Category Archives: TV

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Night the World Ended (S2E31)

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A group of reporters are hanging out a bar swapping stories, as opposed to now when they would be at a swanky cocktail party hosted by the people they are supposed to be covering, drinking mineral water and nibbling at a low-carb amuse bouche.

ahpnightworld01Halloran is established as a guy who likes a good practical joke.  That his jokes frequently end up in tragedy seems of no concern to him.

Local bum Johnny enters the bar and hits Halloran up for a drink.  Mr. H tells the bartender to “give him the good stuff.”  The bartender reaches under the bar where he just happens to have a shot already poured.  Johnny just about pukes when it turns out to be furniture polish.  Mr. H. gets a good laugh out of this, and Johnny tells him, “You didn’t have to do that!”  Unless Halloran psychically made the bartender pour the shot and place it under the bar waiting for this gag, I don’t really see how Halloran is at fault.  But he’s still an asshole for laughing.

Another newsie rushes in and gives Halloran the last edition hot off the press.  It says the world will end at 11:45 after a collision with Mars.  Johnny rushes out of the bar thinking he must do something special with the three remaining hours of his life.  Of course, the gang gets a huge laugh out of the prank they just pulled.  Maybe I misunderestimated Halloran; he is Schofieldian-level planner.

I think they use the same science adviser as The Twilight Zone.  OK, maybe it is possible that Mars has been broken out of its orbit and will collide with Earth.  But is it likely we would have only 3 hours notice?  Meh, I can always overlook problems like that in old sci-fi, but anything in color better not pull that crap.

ahpnightworld02To make the most of his last 3 hours on earth, Johnny flees the bar and goes to a liquor store — this is a guy with a limited world-view.  He begs the clerk for some free hooch since “it can’t make no difference now.”  The clerk understandably thinks he’s nuts. When his back is turned, Johnny grabs a couple jugs of Cognac (because the good stuff is always sold in 3000 ml bottles) and bolts out the door.

Chugging it in the park, he eludes the police.  He trips over the dogs being walked by an elderly woman.  She takes him back to her place to clean his jacket, and makes him some tea.  She is also a lonely person,  and Johnny is first man in 15 years she’s had in the house.  She understandably gets a little spooked when he says they will be together at her house until the world ends.  She screams for help and a neighbor arrives to throw Johnny out.

Wandering the streets, he encounters 3 young street urchins.  He asks the kids what they most want, and breaks into a sporting goods store to fulfill their dreams.  They go crazy shooting hoops, riding bikes and, inexplicably, fishing in the store.  One of them wants a gun, so Johnny helpfully gets a pistol and loads it for the tike.  A cop comes in and Johnny shoots him when he tries to stop the fun.  The kids bolt.

Johnny stops by a newsstand and is baffled that the newspapers contain headlines such as Naughton Accepts Nomination, Boxing Commission Charges Bribe, Crooner Jailed for Assault.  Johnny realizes he has been punked when the New York Times does not have the headline:

EARTH TO BE DESTROYED

WOMEN AND MINORITIES HARDEST HIT

OK, that’s an oldie; but a greatie.

ahpnightworld03Johnny returns the bar, still packing the heat he took from the store.  It just so happens he arrives at the bar, where the gang is playing cards, exactly at the supposed impact time of 11:45 PM.  Then, it truly is worlds in collision.

Great stuff.

Post-Post:

  • At what point did the pronunciation go from saddist to saydist?  I recall Rod Serling using saddist on TZ also.
  • One of the kids was a 14 year-old Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, The Simpsons).
  • AHP Deathwatch: At least two of the kids are still alive, including Harry Shearer.
  • Story by Frederic Brown, who wrote the classic Arena on which the Gorn episode of Star Trek was extremely loosely based.
  • IMDb’s trivia on director Jus Addiss says he was the “life partner” of Hayden Rorke (Dr. Bellows on I Dream of Jeannie).  I did not know that.

Night Gallery – The Return of the Sorcerer (S3E1)

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nightgallery01Another time-warp entry in the “Complete First Season” collection.  This one is the premiere episode from Season 3 and I am struck immediately with bad news and good news and bad news.

  • Bad news:  Seeing there was a single title for this episode, I feared a 60-minute slog padded out by Serling-penned monologues.
  • Good news:  The episode was cut down to a 30-minute slog.
  • Bad news: Nothing could ever match the iconic TZ theme, but the original NG theme was more than adequate; the new 3rd season theme is dreadful.

Bill Bixby answers an ad placed by Vincent Price to translate an old text.  Price gives him a month’s salary up front to move into the mansion and begin translating immediately.

Bixby gets his gear and Price’s 33 years-younger wife Fern shows him to his room, then lays a kiss on him.  The actress is pretty much a blank with empty, dead eyes; she had a pretty good run in TV, though, so maybe it was acting.

ngsorcerer03Frankly, the whole thing gets pretty tedious.  Other people have rated it highly, though, so it might just be that I was never a Vincent Price fan.

The episode looks great with lots of deep reds and and blacks.  The atmosphere is solidly established by the mansion and candles.  There is also a lot of smoke swirling through the hallways.  Yes, it ‘s atmospheric, but when I see smoke inside a house, I call the fire department.  Outside, in a ghost story, it makes sense, but this is just goofy.  Bixby and Price are both great in their roles.  Sadly, Fern drags the show down a notch.

ngsorcerer04Just not much here to keep me interested.  OK, the goat at the dinner table was pretty good.

Post-Post:

  • TZ Legacy:  None.  Maybe this reflects Serling’s continuing loss of influence in the 3rd season.
  • The Fern character is not in the short story.

Tales from the Crypt – Fitting Punishment (S2E12)

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tftcfitting01Or, as it must have been known back in the day, “The One with all the Black People.” Aside from the occasional Voodoo witch, TFTC has been whiter than a Seinfeld reunion. Our politically-correct betters in Hollywood remedy this by gerrymandering all the African Americans into one episode whose key elements are a basketball and sneakers.  On the bright side, no watermelons were injured in making this episode.

The episode opens on the Thorntonberry Funeral Home.  For some reason, the owner is credited as Ezra Thornberry.  Bobby Thorntonberry’s parents have been killed in a car crash, so he has come to live with his uncle.  Ezra reluctantly takes him in, also as an employee offering only room and board.  He begins immediately showing him the tricks of the trade by prying open the lips of his latest customer.  She is sporting a gold tooth — naturally.

Ezra further displays his cost-cutting practices by embalming a corpse with tap water. Actually, he very reasonably points out that the dead man doesn’t know the difference and the chemicals cost money.  I’m kind of on Ezra’s side.  This slab of beef is going in a vault in the ground, who cares.

tftcfitting03Further, he orders his coffins from Taiwan.  The Chinese being 6 inches shorter, their coffins are are smaller, ergo cheaper.

When the wrong type of casket is ordered, Ezra blames Bobby and beats him with a tire iron.  The medical bills start to mount up so Ezra sells Bobby’s Air Jordans to cover some of the cost.  He tells Bobby, on crutches, that he doesn’t need shoes.  Bobby threatens to go to the police.  As Bobby is struggling to climb the stairs, Ezra nails him with his own basketball, knocking him down the stairs and killing him.

Ezra gives him the water embalming and plops him in the misordered coffin.  Being one of the Chinese coffins, and Bobby being tall kid, his feet are hanging out of the end of the box.  Once again, Ezra has a solution and breaks out the power saw, cutting Bobby off at the ankles.

tftcfitting02The night after Bobby is buried, Ezra is awakened by a knocking.  No one is at the door.  He thinks his disapproving former organist is doing this to him — until he sees a ball slowly bouncing one step at a time, down the stairs, rolling to a stop at his feet, just like in The Changeling — except with a basketball cause, you know, he’s black.  There really is a satirical level to the scene, which I can’t imagine they intended.

A pair of Air Jordans with bloody fresh cut-off feet in them kick Ezra in the ass. Fortuitously, he is standing at the top of the basement stairs and falls down the same stairs where Bobby died.  Then he sees the bloody shoes hopping down the stairs; followed by the footless zombie-Bobby crutch-walking down them, footless legs dangling like Bobcat Goldthwait’s dummy.

Moses Gunn is great as the hateful old mortician.  Jon Clair, the nephew, had a pretty short career, but effectively pulls off his role as a naive well-meaning kid.  Another good one.

Post-Post:

  • Hey, how’d those Chinese guys get in the shot?  Oh, I guess if you order merchandise from Taiwan, Chinese guys deliver it.
  • It took three people to write this — this is the only writing credit for two of them.  The third writer, Don Mancini wrote several Child’s Play / Chucky movies.

Outer Limits – I, Robot (S1E18)

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olrobot03Dr. Link is working on his robot Adam.  Alone . . . at night . . . in a dark lab . . . all the standard markers for an Outer Limits cutting-edge research facility lab.  Whatever the doctor is doing, the robot suddenly takes offense and throws him against the wall, killing him.

Adam flees the scene of the crime — he thinks he’s people!  And is found by a uniform cop who pulls a gun on him, demonstrating that he might not be detective material.  The cop might be wearing Kevlar, but Adam is Kevlar.  As Adam approaches, the cop begins firing, managing to nail himself with a ricochet.  This is pretty stupid, but on the other hand, it is nice to see a TV show acknowledge that ricochets are dangerous for a change.

olrobot02

Cynthia Preston — The picture is actually from her appearance in The X-Files where she was so cute that I remembered her 20 years later.

Dr. Link’s hot daughter Mina comes to visit Adam in jail.  She grew up with him as a brother and wants to see him tried as a sentient being. To assist, her she recruits civil rights attorney Leonard Nimoy who is retired, playing mere 2-D chess in the park.

Nimoy reluctantly accepts.  The irony is that if he can convince the court that Adam is sentient, and therefore should not be dismantled, it also follows that he must then stand trial for Dr. Link’s murder.

The rest of the episode is an extended courtroom scene.  But given the subject and Nimoy’s excellent performance, it is all riveting.  Barbara Tyson is also very good as the prosecutor.  Unfortunately, Cynthia Preston as Mina is not not quite up to it.  Especially when she is testifying, it is not a joke to say she sounds . . . robotic.  I defy anyone to close their eyes and listen to her and not think “robot.”  Just re-watching, it is so unlike the rest of her performance that I think it must have been a choice by her or the director. Overall, another very good episode.

Post-Post:

  • Dr. Link’s lab was in Rossom Hall Robotics. That sounded familiar — it was the Rossum Corporation behind the titular Dollhouse.  Both are presumably references to R.U.R., Rossum’s Universal Robots, a company in the 1920 play by that name which introduced the word “robot” into the English language.  Or “robe-it” as Rod Serling used to say on TZ.
  • The episode is based on a 1939 short story by Otto Bender.  Asimov’s better known re-use of the title was forced on him by a publisher.  But he can’t avoid blame for the muttonchops.
  • Similar story to Star Trek TNG’s The Measure of a Man.
  • In a stunning coincidence, this episode was directed by Leonard Nimoy’s son.
  • Hulu sucks.

Ray Bradbury Theater – A Sound of Thunder (S3E6)

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The arrogant Mr. Eckels steps off the elevator into the lobby of Time Safari Inc.  Maybe part of his superior attitude is that he sees the lunkheads at RBT have pluralized safari with an apostrophe — SAFARI’S.

He hands over his ticket and is introduced to safari guide Travis, the poor man’s Muldoon.  Eckels hands him a data card which provides Travis with biographical info.  He is a big game hunter who has “shot everything.”  His quickness to hand over payment tells us maybe he is a bored rich-boy content to let his guides do the heavy lifting until he can get out of the air-conditioned Jeep and plug the animals.

Once they are suited up and armed, they march through a needlessly smokey corridor to the time machine.  As they go, Eckels quotes extensively and grandiloquently from the company’s brochure.  Bradbury did not have Serling’s weakness for padding out scenes with extended monologues, but he never quite mastered the difference between writing for the page versus the screen.

Out of chars and ashes, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, will leap.  Roses sweeten the air, white hair turns black, wrinkles vanish.  All, everything flies back to seed.  Flee death.

That’s great on the page, but not so much on screen; and also probably not so much in a company brochure.  Travis, appropriately, snorts in Eckels’ general direction.

rbtsound02They materialize 60 millions years in the past.  A silver anti-gravity walkway extends from the ship, into the jungle.  The group is warned to stay on the path.  The death of even a single roach or flower or blade of grass could have catastrophic effects millions of years in the future.

Eckels does turn out to be a panicky Pete.  When the T-Rex comes into view, he is clearly terrified — bug-eyed and quivering.    As it draws closer, we get another classic Bradbury better-on-the-page exclamation from Eckels, “My God, it could reach up and grab the moon!”

rbtsound04In awe of the creature’s size, Eckels fearfully says, “No one can kill that.  It can’t be killed.”  Travis orders him back to the ship, but he is frozen in fear.  He begins backing away and steps off the pathway.  Travis and the rest of the group shoot the dinosaur.  Eckels joins the fun by firing wildly at the animal.  As punishment, Eckels is made to dig the bullets out of the carcass — pack it in, pack it out.

They return to the future, but find differences ranging from subtle to horrific.  Travis examines Eckels’ boots and sees that when he fell from the platform, he killed a butterfly, setting in motion a series of changes which millions of years later would catastrophically result in an Ashton Kutcher movie.

Given the budget and the chowderheads producing this series, they did about as good a job as could have been expected.  I’m on the fence about Kiel Martin as Eckels — either he perfectly personifies Eckels’ fear-cloaked-in-arrogance, or he is just a complete ham.  John Bach is great as the guide.  Yeah, the effects are not Jurassic Park, but you work with what ya got, and they seemed to make the most out of what they had.

The last frame of the episode contains a shock even if you know it is coming.  Congrats to RBT for getting surprisingly dark.  In the context of the series, I’d have to say this was a success, one of the best.

rbtsound08Post-Post:

  • This is arguably Bradbury’s most famous story.  At one time, it was the most frequently reprinted story in history.  Naturally, it is not in the “100 Most Celebrated Tales” collection that I have.
  • First published in Collier’s Magazine in 1952.
  • NZ-LOTR Connection:  John Bach played Madril in 2 movies.  Director Costa Botes (who also directed The Dwarf) was a cameraman on the 1st one.
  • The story pre-dates the Chaos Theory concept of the Butterfly Effect, and I don’t see any evidence that it was named after the story; but that’s a pretty big coincidence.