Category Archives: TV

Science Fiction Theatre – Who is this Man? (04/20/56)

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Narrator:  “In one of the rooms of a major mid-western university, Dr. Hugh Bentley, professor of experimental psychology, often held seminars where he demonstrated hypnotism by placing a student in a deep hypnotic trance.”  Hey, I think I had that guy!

Dr. Bentley and a colleague go to Lou’s Diner where they see a few of his students.  Lorraine’s brother George works at the diner, but is painfully shy.  When Biff pulls a white mouse out of his pocket and waves it at George, he runs shrieking from the room.  Lorraine asks Dr. Bentley if he can help George overcome his shyness.  She says, “He is afraid of people, animals, everything.”

Fortuitously, Professor Bentley has his weekly 4:00 to 4:10 office hours that afternoon, so he tells her to send George over.  He fills out a questionnaire for Bentley revealing he lives with his sister and father, no pets.  Bentley hypnotizes George and asks, “When is the last time you were with an animal?”  Heehee.

George unexpectedly answers, “A livery stable” where he was grooming a horse.  This was in Colorado and he was on the run after killing a man named Jim Wooster in a fight in 1887.  Bentley hands George a card and asks him to write his name on it.  Why not just ask him?  Anyway, George writes “Jack Welsh”.

Dr. Bentley confers with 2 colleagues.  Dr. Brown believes it is just the fantasy of an introvert.  The other doctor — who IMDb does not credit as a Doctor after he spent 7 years in imaginary medical school — disagrees.  He says while many kids had imaginary friends, “they didn’t write with the same hand.”  I think I know what he means, but it is a pretty poor way of saying it.

Bentley puts George under again and suggests that he remember back to 1888.  He begins describing his surroundings.  He is on a platform with lots of people around.  And, oh yeah, he has a noose around his neck and sees a couple of guys in MAGA hats.  Bentley is shocked by this execution scene even though in the previous session, George did say Jack Welsh had murdered Jim Wooster, and it was not in Chicago.  If Bentley were a competent scientist, he would have asked where Jack Welsh was in 1889.  Now that would be interesting.

Bentley decides to see if he can imprint some of Jack Wells’ traits on George.  He gives George a hypnotic suggestion that when he wakes up he will be “just as confident and just as sure of yourself as that man you wish to be, Jack Welsh.”  He could have added “but less murderry” but I guess George’s 50 minutes were about up.

He awakens and sees a white mouse in Bentley’s office.  This time he picks the little feller up and talks to him.  He is clearly more outgoing and confident; at least with rodents.  He heads over to Lou’s Diner, but not to work.  He sees Lorraine and asks her to dance.  When Biff tries to cut in, George wrestles him to the ground and begins strangling him.  I guess he does have some Jack Welsh left in him.  Then Goldie Wilson breaks a chair over his back.

Once George gets out of the hospital, Bentley gives him another hypnotic suggestion to get Jack Welsh out of his mind.  He tells a colleague that he still believes that hypno-therapy can help George.  But he says he will take it slow, like over 10 years or until George’s insurance maxes out.  Doc Brown enters and informs Bentley that he did some research at the historical society — there really was a murderer named Jack Welsh.  And his signature matches the card that George signed earlier!  Not only that, he played Johnny B. Goode at the Palace Saloon in 1885!

This is another episode that feels better in black & white.  If this were a color episode, it would just seem silly.  Charles Smith does a fine job as the blank-faced doofus George, but the doctors are stiffs.  Graded on the SFT curve, not a bad outing.

Other Stuff:

  • According to IMDb, Charles Smith played 3 different characters on The Andy Griffith Show: Counterman, Counter Man, and Counter Help.  You just don’t see that kind of range in today’s young actors.
  • According to SFT:  A History of the Television Program, Variety found the episode “pedestrian”, the vehicle (?) “static”, the performances “routine”, and the direction “uninspired”.
  • The review also used the phrase “no noose is good noose” which, frankly, makes me feel like Mark Twain.
  • Bruce Bennett (Dr. Bentley) was paid the princely sum of $1,000.  Charles Smith (George), arguably the lead, received only $100.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Hooked (09/25/60)

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Handsome young stud Ray Marchand pulls up to the Bait and Tackle store in a car the size of the Nimitz.  The Bait must be of the Jail variety — out comes blonde Lolita, Nyla Foster.  Wait, unfortunately, this Lolita is 30 years old.  I mean, it’s fortunate that she isn’t 12 as in the novel, but 30 is simply too old for this role.  This might have doomed the episode in any other series because it was on my mind every second she was on the screen.  AHP’s usual excellence prevailed, though, and it was a good ride. [this is explained later]

Nyla immediately recognizes the car as belonging to Mrs. Marchand, but mistakes Ray for being her son rather than her husband.  This does not stop Ray from relentlessly flirting with her in the way that only guys with a full head of hair can get away with without getting maced.  We learn that Mrs. Marchand is loaded and Ray married her for the money.

Before Ray makes much progress, a small fishing boat motors up.  Nyla’s father and Mrs. Marchand climb onto the dock.

Wow, he wasn’t kidding — she is rich; like MacKenzie Bezos rich.  She must be.  Why else would he be with her?  I don’t think even Oprah rich would have been enough.  Not only is she 27 years older than him, she is dumpy with a porcine face.  She is even 15 years older than Nyla’s father.

This is not helped when she says to Ray, “Give momma a kiss.”  When he is reluctant, she knows that he has been flirting with Nyla.  They clearly have an “understanding”.  Mrs. Marchand knows Ray cheats on her, and he stays with her for the money.  I must say, though, this relationship is still less creepy than the one William Shatner had with his mother in Mother, May I Go Out to Swim?.

The next day, Ray goes to the lakefront cafe which, like all great cafes, seems to be in the Bait Shop.  He ogles Nyla’s behind from behind as she unpacks some bottles, which is how Fatty Arbuckle’s troubles began.  He wants to take her out on the lake, but she says her father would never allow her to go out alone with a man.  Again, coming from a 30 year old woman, this just feels off.  She does tell him that her father goes into town for supplies every Monday (hint, hint).

They go down the the lakeshore and start smooching, but Nyla gets the willies — the dry kind — and bolts.  A week later, Ray finally tracks her down at one of the only two spots she ever goes to.  She is tanning at the same secluded shore.  It is disappointing to see that she  smokes; and wears a top.  Ray asks why she has been avoiding him.  She says, “I told you last week, I can’t see you anymore.”  She says it with such a deep voice, though, that I again questioned the casting; or it might have been the smoking.

Nyla will not go all the way without a ring on her finger.  However, Ray can’t divorce Gladys without her cutting off his cash.  Hmmmm, how would AHP solve such a problem?  Especially since Gladys has been spending a lot of time on the lake and can’t swim despite being her own personal flotation device.  Seems like there must be some solution.  I wonder . . .

Gladys always goes on her fishing trips with Nyla’s father, though.  Ray suggests, for a change, he will take Gladys out on the lake.  Gladys is happy for his change of heart to accompany her in the boat, just the two of them.  Although, she should have been suspicious when his fingers smelled fishy before the trip.

The denouement is so great that I had to use a french word to describe it.

Mea Culpa: I first watched the episode on dailymotion, which has some problems.  The speed is often too slow and must be cranked to 1.25X.  An additional problem there is that the aspect ratio is wrong, so the picture was widened.  This added about 20 pounds to Nyla, making her look much older; although not so much of an issue when she stood in profile (heyyooo!).  The DVD (source of the pictures) solved part of the age issue.  But still, they had a 30 year old actress playing a college student.  If filmed today, she would be playing the mother.

That said, the lovely Anne Francis was great, as she always is.  Gladys was, appropriately, hammy.  Director Norman Lloyd displayed some uncharacteristically showy camerwork, to great effect.  The outdoor locations and Robert Horton as the smarmy Ray also added to this being a great episode.

Other Stuff:

  • AHP Deathwatch: All cast members have passed away.  Maybe if they had gotten a younger actress to play Nyla . . .
  • Director Norman Lloyd — the most talented guy in Hollywood that no one ever heard of — still with us at 104 years old.  Has anyone knocked on his door lately?
  • Title Analysis:  Unexceptional fishing reference for most of the episode, then zowie!
  • This was Robert Horton’s 7th AHP Appearance.  Anne Francis was seen in Jesse-Belle and the original version of The After Hours.
  • Love these 28-day months!

Twilight Zone – Many, Many Monkeys (03/18/89)

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Jean Reed comes into the emergency room, asking to see a doctor.  In the time it takes for Dr. Peterson to show up, she goes completely blind which sounds typical.  He removes her dark glasses and sees a white film over her eyes like giant cataracts or Act III of a scene on Pornhub.

After nurse Claire Hendricks turns away an old couple for having no insurance, she is told Mrs. Reed is asking for her.  She goes to the room and says, “You wanted to see me, Mrs. Reed?” which you should never say to a blind person.  Mrs. Reed says she thinks the two of them are alike, but does not elaborate.

The next day, Claire is calling about a phone bill that is $50 higher than expected.  Dr. Peterson interrupts and says Jean Reed’s husband has come in, and he is blind also.  He doesn’t care that his wife is there, though, because she abandoned him when he went blind.

A nurse tells her she needs to go to the ER.  She finds a dozen people have come in with a similar sudden onset of blindness, although that also might be due to Pornhub.  The head of the hospital says he has never seen anything like this.  Hundreds of people in every major city are suddenly going blind.

The next day, Mrs. Reed tells Claire the others call her a “dedicated woman” because of how hard she works.  She again says the two of them are alike.  “I know what is happening, I know how it’s happening and I know why it’s happening.” She says we are like monkeys.  “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  We turn a blind eye to the pain around us.”  Although I’ve always heard that once you can no longer see evil, your ability to hear evil is enhanced.

A research group learns that just before the first case, there was an explosion at a top-secret biological research lab in Alaska.  Certain unstable forms of bacteria were released into the atmosphere.  As the doctor is reading the report to the group, he goes blind.

After the meeting, Peterson finds Claire curled up in her office crying.  Her marriage is breaking up, she has become callous toward patients, she has cut herself off from the world to avoid the pain.  She has come to agree with Mrs. Reed that the blindness epidemic is a punishment.  Then she goes blind.

This episode was a breakthrough for me as it really made me realize how easy it is it make a snap judgment, or offer a knee-jerk criticism.  The first time I watched this episode, I thought it was a bit of a mess.  The blindness was was caused by a physical layer of skin over the eye, yet it seemed to occur within seconds. The explosion in Alaska just seemed to muddle things.

Watching it again a few weeks later, I realized my error.  The episode is not about the blindness epidemic; it is about Claire.  The concept might have a few issues, and be too reminiscent of the hokey (but well intentioned) I am the Night — Color me Black.  But use that just as a backdrop for Claire’s self-examination, and suddenly the  episode becomes a pretty nice little character study.

The ending, which I will not spoil, and the adorable as hell Karen Valentine make this one of the better episodes of this TZ run.

Tales from the Crypt – In the Groove (12/21/94)

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The episode was the director’s only credit.  It was co-written by a guy with only one other credit.  It starred an actress with only 4 other TV credits that did not star her boyfriend.  And it was about an occupation which never translates well to the screen — radio [1]

It never had a chance, did it?  Well, yes it actually did.  The cast was rounded out by Wendie Malick and Miguel Ferrer who have both done a lot of fine work.  Unfortunately, both are stuck in roles that they are completely unsuited for.

Zapruder shot of the spittle. That is one magic loogie.

The episode begins like every TV show set in a radio station — in the dark [1].  Gary Grover is doing his radio show which is unbelievable in every way.  He is methodically narrating himself undressing a woman.  We get a close-up profile of his lips as he describes removing her shoes, her stockings, her underwear.  We are also treated to a couple of shots of spit flying out as he talks, for no reason.

The first question is, why is it dark at 8:57 in the morning?  The second is, WTF would listen to this awful show at 8:57 in the morning?  This isn’t like Howard Stern having fun interviewing porn-stars.  This is a humorless, sexual, role-playing show airing in the drive-time slot.  Is it him doing the role-playing every day?

Gary gets mad at his guest who is 1) inexplicably in the studio rather than on the phone, and 2) is a dumpy, middle aged woman totally misrepresented in the cut-away shots from Gary’s flapping lips. [2]  We learn that the 9 am on-air personality gets ten times Gary’s radio ratings, which is understandable until you see that it is Slash from Guns N’ Roses.

Gary’s sister Rita is the station manager which makes the lurid sexual nature of his show even creepier.  She is unable to fire him, so puts him on the graveyard shift and makes him take on a co-host.  He is not interested in working with her even after seeing she is a prim, hot blonde.  His new intro is:

Welcome to Grover’s Graveyard.  The show that gets you up from six feet under.

What does that even mean?  Co-host Valerie was hired at the same time as the slot change to improve the ratings.  She gets no mention in the new intro?  OK, I guess Graveyard is a reference to the time-slot.  But “six feet under” is clearly a graveyard reference, and his show has nothing to do with horror or the macabre.

Gary lethargically begins his dreadful show the same way he has always begun his sexual exploits — both on the radio and, I imagine, off — solo.  He lifelessly croaks, “Oh, you are so hot.  Can I take your shoe off?”  Do all of his monologues begin with shoes?  I can’t adequately express how truly awful Grover’s Graveyard is.  As he begins on the leg, Valerie jumps in.  Just as Rita expected, she immediately breathes life into the show,  Who would have thought sexy-talk would be better from a hot, young blonde than from an angry middle-aged bald guy?  Even Gary is energized.

Inexplicably, the next scenes have Valerie doing nothing but feeding Gary a few lines via keyboard.  After her great sexy, on-air debut she says nothing.  The script is baffling.  Gary isn’t holding her back; he is excited about the show again and sponsors are flooding back.  But she is just typing.

We do see her importance when she stops feeding him lines; he is an imbecile.  She wants the show to talk about things over than sex.  As he struggles for a topic, she suggests asking people what makes them angry.  She leads him on by typing AUTHORITY FIGURES, then MOTHER.

Gary begins ranting about his dead mother’s will.  “Did she leave me her Chicago station?  No.  Her Minneapolis station?  No.”  He says his mother only left him half of the small Lancaster station because she “wanted to keep me under her thumb even from beyond the grave”.  Or, more likely, because she didn’t want this talentless boob to bankrupt a station in a major market.  And if she hated him so much, why is his sister working in the same station?  Gary tears his mother’s watchful portrait off the wall, which was long overdue given the sexual nature of his show.

After he rants at length about his dead mother and hopes she’s in hell, Rita — apparently management also works the midnight to 6 shift — approaches the window.  She gives the finger across the throat signal.  Mom also had it in her will that no one could defame her on the air.  Rita can’t fire Gary, but does take him off the air.  This leads to a twist in the last 2 minutes that is silly, but welcome.

This is a rare TFTC with no supernatural element and thus no reason for being.  Gary and his show are so repulsive that you hate them far more than dramatically necessary.  Wendie Malick is fine, but a TFTC episode should have used her comedic chops.  The whole episode is just dreary.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] Except NewsRadio and WKRP.
  • [2] Oh, you say the sexy body in the cutaways represents the radio listeners’ imagination?  Were they also rapturously imagining Gary’s big ol’ spittle-flicking lips?
  • Title Analysis:  In the Groove would only make sense if they played music on the station; and were 60 years old.

Outer Limits – What Will the Neighbors Think? (04/23/99)

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Well they roped me from the first second.  There is a jaunty little piano tune in the background and a young woman begins a voice-over.  It is so refreshing and unlike the usual Outer Limits opening that I fear the episode will not back it up.

Mona tells us she has lived in the Clarkson Arms all her life.  She admits it has seen better days, but thinks it still has charm.  Her husband Ned is pumped because he was offered his dream job managing Crazy Moe’s Electronics Superstore.  Mona refuses to move out of the Clarkson Arms, though, so he folds like Crazy Eddie’s.

Mona goes to the condo board meeting to discuss who has been buying up units as residents have been abandoning the old building.  The remaining owners are violently opposed to selling out cheap.  The cutting-off of heads is mentioned.  Uh, here’s a less radical solution:  just don’t sell.

Mona now has a cause — you know, other than crushing her husband’s dreams —  to get excited about.  She thinks maybe the mysterious buyers will not want the building if it is full of Radon, so she buys a Radon-Detection Kit.  Although, maybe she should have just bought some Radon.  While she is testing the basement, she catches her married (not to each other) neighbors Shirley and Dom banging [1] on top of the washer.  Mona backs her wheelchair into the shadows and is electrocuted.  Yeah, so I didn’t mention she was in a wheelchair.  You think that defines her?  What’s wrong with you?  Anyway, she falls out of the chair, but on the way down hears the naughty thoughts of her fornicating [2] neighbors.

She wriggles on her stomach all the way to their 3rd floor unit.  I guess she took the stairs, because how would she reach the elevator button?  Ned picks her up and carries her inside.  At the next owner’s meeting, she is able to hear everyone’s thoughts and discovers they are a bunch of neurotic, unfaithful, insecure, hateful dolts.  Concerned that their unhappiness might cause them to sell out and move out, Mona tries to help with the problems only she knows about.

Everything is easier with cash, so she asks to get in on Dom’s poker game.  The other players are resistant, but she demonstrates her knowledge of poker by reciting the winning hands in order and, after all, brought her own chair.  Heyooooo!

With her new psychic ability, she cleans the men out, but the game also exhausts the viewer.  Her reading of minds is demonstrated on-screen by filming the actors with a fish-eye lens, overlighting them, and having them speak maniacally directly to the camera.  It became tedious at the owner’s meeting, but unbearable at the poker game.  The device might have worked if used judiciously, but in some scenes the grotesque over-emoting occupies over half of the screen time.

Mona tries to set everyone’s lives on the right track.  This leads to a scene of escalating mayhem which shows signs of greatness on a Night at the Opera stateroom level.  Unfortunately, it is undermined by these repulsive characters.  Toward the end, their grotesque inner-selves are indistinguishable from their live personalities.  I just didn’t care what happened to these clowns.

That is not the end though.  There is an utterly unnecessary twist which makes no sense.

Jane Adams was perfectly cast and gives a great performance as Mona.  Every other character is so relentlessly over-the-top that they are repulsive.  The lone exception is her husband.  He is relatively normal, but I have no idea what his character is.  He appears to be unemployed, yet sits around all day in a suit.  He wants a job managing a store, but seems to be a real estate mogul.  He seems to love Mona, but has a long-existing plot to kill her.

It really is too bad the episode went off the rails.  It was fun, well-scored, and artfully directed.  It was just a chore being around these people.

Footnotes:

  • [1] Really, they named him Dom Pardo?
  • [2] I used the nice word there in honor of Outer Limits’ restraint.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard an F-bomb used in this series.  They do, however, show occasional nudity so I’m happy with the trade-off.