Category Archives: TV

Twilight Zone – To See the Invisible Man (01/31/86)

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Mitchell Chaplin has been found guilty of the crime of coldness — not opening up his emotions to his fellow citizens.  Frankly, with Jerry Springer, Dr. Phil, reality TV and dumb-bell bloggers, today I would give him a medal; but clearly this is meant to be a dystopia. [1]  Witnesses have described him as cold and uncaring, so he is sentenced to one year of invisibility.  Holy smoke do I love this premise — please don’t turn it into another sappy Hallmark segment!

The state puts a mark on his forehead which renders him invisible.  Because of his coldness, he defiantly exclaims, “This is nothing to me!”  Outside, a man is looking at some papers and walks into him.  Once he sees the mark, he disregards Chaplain.

It took me a while — in fact, stupidly, way past this point — to realize the invisibles are not literally invisible.  I had to delete a lot of, frankly, Nobel Prize-caliber bon mots.  When people see the mark, they are just required to ignore the markee.

Chaplain goes to a cafeteria.  He orders the roast, but the server can’t “see” him. Chaplin decides to make this a self-serve line as he leaps over the counter, steals the server’s hat, and begins serving himself.  When Chaplain sits down at a family’s table, their kid finally does acknowledge him.  His mother admonishes him.  Maybe this was when I realized he wasn’t truly invisible.

Later, he goes “shopping” at a liquor store.  As usual, government regulation has screwed small merchants who must watch their merchandise walk out the door with these misanthropes.  He encounters another invisible with the same mark.  There is a uncomfortable moment when they seem desperate to communicate, but do not when they see a drone monitoring them.  This is a busy location — he sees 3 women come out of a women’s spa and they completely ignore him.  I feel your pain, pal.

On the other hand — women’s spa! He goes in and heads for the sauna. Sadly this was not on Showtime because he finds 6 women naked in a Jacuzzi and many others sitting around in towels.

This is even more dickish than it seems as he is not literally invisible. Despite the dictates of the state, these women subtly acknowledge his presence.  It is not a cartoonish hysteria, but a quiet silence and humiliation as they group together and speak softly, supporting each other.  This is genuinely effective stuff.  I might never watch Porky’s every week the same way again.  Even Chaplain is ashamed of his violation, and backs out of the door.

After 105 days of this desolation, Chaplain finally communicates with someone.  A blind man in the cafeteria sits at his table and begins talking.  A waitress busts him and tells the blind man that he is an invisible.  There must be some stiff penalty because the blind man is very shaken and quickly leaves the table.

At the 6 month point, he goes to a comedy club.  The comedian immediately shuns him as an invisible.  That must be some brutal punishment for just acknowledging invisibles. Would he be tortured?  He leaves the club and sees an invisible woman.  He begs her to talk to him, but she refuses to risk lengthening her sentence.  Chaplain finally breaks down in tears.

At day 229, he is walking at night and sees a couple of guys stealing a car.  They ignore him when they see the invisibility mark — that law they seem to respect.  Boy, what could the punishment be for “seeing” him? Water-boarding?  I’ll bet it’s water-boarding.  The thugs steal the car, spin around and purposely pursue Chaplain to run him down.  Being an invisible, the hospital will not treat him.

Day 365 — the state comes and removes the invisibility mark. Chaplain is a changed man.  He is friendly and caring with his co-workers, even the homely ones.  Apparently the state also requires that you are re-hired after your sentence.

As he is leaving work, the same invisible woman from before, still under her sentence, approaches him.  She begs him for simple acknowledgement.  They have constructed this very well, and it is heart-breaking.  As she is pleading, however, I started thinking the actress really wasn’t selling the scene — it had the potential to be devastating.  This was curious; why wouldn’t she . . . then my heart kind of sank.

They just couldn’t let the story go where it wanted to go.  This could have been a masterpiece ending.  But no, TZ again retreated to the Lifetime-Hallmark industrial complex.  Rather than getting a gut-wrenching performance from the actress [2], and rather than allowing that Chaplain still had some basic human flaws (i.e. there was no magic solution), and rather than allowing that the bad guys sometimes win . . . it ends with a big ol’ hug.

Even worse, this undermines the entire premise.  The drones monitoring her issue a warning for him to back off, or at least get a room.  A warning?  That’s what has people scared to death of even making eye-contact?  A warning?  That’s your dystopia?

Still, the rest of the segment is so good, it gets a solid A.

Post-Post:

  • [1] How is dystopia still not in spellcheck?  Did we learn nothing from Hunger Games?  Except to not make the head of a reality show the president.  So yeah, nothing.
  • [2] I saw a slightly similar scene done right on the great underrated series Nowhere Man 20 years ago, and it still gives me chills to think about it.
  • Classic TZ Connection:  Superficially similar to The Silence and A Kind of Stopwatch for the theme of isolation.
  • Tortured Connection:  The previous segment was written by Ray Bradbury who wrote I Sing the Body Electric for the 1960s TZ.  This segment was directed by Noel Black who directed a TV movie based on I Sing the Body Electric.
  • Rainbow Connection.

Twilight Zone – The Elevator (01/31/86)

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At a svelte 11 minutes, I’m not getting 500 words out of this one.  But that’s not a bad thing, as readers of this blog can attest.

Two brothers are curious what their father has been up to late nights at an old ware-house, although it only seems to require two nights per year.  They know he was doing some sort of experiments to produce cheap, plentiful food.

Inside, they find huge dead rats, then huge dead cats, then the titular elevator.

There is virtually no characterization, no story, no irony, no twist, no arc.  It raises a warehouse of questions that are never addressed.  And yet I really like it.  It is creepy and suspenseful.  The score doesn’t torpedo the segment as frequently happens on TZ.

It is just one of those short TZ time-fillers, but this one happens to work.

Good stuff.

Post-Post:

  • Classic TZ Legacy:  Ray Bradbury wrote one episode.  This simple segment didn’t require a writer of his talent.  Luckily they did not use this on Ray Bradbury Theater.
  • The director of this segment also helmed one episode of RBT.
  • The actors portraying the brothers are 7 years difference in age and look every bit of it.  In a flashback, however, they both look about the same age as kids.

Science Fiction Theatre – Conversation with an Ape (06/11/55)

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Dr. Guy Stanton (Beaver’s dad, Hugh Beaumont) brings his new wife back to his home in the Florida Everglades.  He apologizes for it being a dump, saying he is just now seeing it with her eyes.  Did he get her out of a catalog?  How could she never have seen it?  Oh, she mentions she met him at a convention a week ago.

Nancy assures Guy that she is on Cloud 7. [1]   SFT actually comes so close to making a pretty good joke that I’m envious.  Nancy smacks a pillow and an absurd amount of dust flies from it.  She smirks at Guy, “Cloud # 1.”

Still, she is prepared to be the dutiful 1950’s wife and vows to turn the shack into a castle — at least until they hear a truck go by.  Guy sheepishly informs his new wife that it was a prison truck, “There is a penitentiary about 10 miles down the road, just beyond the swamp.  We’re sort of located here in the heart of a swamp.”  This seems to come as a surprise to Nancy.  Was she blind-folded on the trip there?  Alligator Alley is a miraculous achievement, but you only end up in the middle of the Everglades after going through miles of nothing (hence, the ever part).

This is not the titular ape

They go for a kiss, but are interrupted by a screeching noise. Guy leaves the room and returns with his ape Terry.  Then there is another screeching noise — Nancy is horrified! Guy assures her Terry is harmless and is his star pupil.  He tells Terry, “Go on out to the kitchen and have a banana.”  He reminds Nancy he is an Animal Psychologist.  He keeps hundreds of animals.  She becomes hysterical and runs right up to the bedroom in tears even though she has never been in the house before.

Foreshadowing what will happen later that night, Guy pleads with her in the bedroom.  He convinces Nancy to meet the gang.  He has actually been teaching Terry to recognize certain words and he even read a few.  Guy even claims to communicate telepathically — the X-Factor, he calls it.  Nancy is not impressed.  She says this marriage is not going to work.  Guy asks her for just one week to finish up his experiments.  Even though Guy makes a breakthrough with Terry, Nancy packs her bags.  As Guy prepares to drive Nancy back to normal civilization (i.e out of The Everglades Florida), an escaped prisoner barges in with a gun.

This is not the titular ape

He is filthy after crawling through the swamp for 18 hours, and demands food and keys to the car.  He hears a noise and Guy tells him there is a chimpanzee in the kitchen.  The prisoner’s reaction is more like Guy said there was a refrigerator in the kitchen.  They bring Terry out to the living room.  As they are held at gun-point, Guy sends telepathic signals to Terry.

When the humans go into the kitchen, Terry goes upstairs and fetches a pistol as Guy wordlessly commanded.  He gives Guy the pistol and Guy disarms the prisoner.  Now that Terry has saved their lives, Guy asks Nancy if she is still going to leave.  She looks at the chimp and simply says, “Terry?”  Terry puts on her hat, picks up her suitcase and takes it upstairs.  “The X-Factor!” they say in unison, chuckling, until Terry shits in her hat.

This episode got a bit of a boost from the cast.  It was fun seeing Ward Cleaver in a different role.  Barbara Hale was pretty snappy as Nancy, just 2 years before she became Della Street on Perry Mason.[2]  And, of course, apez is funny.  Aside from that, it was the usual tripe.

Terry the ape

Post-Post:

  • [1] This is the second time that phrase has been used in this series.  What happened to Cloud 9?
  • [2] The Perry Mason books have the most misleading covers in publishing.  I got suckered in by The Case of the Long-Legged Models (1958) and The Case of the Foot Loose Doll (1958) before wising up.  I doubt the stories inside were titillating even 60 years ago.  However, I did not take a chance with The Case of the One-Eyed Witness (1950).  
  • For man, woman or ape there just aren’t many more blah names than Terry.  Although, there is the occasional Teri exception.
  • Whether for the censors or the carpet, Terry is wearing a diaper, although it seems to be taped to his butt rather than wrapping around.

 

Outer Limits – Tempests (03/07/97)

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Another grossly inefficient spacecraft. But the floating chair is cool.

John Virgil is in the spaceship Tempest returning from Earth.  He has picked up a serum that he is taking back to his colony.  There have been a few deaths, but his wife and son appear fine on the video they sent.

He is joined by Burt Young.  His character Captain Parker is given no first name.  I assume, like every character Burt has ever played, it is Paulie.[1]  There is also Dr. Vasquez and Governor Mudry. They are preparing to drop out of the matrix, but do so too close to the planet Leviathan and get pulled into its gravity well. They have an immediate argument over who should get to use the emergency escape pod.  Parker and Virgil are pretty selfless unlike a certain roly-poly President I could name.  They want to send the doctor with the serum.  Naturally, the Governor has a gross over-estimation of her value.

Unfortunately, no one gets out before The Tempest crashes.  Everyone is roughed up, but Parker is in the worst shape.  He has a hematoma and a concussion and his brain will soon be too large for his skull, which is never something I expected to say about Burt Young.

Virgil goes outside to check the damage, but is attacked by a giant spider.  Not shelob-giant, but a meaty little package the size of 2.5 small dogs.  Understandably freaked out, he flees into the ship.  He is not too diligent about keeping the beast out, unlike a certain Warrant Officer I could name.  He collapses, then awakens in the hospital at the colony. His wife praises him for saving the colony.  Then — bang — he wakes up back on The Tempest.

The doctor says the 12-hour hallucination is due to a spider-bite. We can judge it for ourselves as the doctor didn’t feel the need to bandage the gaping 4 inch wound on Virgil’s arm.  Another spider got into the ship and found the Governor as scrumptious as she found herself.  It doesn’t have the cocooning skills of an Alien or me on a long weekend, but has webbed itself to her neck and is controlling her autonomic functions such as heart-rate and corruption.  It is an effective shot as she begs to have it removed.

Like Billy Pilgrim’s being unstuck in time, Virgil snaps back to the hospital.  His wife and the doctor tell him about the crash, but get a few details wrong.  He goes to Parker’s room.  Parker screams at Virgil to not leave him with the spiders and Virgil snaps back to The Tempest.  He continues flipping back and forth as we learn more about the condition of the ship.

It comes to the kind of grim, disturbing conclusion that the 1980s Twilight Zone could use more of.  The only downside is that it felt a little padded out.  I wish the producers had not been forced to make every episode the perfect length for future syndication.

Good stuff.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Upon doing 30 seconds of research, I am shocked.  Burt Young only played a character named Paulie in the Rocky movies.  He sure seems like a Paulie in every movie.
  • Title Analysis:  Sure, it is the name of the ship, but I’m not sure what they were going for.  A tempest is a violent windstorm, which does not apply.  Or a violent commotion . . . maybe.  I see no connection to Shakespeare’s play.  And why is it plural?  I guess the spiders are the titular tempests, but why?
  • I initially thought Virgil was a play on Virtual.  Maybe it is — makes more sense than tempests.
  • Them pests!

The Hitchhiker – W.G.O.D. (11/26/85)

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Gary Busey.

That’s it.  Join me tomorrow for The Outer Limits.

Wait, what?  This was 3 years before riding a motorcycle without a helmet made him seem like he had played too much football without a helmet? OK, then.

Seeing the date of his skull-cracking crash, I am stunned.  I thought after his accident, he had immediately become . . . shall we say, erratic.  However, the crash was in 1988.  He still had the relatively subdued performances in Point Break, Under Siege and The Firm ahead of him.  Whatever, like Randy Quaid in Night Visions, it is just nice to see him young and healthy.

Busey plays Reverend Nolan Powers, a radio evangelist.  We join him mid-call with an adulterer who has been sneaking out for nooners at the Airport Ramada Inn.  He tells her he is going to play a song for her, but strangely nothing is done with this. The music seems to be as stock as the first DVD releases of WKRP, so I guess budgetary issues stopped them from doing anything interesting with it.

His takes a call from a shoplifter, and he then has another untrustworthy type in the studio, a network reporter from Weekend LapWatchdog.  His last call of the day is a young man, but his call is distorted with feedback as he requests What a Friend We Have in Jeebus (availabe since it entered Public Domain in the year of our Lord 1206).  After the show, reporter Eric Sato rides with Powers in his Lincoln back to the Reverend’s modest 12,000 square foot parsonage.

We’re still only 5 minutes in, but the direction and set design are already pretty impressive.  We got some nice dizzying aerial shots of the station and tower.  The building has huge letters WGOD on the roof.  Even more amazing are the 10-foot tall letters in front of the building.  If this is where the budget money went, I can listen to some generic hymns.

Sato would like a tour of the house, but Powers does not invite him in.  Powers hears What a Friend We Have in Jesus coming from the attic.  His mother is playing his brother Gerald’s records again.  Even though Gerald ran off, Mom still adores him, living in his old attic bedroom with the college pennants and model airplanes.  Powers rips the record-player’s [1] power cord from the wall, but it continues playing.

The next day, caller #1 is pain-killers, and that is how his callers are designated on his call screen — atheist, mid-life crisis, pain-killers.  The mysterious young man calls again, but without the feedback and distortion.  He tells Powers, “I want to save your soul, or do you want to die a sinner?”  The microphone gives a spark and the caller ominously says, “You’ll be hearing from me.”  Could this be Gerald?

Later, Powers is putting on an anti-abortion show at the local mall.  Once again, this looks great.  It is filmed in a real split-level mall, it has a banner with a logo, the many extras are dressed neatly in a nice mid-western style.  The Armani-clad reporter comes in just in time to hear Powers wonder if maybe “Jesus has already returned and was flushed down an abortionist’s toilet.”  Gotta say if that’s your philosophy, it is a pretty good question.

That night, Powers makes a phone-call and the Gerald-voice answers. He is watching a replay of the rally and his mother thinks she sees Gerald in the crowd.  Powers goes to the garage, grabs a shovel and gets in the Lincoln.  On the radio, he again hears What a Friend We Have in Jesus.  Gerald’s voice comes on the radio and taunts Powers over how he abused Gerald when they were kids, and accused him of being a mama’s boy.

Powers drives back to the station.  You pretty much know what is going to happen, but the specifics are carried out with genuine creativity and style.  It is not a one-man show, but Busey really blows everyone else off the screen.  He does what I have seen many others fail at in the course of this blog — he comes off as a believable voice on the radio. As things fall apart, I see him as a real person breaking down, not a caricature or latter-day Busey.

Great stuff.

Post-Post:

  • [1] For the kids, that is an actual player of records — mono with a jagged needle and scratchy speakers.
  • Other nice little flourishes:  The cross on the phone, in headlights, and as the hood ornament of the Lincoln; the microphone dripping blood.
  • I watched this on You Tube where it has French subtitles.  Over there, the station is D.I.E.U.  Pretty clever, but now that I think of it, why do WGOD and DIEU have periods?  They aren’t abbreviations.
  • Gary Busey will play another evangelist in The Outer Limits.  In Season 6.  God help me.
  • There actually is a WGOD in The Virgin Islands.
  • Fun Fact: I learned from this episode that old CRT computer monitors had a red incandescent bulb in them.  OK, that’s a cheap shot at a good episode, but it is weird how long they lingered on it.