Category Archives: TV

Outer Limits – The Choice (S1E6)

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The good news is that this episode starts off with the great Thora Birch.  The bad news is that she is playing a 10 year old, and was probably 12 when the episode was filmed. Despite being a child, there is no mistaking it is Thora.

After an incident in school where she has induced a nose-bleed in a bully Carrie-style, her parents are called to the principal’s office.  Clearly she did not lay a hand on the bully, and there were a dozen witnesses.  But despite being played by Fox Mulder’s mother, the principal is not curious about the phenomenon; she suggests that Thora should be put into a special needs class.

As you do for every conflict in life, the parents get a lawyer; and the lawsuit makes the newspaper.  The article catches the eye of new-age bookstore owner played by another famous mother, Ma Calvin.  She makes a call and says she has another “prospect” in Oregon.  Minor coincidence as this is the location of Mulder & Scully’s first assignment.  But maybe Boston would have been more on-point.

The parents had decided to hire a nanny, and thanks to Ma Clavin, the perfect one has shown up on their doorstep.  Unfortunately 3 other candidates are also on the doorstep.  The nanny Karen is able to psychically encourage the others to walk off.  When Thora’s father opens the door, only Karen is left.

choicethora02

That’s more like it!

Aggie is resistant.  When Karen tries to get her attention with some antics more suitable to a 5 year old, Aggie finally speaks out.  Karen blows her mind by making one of her dolls dance.  Maybe I was just tired, but it kind of blew my mind too.

Now we learn that the government has an agent tracking down people like Karen and Aggie.  He is talking to another couple about their missing child who also was also had the power.  He also visits Ma Clavin to pump her for info on the missing child.

Eventually the G-Man confronts both Aggie and Karen, and he operates about as efficiently as any government employee.

Nothing special, but Thora makes the show so I rate it an American Beauty.

Post-Post:

  • For whatever reason, and there are many conjectures, Thora’s career has just about crashed.  She deserves better.  I’ve seen her in some crap movies, but she is always entrancing.  Meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan is working on her 15,000th 2nd chance.
  • Apparently “change gears” was the 1980’s word for “multitask.”
  • Sorry, Hollywood, you chose poorly:

choicethora03

 

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Small Assassin (S2E6)

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Killer baby!  Always a hit.  No way to screw this up, no sirree!

Pregnant Alice is rushed to the hospital.  In the ambulance, she is screaming, “It’s trying to kill me!”  She is clawing at her belly as if she expects the baby to burst out at any time.

When the new-born baby is brought to her in the hospital, she asks, “Is it alive?”  When told it is, she replies, “Oh, what a shame.”  Hmmmm, I don’t recognize the actress, why does the mother seem so familiar to me?

Husband David comes to see mother and child and everything seems normal.  Back at home, Alice is a wreck.  She says the baby screams and cries whenever David is not at home.

That night, Alice leaves the bedroom and sits on the stairs.  David follows her and she says the baby is trying to keep her awake to make her weak.  It listens to them them talking, waiting for David to leave so it can try to kill Alice.

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One of many baby-eisenstein POV shots.

At work, David receives word Alice tried to smother the baby after it had cried for 3 hours.

She confesses to David she has no love for the baby.  We get a tracking shot and see shadows indicating the baby is on the move.  Alice thinks it is a prowler.  She goes to the baby’s room and is suspicious that he is perspiring.

David is going down stairs to the kitchen when he nearly trips on a teddy bear.  Alice believes the baby put it there to kill him.  David says babies don’t do that.  Alice says maybe he’s a genius.  At this point, it is impossible not to think of Stewie Griffen.  David storms out, the baby starts crying.

Alice tells the doctor she remembers her own birth.  She did not want to be born and resented her mother for birthing her out of that warm place and into the cold, bright world.  She believes her baby was also born with that self-awareness and is taking out his resentment on her.

rbsmallassassinbaby03In the most unlikely occurrence of the episode, the doctor makes a house-call.  He finds David in a heap at the bottom of the stairs where he has fallen and broken his neck.  At the top of the stairs is the toy bear that he almost tripped on earlier.

Seeing a movement upstairs, the doctor goes up looking for Alice.  She has been electrocuted in her bed.  It is not clear how the deed was done.  It involves a safety pin, an electrical cord and possibly the metal frame of the bed.

The doctor looks in the baby’s room and finds an empty cradle.  As he descends the stairs, he locks eyes with the baby and understands that Alice was right.  Knowing what must be done, he pulls out a scalpel and gives him a 4th trimester abortion.

I rate it 5 out of 9 months.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • The idea of the self-aware baby is great, and because the story was published in 1946, this must have been one of the first killer-babies.
  • Wisely, the baby is never shown roaming the house or making the kills — I can’t imagine any way to do it.  It is all done though shadows, POV shots and a lot of gurgling.
  • David is pretty forgiving and trusting, leaving his wife alone with their baby so soon after she had tried to smother him.
  • Unfortunately, these European productions are killing me.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Decoy (S1E37)

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ahbabysitter03Oddball show-tune composer Gil Larkin is working with singer Mona Cameron and falling for her despite her being married; and despite him being a show-tune composer.  When Gil discovers bruises on Mona’s shoulder, he decides to pay her husband a visit.

Apparently, wife-beating is no longer the hoot that it was in the dark ages . . . you know, a week ago . . . in the previous AHP episode Mink.  It truly was a different time.

Gil goes to confront Mr. Cameron, who is on the phone wheeling and / or dealing.  Cameron shouts, “Richie, don’t!” as a man knocks Gil out from behind.  Richie, still unseen, then shoots Cameron.  Gil wakes up with a gun in his hand, Mr. Cameron dead, and the phone blaring out public domain pop music.

ahdecoygil02Gil realizes he is being set up, but has two clues — the name “Richie” and the caller who might have heard what happened.  The caller has hung up, but he finds a note listing two clients who were scheduled to talk to Cameron that night.

This really isn’t much of a frame-up as no one saw Larkin go to Cameron’s office and he had no appointment.  He could have just quietly slipped away after regaining consciousness.  And it was risky of Richie to knock him out.  Had Gil been unconscious when the cleaning lady came, that would have actually exonerated him.

Gil goes to see the first person on the schedule, a Japanese dancer.  This was pretty progressive casting in the 1950’s — there was no reason to make the dancer Japanese; unless she was the murderer, and that was somehow relevant.  I’m not sure whether this was a progressive casting choice or a yellow herring (I know, I know). [1]

ahdecoygil01

Classic “exposition delivered with your back to the room” stance

The next person on the list is a wacky DJ.  It is hard to tell whether this giggling beatnik doofus is high, hyperactive, ADD, drunk or all of the above.  He inexplicably hums the tune that was playing through the phone.  In this case, it is a pickled herring.

He joins the ranks of Hollywood DJs that you could not pay people to listen to (Stevie Wayne, Dave Garver, Johnny Fever, etc).  I would include Wolfman Jack in that list, except he actually was inexplicably successful.[2]

Gil returns to Mona’s apartment where the police are waiting for him.  They take him downtown to give a statement.  Returning to Mona’s place, he discovers an album of the tune that was playing through the phone.  It is an LP, but luckily he chooses exactly the right track.  When he accuses Mona of framing him, she calls Richie out of the bedroom.

When they say they can’t allow Gil to live, effectively confessing, the police barge back in.  Mona tries to pull a switcheroo on the cops, acting as if Richie had just barged in on she and Gil.  She gives a pretty great O-face (as in “O, Crap!“) as she realizes in about 3 seconds that there is no point to even trying this.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • [1] Re-reading this after someone linked to it, I did cringe.
  • [2] Trivia: George Lucas gave Wolfman Jack a “piece” of American Graffiti to appear it.  It wasn’t Star Wars, but it was huge and set him for life.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  Gil and Mona are still alive, but that’s it.
  • AHP Proximity Alert: Harry Taylor was in 6 episodes this season.  Jack Mullaney just appeared 4 weeks ago.  Give someone else a chance!
  • Frank Gorshin, in his first role, has a bit part.  He would go on to at least two iconic roles: The Riddler on TV’s Batman, and Bele the black & white dude on Star Trek (not to be confused with the white & black dude).
  • There must be some weird Alfred Hitchcock / Ten Commandments connection.  In the first season, AHP used eighteen actors from that movie.  And nine more in season two.  Of course, it was a cast of thousands.

Tales from the Crypt – Lover Come Hack to Me (S1E5)

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tftccover01Not a good week for TV.  After the fiasco of White Light Fever, Tales from the Crypt also came up with a huge loser.

Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction and Fabio have just gotten married.  Her aunt Edith accuses her new husband of only wanting to marry her for her money.

As they drive off for their honeymoon, they are stopped by a tree which has fallen across the road in a storm.  Luckily there is a house nearby where they take refuge.

After making the love, Fabio has a dream of Honey Bunny meeting another man and inviting him into the house.  After they make out on the sofa, Honey Bunny grabs a battle-axe off the wall and hacks away at the man.  Fabio tries to stop her, but goes right through her ghostly image.  And then he wakes up.

Turns out the woman in the dream was actually Honey Bunny’s mother murdering her father on their wedding night, which was also the night of her conception.  Then Honey Bunny does the same.

The positive reviews online for this episode just confirm my theory that everything is someone’s favorite (a corollary of the larger “People are Idiots” theory).  No characterization, no motivation, just nothing going on.

TFTChack01I rate it a 3.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • So the tree just happened to have fallen by the same house where her mother killed her father?
  • Really not worth wasting another second thinking about it.
  • And, bloody hell, I just ordered season 2!

 

Outer Limits – White Light Fever (S1E5)

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Out of 152 episodes, this one is 6th from the bottom in ratings on IMDb.  It garnered 3 times the number of votes as the other lousy episodes at the bottom of the rankings.  That means that not only did people strongly dislike this episode, they made the effort to selflessly steer other viewers away from making the same mistake they did.  It would be 3 years before another episode got a lower rating.

Sadly, being a completist, I did not heed the warning.  But mostly, I did not see the rating until after viewing. Note to self . . .

Trust me, you don't want a picture of William Hickey

Trust me, you don’t want a picture of William Hickey

The insufferably grating Harlan Hawkes (William Hickey) is a 102 year old billionaire.  That he got to that age without someone killing him is inexplicable.  Naturally, at that age he is obsessed with staying alive despite his failing heart; and Matlock.

He is using his billions to fund research into developing an artificial heart to benefit humanity.  Understandably, he expects to be the first beneficiary.  Lately, he has been experiencing heart failures and seeing the doorway to the afterlife open up.  Hawkes is unbearably obnoxious, and the introduction of unalloyed religion just makes the episode a chore to watch.

Whatever your view, religion is not science-fiction.  If you are an atheist, it isn’t science; If you are a believer, it isn’t fiction.  Ghosts, deities, the afterlife, hauntings, seances, etc are all fine.  But actually seeing the glowing doorway to heaven open up just seems a little too on-the-nose for a sci-fi series.

Hawkes soon has to make a moral decision about the assignment of the first artificial heart, and by Someone’s reckoning, makes the wrong choice.  The person who lost out goes to Heaven, and Hawkes goes to Hell.  If you are a believer, that simple equation cheapens your beliefs, and does not really seem to follow the “rules” as I understand them.  If not a believer, that binary Heaven / Hell choice just does not ring true.  This really could have been one of those moralistic dramas that used to come on Sunday mornings.  Or a very special episode of Davey and Goliath.

On top of the usual commercial issues with Hulu, it was just tedious.

I rate it Thou shalt not watch.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • Screw this — Sopranos is streaming on Amazon.