest in a long line of shrewish wives on this show.

While Henry is toiling away at work, Mabel does pry her butt out of bed to go see the latest film of her idol Martha Mason.

ahpmarthamason01Leaving the theater, she admires the poster of Martha Mason and imitates the actress fainting into a policeman’s arms.

She returns home, nearly running Henry down in the garage as he hoists a bag of fertilizer, and tells him to look where he’s going.

She then mocks his interest in gardening and berates his previous efforts to grow anything. When he begins building a wooden frame for his garden, she is effusive in her lack in interest.  In fact, she scolds him for generally being such a dullard.  But there is a hole in the ground and we know one of them is going to end up in it.

Henry seems like a good egg, so it is unfortunate that he ends up in the hole after Mabel whacks him on the head with a hammer.

The next morning, she shuts the alarm off at the crack of eleven.  Henry’s boss calls looking for him, and Mabel makes up a tale story that Henry ran off with another woman — a perfectly believable scenario.  Well, believable that he would leave, less so that he could persuade another woman would go with him.

His boss comes to the house to see for himself. He doesn’t believe that Henry ran off; or if he did, it is just a “fling normal for a 47 year old man.”  He suggests Mabel buy a new hat to raise her spirits.  Now, here’s a man that knows people.

ahpmarthamason02Mabel is called to the police station to answer some questions.  She sticks to her story that Henry ran off with another woman.  Her story takes a hit when a woman in the station says, he didn’t run off with another woman “because I’m the other woman!”

Mabel once again assumes the fainting pose from the poster, this time for real.

It would have been nice for the ending scene to be staged exactly like the movie poster, but in 1957, who knew that such comparisons could be easily made.  After 25 minutes, the 2nd pose probably seemed exactly like the poster.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.
  • Not to be confused with Martha Marcy May Marlene.
  • Or Marsh Mason.

Night Gallery – Class of ’99 (S2E2)

Posted on by
1

classof9903We pan across harsh concrete architecture which suggests correctly that it is a future college campus. The few students present and the shadows forming little cages suggest a totalitarian future (or perhaps the totalitarian mind-think of current college faculty).

Inside, students assemble in a classroom made of Krameresque levels, humanity having evolved out of the need for chairs.  Vincent Price enters and reminds the students that this is the day of their final oral exams.

classof9905He begins randomly selecting students and quizzing them on propulsion and behavioral sciences — what freakin’ class is this?  In his questions, be pits white against black, hottie against nottie, Caucasian against Chinese.

It plays out almost completely in that one classroom, and there is a lot of talking.  Never the less, this is one of the best so far.  The story is compelling, and Vincent Price is excellent as the professor.

classof9907

 

Of course there is a twist and the standard Serling hectoring about how awful humanity is; but really it is the story and the performances that make the episode — which is preferable to dumping all the weight on a twist ending.

 

 

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  None.
  • Strangely, this is the second segment in this episode which requires live actors to play corpses / frozen people.  It is similarly off-putting here (in a good way).
  • Skipped Segment 1:  The Merciful is a twist on The Cask of the Amontillado.  For a change, it is one of the short sketches that actually works.  The title is a mystery as it would have made more sense to somehow reference the original story title.  Once you see the bricks being laid in the first shot, either it’s spoiled or it’s not, anyway.
  • Skipped Segment 2:  Satisfaction Guaranteed also works better than most.  The payoff is a little strange, even pornographic if you’re of the mind.  But Victor Buono’s performance and a few cute 70’s babes save the day.  Due to a switcheroo by NBC, IMDb has this segment replaced with Witch’s Feast,
  • Hulu sucks.

Night Gallery – A Death in the Family (S2E2)

Posted on by
1

deathinthefamily07First off, out of the pilot + 8 episodes, this same house exterior is used in at least 3 episodes — not the same stock shot, but new filming at the same house.  Maybe four, but life is too short to go back and look for it. It’s too trivial a point to detract from the story; it’s just curious.  This time it is used as Soames Funeral Home.

A hearse pulls up in front of the funeral home and two men haul a casket inside.  E.G. Marshall (Creepshow) is doing an atrocious hand-job of playing the organ.  OK, it’s a TV episode, no one expects you to learn to play, but generally the notes change when the hands move.

deathinthefamily12He takes possession of a dead body from the county for $100.  The corpse is a pauper who will be put in the ground with a simple wooden marker.  No flowers, no mourners.  As the gravediggers lower the box into the hole, they comment how light it is. Hmmmmm, I wonder . . . .

On his way back to the funeral parlor, he is stopped by police to warn him of an escaped convict in the area.  Hmmmmm, I wonder . . . .

Sure enough, that night, a bleeding Desi Arnaz Jr. breaks into the funeral home (there must be synonym).  He has broken a window and climbed in despite hearing Marshall singing For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, suggesting multiple people would be inside.

Arnaz peeks into the party room and sees that Marshall was singing to a corpse sitting straight up in a chair at the table.  Marshall is strangely accommodating, allowing Arnaz to lay on the couch and rest up.  Maybe he is confused and thinks he can get Arnaz to sing Babalu at the party.

Arnaz tells Marshall that he is facing jail for murder, and suddenly lapses into 1940’s film noir mode, “The only hand I ever got was the back of it, a kick in the pants, a taste of the sidewalk.”  Good stuff, but seems out of left field especially coming out of Arnaz’s baby face.  He finds it ironic that first warm, living person who cared in his life is in a funeral home.

Arnaz awakens to Marshall singing Jolly Good Fellow again.  He finds Marshall in the basement, in the middle of a party with his wife, mother, daughters, brother — all corpses propped up at the table, although looking very life-like.  He introduces the first corpse we saw as being his father.  This is the family he has constructed away from the competitive cruel world outside.

I think Arnaz can see the writing on the wall.  When the doorbell rings, he is ready to bail, even if it is police.  Marshall stops him on the stairs.  The police bust in when they hear gunshots.  They see blood on the floor, despite the fact Arnaz did not make it that far, and follow it to the basement — where Marshall has managed, within seconds, to drag the literal dead weight of Arnaz back to the celebration and prop him up in the role of his son.

The cops arrive at the party just in time to see Marshall join the guests by plopping down dead in his chair from a gunshot wound.  So Marshall did that dragging and propping up all after being shot?  Presumably Arnaz died of his previous wound, but the timing is pretty unlikely.  The policemen slowly back out of the room.

Arnaz is the weak point here, just not selling his character as a convicted murderer. That isn’t enough to ruin the episode, though.  Marshall’s performance, the scenes of the corpses sitting around the table, and the episode direction in general make this a good one.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy: None.
  • I’m sure E.G. Marshall — from 12 Angry Men, The Caine Mutiny, The Defenders, and other classics — would have enjoyed having his legacy reduced to “the bug guy from Creepshow.”
  • Desi Arnaz Sr. was a very smart guy by all accounts, but he and wife Lucille Ball didn’t have much imagination, naming their kids Desi and Lucie.
  • The corpses sitting around the table are live actors — uncredited, so I wonder what they got paid.  Being so lifelike makes the scene even creepier. I’m not sure I noticed them barely moving, or was anticipating it because I had read that they were real people — either way, that just added to the creepiness.
  • Hulu sucks