Category Archives: TV

Science Fiction Theatre – Operation Flypaper (01/14/56)

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It is becoming a chore just to get through the opening narration of this series.

The Pacific Ocean . . . seen first in the great early days of exploration by Balboa.

Really, there was no one else living on the Pacific at the time?  Nobody?  Maybe over behind that rock?  He was probably the first guy to see it while wearing a metal hat; I’ll give him that.

Part of the many waters of the world, all of them known since the beginning of time as maris nostrum, our sea.

Since the beginning of time?  Even before man had evolved?  Who was calling it that before humans?

Sure, these are petty nitpicks, but that just shows how simple it would have been to correct them.

A group meets clandestinely in an ocean-side hotel in La Jolla.  Among them is Dr. Phillip Redmond, who won the Nobel Prize for Outstanding Scientific Achievement.  Alma Ford is there representing her father because SFT always provides scientists with hot daughters.  Are these guys killing their wives?  It is always the old man living with his hot daughter.  And of course the Vollard Brothers from France.

Redmond welcomes the group and explains their mission is to explore the sea and find ways to mine it for food and minerals.  For example, he mentions plankton could be harvested for food, much to the delight of fans of Plankton Fest at Red Lobster.  Hey brainiac, how ’bout some fish!

By extracting food and minerals from the sea, we would be guaranteed to never run out.  He explains that is why “we are met here in secret [sic], to work in secret, until we are successful.”  If there was any question that this is a government operation, he continues, “It’s 11 o’clock.  We can start work tomorrow, if someone would make a  motion to adjourn.”

Vollard #1 wants to continue — there’s always one!  He wants to show the group the amazing Echo-Sounder device that he and Vollard #2 invented. [1]  The revolutionary machine uses the latest technology to map the ocean floor.  He opens the case and finds the device has disappeared.  Maybe it went back to 1930 when it was called SONAR.

Vollard insists he had it in his hands the whole time.  There is no way it could have been lost or stolen!  He swears he felt the case get lighter as he was carrying it to the table.  Alma points out that Redmond just said it was 11:00, but their watches now show 11:45.  Well, they can knock off 45 minutes early tomorrow.

That afternoon, Alma and Redmond take her father’s workpapers to store in the safe.  The documents somehow vanish from the office before they can be secured.  Alma notes that 35 minutes have somehow elapsed without their knowledge.

Redmond gets into the advanced wet-suit he invented (dubbed “second skin”) that men will use to mine the sea.  He says it will “enable a man to handle himself physically in all operations at 2,000 fathoms.”  Hee-hee.  Wait a minute, these guys are going to go down 12,000 feet?  In a wet-suit?  That’s about where the Titanic is.  A nuclear submarine is not going below 3,000 feet.

He steps into a pressure chamber and orders the staff to simulate a depth of 2,000 fathoms.  An alarm goes off and the chamber is opened.  They find Redmond has been clubbed like a baby seal, and his second skin stolen like a baby seal’s.  Luckily he seems to have worn a full set of clothes under it.  Alma notices another time-jump and says, “the thief took something else — one hour and 10 minutes from our lives.”  Yeah, I know the feeling.

Back at the hotel, the Vollard brothers are trying to figure how to replace their space-age, one of a kind Echo-Sounder without driving all the way down to Bass Pro Shop.  Redmond calls, but while Vollard #1 is one the phone, the priceless Echo-Sounder suddenly re-appears on the table.  However, as 2 Snickers disappeared from the minibar, it is a wash.  Hey wait a minute, Vollard #1 was on the phone with Redmond when the Echo-Sounder re-materialized.  How come Redmond did not notice a 30 minute lull in the conversation?  Is Vollard #1 that dull?

The documents from Alma’s father are also returned.  They come by USPS, the opposite of instantly appearing.  The group reconvenes.  Redmond laments that “this is not theft, it is brain-picking on a very high level . . . our friend now knows where to mine the sea and how the Echo-Sounder works” and, I guess, whatever is in Alma’s father’s papers.  Vollard #2 suggests that the high-tech wet-suit will also be returned.  Redmond says they won’t be there to receive it, because they have been ordered to Washington DC.

At the Bureau of Internal Security, Mr. MacNamara notes that all the thefts took place in front of witnesses who saw nothing.  “We don’t know if it was magic, optical illusion, mass hypnosis or what.”  MacNamara has a plan to catch the crime in DC using several high-speed cameras, just like C-SPAN.  The four scientists — no, the 3 scientists and 1 scientist’s daughter — will set up a mock lab.  He says, “You will continue your work there, in deepest secrecy.  Actually, you would have more privacy in a department store window.”  Unless it was a Sears, which is realllly private.  The bait will be a story placed in the fake news that research has begun on a revolutionary new dredge, because who can resist a good dredge story. [2]

MacNamara warns that “the time-thief can steal at any time and can kill at any time.”  The group accepts the challenge.  They go to the lab each morning, pretending to work, going through the motions, keeping an eye on the clock . . . (naw, the government worker shot is too easy.  The structure encourages slackassery and a few lazy bastards taint the brand).  Some workers wheel in a crate with the new XD Dredge.  The box says 646 pounds, but the 2 fat guys get it off the cart pretty easily.  Maybe this episode should have been about them.

This goes on for weeks with Redmond and MacNamara monitoring the screens to be sure cameras catch anything amiss with the XD, the chemical stores, the workstations, or under Alma’s desk.  Their diligence is rewarded when they see the workers in the lab suddenly freeze in place.  A man, who Redmond recognizes as a former student, enters carrying some sort of scepter.  He weaves around the motionless workers until he finds the XD.  Redmond proposes the scepter is an ultra high frequency transmitter that has put everyone into “hypnotic sleep.”

Over the intercom, they tell the thief to turn off his scepter and give up.  He tells them to buzz off and opens the crate.  It is empty, making the he-men who handled it seem more human.  He says it doesn’t matter because “I have a secret that is more valuable and no one will take it from me!”  He then smashes the scepter, which makes no sense.  Rather than escaping by putting the guards into sleep mode, he has awakened everyone and is ignominiously overpowered by a woman and 2 Frenchmen.

Redmond calls him “a poor, demented paranoid with the IQ of a genius.”  MacNamara responds, “I have another word for him: Thief.”

OK, that’s what Sgt Friday would have said.  But I can totally imagine it.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] He says they brought a “working scale model”.  If it works, isn’t it a miniaturized version of the original device?  Good work, garçons!
  • [2] No reference to The Drudge Report intended.
  • Why was Alma there?  Really, the question is, why is she representing her father?  SFT has shown female scientists before.  It just makes no sense to diminish her like that.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Cell 227 (06/05/60)

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Prisoner [1] De Baca only has 40 minutes left to be a burden on society.  His fellow prisoners are ridiculously supportive.  The multi-ethnic jailbirds try to cheer him up by saying he might get a reprieve from the Governor.  They call on inmate Herbert Morrison to opine on a possible pardon.  He gruffly says, “I wouldn’t count on it.  Chances are you won’t get a stay.”  Other than Mr. Downer, this is the best prison ever!

At 11:56 PM, the guards come to get the hysterical De Baca.  The other prisoners encourage him as he is dragged away.  One says, “Save a place for me, amigo.  I’ll see you soon.”  Another says, “There’s always hope.  Even until the last second!”  He is dragged through some anachronistic Star Trek style sliding doors which lead to the gas chamber conveniently located at the end of the hall.  Wow, this really is the best prison ever!

The next day, Morrison gets a visit from Father McCann.  He complains that there is no hope in a place like this.  “It is a system designed to grind a man down to no longer be human,” he says from on top of his clean taxpayer-supported sheets, after his taxpayer-supported dinner, from death row because he ground the humanity out of another human.  He refuses to play the man’s “games of writs and reprieves and stays.  So when I die, it will be as a man, not as a sheep to the slaughter.”

He even has cross words for Pops Lafferty, the head guard who had just dragged De Baca away.  The other inmates say he is the only one to give them a fair shake, or a decent malted.  He even puts a shot of hooch in their last cup of coffee.  Morrison thinks Pops “enjoys his work too much.”  He wonders what kind of man chooses “a career of leading men to the gas chamber.”

And so on.  As usual, AHP delivers a fine episode.  Will that stop me from complaining?  Of course not.

As an actor, Brian Keith had zero range.  He was always the very low-key, coiled spring of anger that could lash out at any time.  The joke about him on Family Affair was that he was that he and Mr. French were gay.  More likely, he would have tossed French and the kids off the balcony.  However, if that is the specific type you are casting, he is a great choice.  A round peg does just fine in a round hole.  Especially, like here, when in prison.

While that casting worked, the character of Pops was just a complete miss.  Herbert’s disdain for Pop’s was off in two ways.  Pops gave Herbert absolutely no reason to hate him.  That made Herbert seem irrational when being supremely rational was the core of his character.

On the other hand, Pops was a little too jovial with the guys about about to go to the gas chamber.  He didn’t put a whoopee cushion in the electric chair, but he also showed zero indication that he was aware of their fate.  I expected a grimace, or some show of discomfort at having to put on a happy face in that serious time.  He seemed so oblivious as to appear almost “challenged.”

Other Stuff:

  • [1] Hmmmmm . . . why is a prisoner a convict, but a jailer is a guard?
  • Despite the title being Cell 227, we see much more of a sign for 226 which is painted between the two cells.  Sure, 227 is painted on the far end, but it is seen only once at a distance.  Why design it this way?
  • Brian Keith was last seen on AHP in No Pain.  He was trapped in an iron lung in that episode and in a jail cell in this episode.  These roles were appropriate for a guy whose range was similarly constricted.
  • For more info, take a look at bare*bones e-zine .

Twilight Zone – Room 2426 (02/11/89)

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Theoretical Biochemist Martin Decker is in the titular cell 2426 for “displaying anti-social behavior, wrong thinking, and other intellectual crimes against the state.  Diagnosis: Schizophrenia, curable only by intense therapy sessions, followed by a full confession.  Once cured, Martin will be released . . . or buried.”

I understand releasing him if he has been “cured” (i.e. he now mindlessly spouts the deep state’s talking points on all matters).  He would then serve as 1) a warning to others who might dare to think independently, 2) a proselytizer for the regime, 3) the new weekend host on MSNBC.  But if he was “cured”, why would burial be an option?

Decker is brought in and strapped to a chair.  Dr. Olstroff looks into his eyes and decides he needs another “treatment”.  He is zapped with electricity.  Olstroff says, “You could make things very simple by telling us where to find the notebooks.”  Apparently “What notebooks?” is not the desired response as Decker is jolted again.

Decker is afraid that, with a few modifications, the GMO plans in his notebook could be used to created a weapon of mass destruction.  Asked why he designed such a thing if he was afraid of it being used, he says, “I am a scientist.” He believes that ideas have an intrinsic value.  The old man agrees, “Value when used in service to the state.”

Decker thought his creation was a way to end famine and hunger, but nukes can already do that.  Oh, he was thinking of increasing the food supply, not decreasing the mouths?  I guess would work too.  He fears the state would just use it for biological warfare.

As if incarceration and torture weren’t enough, the state gives him a roommate.  The guards bring Josef in and give him a pretty painful looking shot to the melon.  Josef immediately begins talking of escape.  Decker reminds him of the stone walls, but Josef says he can go anywhere he likes “with his mind”.  So maybe that beat-down really did some damage.

As Josef is telling him about teleportation, a guard comes in and says, “The doctor will see you now.”  Great, the only doctor who doesn’t keep you waiting.  The doctor taps a syringe, and suddenly we see Decker and Josef sitting in a nice European cafe.  He can’t believe he’s there.  Josef says you just have to believe.  Hunh?  Decker just said he doesn’t believe.  More importantly, a European babe comes in and sits near them.

Anyhoo, it is just seconds later that Decker is back in the chair and getting a shock that must make him envy that lucky bastard Josef getting away with a mere concussion.  Decker later tells Josef he knows it was just a drug-induced dream because the girl had shaved her pits.  He is convinced that Josef’s teleportations are also just dreams, and tells him he doesn’t want to share in his insanity.

After another brutal beating, Decker eases off on that insanity talk.  Josef talks him through the teleportation process, and they both awaken in a safe-house.  Decker says he must understand how this was done.  He theorizes that it was “some kind of biochemical energy exchange.”  So like a theoretical biochemist!

Because Decker is too well-known to venture outside, Josef offers to retrieve the notebooks for him.  Decker writes down the location and Josef takes off.  Decker can’t resist looking out the window. He is stunned to see he has teleported not into a safe-house, but into a 1968 episode of Mission Impossible.  The street noises he heard are coming from speakers.[1]  He has never left the prison.

The spy Josef and the Olstroff are watching him through a one-way mirror. [2]  With all the resolve and anger that Decker can emote — and being played by Dean Stockwell, that is just about zero — he vanishes before their eyes.  Olstroff tells Josef, “If he is not found, you will be held responsible” like he had any freakin’ idea that would happen.  Ya know, I think this guy just likes hurting people.  What a bad egg.

The last shot is of Decker tearing pages out of his notebook and tossing them into a fire, thus dooming millions of starving people to a life of misery.

As this series is wrapping up its third and final season, maybe they are starting to figure it out.  This was a great, atmospheric episode.  Even though it ultimately had another of the TZ happy endings that I am sick of, it established its willingness to go to dark places.

Good stuff.

Footnotes:

  • [1] It is strange that, in contrast with the overall quality of the episode, this reveal is botched.  In the first, totally unnecessary sweeping shot, it isn’t even clear what we are seeing.  The second static shot makes it clear, and is entirely sufficient.  Was the episode running 1 second short?
  • [2] Classic Wiki definition:  A one-way mirror, also called two-way mirror . . .

Tales from the Crypt – The Bribe (11/23/94)

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The first interesting shot in this episode is of Terry O’Quinn.  And since that comes after several shots of a topless stripper, that is a testament to Mr. O’Quinn.  It is interesting because it instantly transported me back to Lost.

Having John Locke show up as the fire inspector in short sleeves and a necktie just seems perfectly in synch with his Lost persona after being a Costco worker, box company clerk, substitute teacher, and house inspector.  If Juliet had been the stripper maybe they would have had something here.

He introduces himself as “Martin Zeller, Fire Marshall – Violations Inspector” but we know who he really is.  Bill the Assistant Manager tells Zeller he remembers his daughter Hiley working at the club, which is probably not a good thing to say to a bureaucrat with a badge.

Zeller goes into the office to see Puck, the manager.  He tosses some photos on Puck’s desk.  They are nudes of a Zeller’s daughter which Puck had been mailing to him . . . and Zeller has been keeping.  Puck disgustingly gazes at them and says, “been there, done that.”  Although the disgusting part is him wearing a vest-with-no-shirt ensemble.

Zeller says, “You think it’s pretty cute sending me this trash, don’t you?  Well, I’ve got a surprise for you, Puck.  Nick Ciola retired.  I’m the new Fire Marshal.”  Puck denies sending the photos, but Zeller says he’s shutting this place down.  Puck makes him the same offer that kept Nick from shutting them down — girls and cash.  Zeller says “Nick was a good Fire Marshal, but his flesh was weak” which is so John Locke.  He orders the club to be vacated immediately.

Zeller goes home to find his daughter Hiley arguing with her boyfriend.  For some reason, it is staged like a play.  It is widely lit, the ceiling is very high, the furniture is sparse, and the back wall is large, flat and bare.  It really is off-putting, like they were trying for something and just bombed. [1]  Her boyfriend storms out.

Hiley says she has been kicked out of school and her scholarship has been revoked.  Now her boyfriend has dumped her because his parents will think she is not good enough for him, not being in college.  I guess they were all cool with her shaking her yabbos on stage at the local titty bar, though.  She says even Puck and Bill treated her better than that.

Here’s where it gets a little too random.

  • Ziller gives up his ethics and takes the cash from Puck so Hiley can afford to back to school.
  • Hiley tarts herself up for a reunion date with her boyfriend.
  • Ziller visits a guy with an ant farm.
  • Bic, the ant farm guy, anxiously hides the ant farm before answering the door for no reason I can see.
  • Then he sprays something all around from an aerosol can.  RAID, I hope.
  • Ziller accuses Bic, saying he can smell smoke.  I guess the aerosol spray was to mask the smoke odor.
  • Ziller finds the ant farm and says, “I thought they cured you!”
  • Bic was using a magnifying glass to fry the ants.  Unfortunately, he is working in a dark room.  A few rays of sunshine are coming in, but not enough to kill an ant.  And I doubt a fried ant generates all that much smoke.
  • He tells Bic that the nudie bar must be burned down because it is full of bugs.
  • Well, wait, how is he going to pay for Hiley’s tuition now?
  • Bic says, “I hate bugs!” although he seems to love that ant farm.
  • Ziller says the time to do it is Sunday when it is closed.  Hunh?  This ain’t a Chic-Fil-A, although it will have the same number of gay dudes inside.  A nudie bar is going to be booming all weekend.
  • Sunday night, Ziller goes to the club and the fire department is just putting out a huge fire.  He sees rows of body bags, but doesn’t seem surprised even though he said the club would be closed.
  • Puck barely made it out alive, and is still smoking.  He says the club was having a special party for Hiley, and shows Ziller a charred bracelet that belonged to her.

One thing that does totally work is Ziller’s understated shock at seeing his daughter’s bracelet, and realizing she is dead because of him.  Huge kudos to TOQ for that scene.  But back to the griping . . .

  • Consumed with grief about all the topless dancers he has left unemployed, and also his daughter, he kills himself.  This is also effectively done, but that is one crazy apartment:  The living room is like a stage, this bedroom is like a Bedouin tent with flaps (curtains) being billowed about by the wind, and the front door has a large frosted window like an old-timey office.
  • Ziller points the revolver up under his chin.  When we see his body, the top of his head is intact, though.
  • His answering machine picks up a call from Hiley.  “Dad, I eloped!”
  • With Bill.
  • What?  Where did this come from?  I thought she and Puck had hooked up at the club.  We only met Bill for a few seconds.
  • Bill says her father should be happy because he’s rich.  I thought he was  just an assistant manger at a nudie bar.  Maybe not cash-rich, but to me, wealthy in so many other ways.
  • She makes that phone call from a booth with all the glass broken out, and in a pretty sketchy neighborhood.  Why?
  • At least one small plot-point is resolved.  We learn Bill took the nudie shots of Hiley and sent them to Ziller.  While she’s on the phone, he takes a hundred shots of here.  Seems like a crazy waste of film in the pre-digital era.

This was an unusual TFTC episode, with absolutely no supernatural element.  If you don’t think too much, it works thanks to Terry O’Quinn.  With anyone else, it likely would have been a snoozer.

Other Stuff:

[1] The wall later becomes transparent to show Hiley talking in her bedroom.  It is a nice effect, but is so artsy that it stands out just as much as when it appeared to be a stage.

Outer Limits – The Other Side (02/19/99)

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Adam is having flashbacks of a surviving a horrific car crash.  Suddenly, he sits upright in a hospital bed.  He pulls out his tubes and walks into the hallway.  The hellish lighting and rippling walls suggest he is still dreaming although the absence of topless nurses with white stilettos suggests otherwise.

He walks into a hallway where the floor is rather wetter than one would like to encounter in a hospital.  Then it gives way completely and he sinks as if in quicksand.  Suddenly the scene shifts to an operating room where two doctors are trying to revive him from a coma.  He is showing spikes in brain activity, like you might see from a dude in quicksand or a topless hospital, but is otherwise unresponsive.

But enough science fiction.  Let’s get to the melodrama.  Dr. Carter tells Dr. Neal Eberhardt that this research is going nowhere and he is going to take a teaching gig.  Turns out that Eberhardt’s benefactor at the hospital, Marty Kilgore, confesses that he suggested that that move to Carter, but is recruiting a new assistant for Eberhardt.  Coincidentally after their racquetball game, Everhardt sees his old girlfriend Janice in the park and hires her as his new assistant.  Say, that guy Kilgore really is a benefactor.

They waste no time and are in another patient’s room with her parents.  Eberhardt says, “We want to hook your daughter up.”  The girl’s mother is aghast and reminds him the girl is in a coma.   No, he says they want to hook Lisa up to his invention, the Neural Inter-Cortex Stimulation Array (NISA) to try to rewire the brain damage caused by an aneurysm.  He is honest in saying that there will probably be no improvement.  Kilgore jumps in and assures them her parents that the research will help others.

Eberhardt tells them when he was 8, his mother was in a coma like this.  Medical science gave up on her, but Eberhardt read her the funny papers, “strips like Dagwood and Blondie”.  When she had no reaction, he knew she could hear him.  It was then that he decided to devote his life to the advancement of coma treatment rather than, sadly, the advancement of cartooning.

Lisa’s parents are convinced.  Eberhardt and Janice hook her up to the NISA.  Then they hook Adam up again, and their brainwaves synch up.  They meet each other on this other plane.  He is out of the quicksand, but is still covered by it.  Soon, however, they discover a nice house and have a picnic.  They seem to be having such fun in there, that Eberhardt drugs himself into a coma and tries to join them.  He does go briefly to the titular Other Side, where he sees them smooching.  He is yanked back to This Side when Janice returns to the lab to ruin his fun.  No wonder he dumped her.

Kilgore angily demands that Eberhardt not use himself as a subject again, but easily rounds up more brain-dead saps from ____________________ campaign headquarters. [1]  Eberhardt’s plan is to channel other comatose patients to the Other Side.  The first result is horrific as another dude enters the Other Place with Adam and Lisa . . . well, horrific for Adam; the last thing the only guy on earth wants is another guy. [2]  The new guy is in a wheelchair, but finds here he can walk again.  Then another guy named Roger shows up.  WTF?

Eberhardt decides that since the people still have functioning brains and personalities, it might be possible for him to go the Other Place and bring them back.  Janice dopes him up and he is transported to the Other Place.  He tests his theory by dragging Roger through the portal.  Sure enough Roger wakes up.  Then has a heart attack and croaks.

Things go bad for Eberhardt.  Kilgore fires him, Janice breaks up with him, and he forgets to cancel his free XM Radio before the trial period ends.  When he gets in his car, I was sure he was going to be in a wreck and end up in the Other Place anyway (which would have been cheesy).  But no, he snuck back into the lab and doped himself up again.

The ending is not totally unexpected, but is a little unexpected.  Maybe just the right amount of unexpected.  Sick as I am of the happy endings on The Twilight Zone, a little sunshine here was welcome.  Part of the credit must go to Ralph Macchio as Neal Eberhardt.  Hey Hollywood, pull your head out of your ass for a change and give this guy more work!

A fine episode.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] Fill in as desired. Really, any answer will be correct.
  • Especially AOC.
  • [2] Your mileage may vary.
  • Around the 37:30 mark, Eberhardt wears a jacket that is way too big for him.  This seems to happen a lot in this series.