The host tells us we are in Santa Rosa where “nothing much has happened since the Wells Fargo robbery of 1882”; that streak will not end tonight. Sheriff Simpson enters Silas Barker’s funeral parlor, sadly for the business, on his own two feet. He tells Simpson about a call he got to pick up a stiff at the Tyson place. He was told the corpse would be in the garage. He found it there with a death certificate that fingered pneumonia as the murderer. There was no one else around.
Believe it or not, this might be the most visually interesting shot in the episode.
County Health Officer Paul Novak is the next person through the door, also sadly vertical. Walk-in business — not good for a mortuary. He examines the corpse which the death certificate identifies as John Corey. It gives his age as 52, but Novak says he has the body of a 20 year old. He asks who this E.M. Hall is who signed the death certificate, but no one knows.
Novak drives out to the ol’ Hall place to ask a few questions. He gets no answer at the door, but does have the good fortune to meet TV’s Fred Ziffel from Green Acres who is delivering a package!
Back at the Sheriff’s office, Novak suddenly decides “Dr. Hall” sounds familiar. He pulls out a medical directory and flips through the pages, “Haynes . . . Haynes . . . Hale . . . Haley . . . Hall”. What bloody order is this thing in? [1] Hall was a Nobel Prize winner in 1936, when that meant something. He was a leader in the field of nutrient biology.
Novak returns the next morning to the Hall house. This time, via an intercom, Hall tells Novak he may come in. However, just inside the door he will find a shower where he must scrub down. Luckily, not airing on Showtime, the next shot is of him post-shower buttoning a fresh surgical gown. Hall greets him and takes him into the lab.
Hall tells Novak that Corey worked for him 3 years. Corey’s hot daughter Jan is also working in the lab. They are searching for a nutrient — an artificial food — that is cheap and foolproof because earth has gotten to the point where it can’t feed the number of people living on it.[2] As proof, he shows off a fully grown rabbit that is only 6 weeks old. Sadly it will die soon as a virus occurs whenever the nutrient is used.
The next day, Novak goes back to see the doctor. He confronts him about not buying groceries and John Corey’s inexplicable youth. He suggests that Corey did not die of pneumonia, but from testing the nutrient on himself. Once on the nutrient you can never go back to real food. Everyone in the lab is now taking the nutrient.
They were able to survive by switching to the New & Improved nutrient after Corey croaked. Unfortunately, the novelty wears off and Jan contracts the virus. Blah, blah, blah, Novak comes up with a cure.
This was excruciating. The YouTube transfers are terrible but whatta ya gonna to do? The score continues to be offensively pompous. The story was just an utter nothing although some of the dialogue was good. John Howard had a few good moments as Novak. The real catch was Vera Miles who would be in The Searchers the next year, and in Psycho a few years later.
I rate it 20% of the minimum daily requirement.
Post-Post:
- [1] I guess it could have been the less-used Haines, but why would they do that?
- [2] This was when the earth’s population was about 1/3 of what it is now. This is the kind of shrewd analysis that led to Hillary being given a 95% chance of winning.
- Director Jack Arnold, writer Robert Fresco, and hayseed Fred Ziffel previously worked on Tarantula together. That film was one of Clint Eastwood’s first gigs.
33-year old Ryan 
Ryan’s step-father Stanley helpfully tells us, “The Stream gives us instantaneous access to every fact and idea ever recorded.” Cheryl finds Ryan in the basement reading. She tells him, the other 99% look at a page and it is translated and dumped into their memory. She doesn’t even understand the concept of looking at words and reading.
As more and more people fall victim to the virus, Ryan decides the Stream must be stopped. It really kind of feels like wish fulfillment for him, but his point is valid. He finds a book with instructions on how to shut down the Stream and tricks Cheryl into scanning it. This causes the program to upload to the stream and be executed.
We open with workmen clearing the debris from a massive roof collapse. A reporter tells us the accident “left one man dead and one man miraculously alive” as we pan across a dead body on the ground. A pulse is detected in a body previously thought to be dead. But how did the reporter already know there was a survivor? Where was this Nostradamus on Election Night?
Their date is interrupted by a new patient being admitted to the home. It is the revived man from the roof collapse. Played by Darren McGavin, he is credited as “Old Man” which in this episode is about as helpful as crediting “White Guy” on Seinfeld. Jane is immediately captivated by his ring which really looks more like a high school graduation ring than a precious jewel; or maybe it’s a ruby — I’m no icthyologist. [4] She gives up after she is unable to slip it off his bony finger.
After dispatching the mob which actually remembers pitchforks and torches, she returns to find Johnny has gone. She grabs the muscle relaxant and heads back to Old Man’s room. She injects the old man and works the ring off his finger. Suddenly he awakens and grabs her hand. He sits up, breaking the restraints across his bed. She runs, but Old Man ambles after her. She barricades herself in the laundry room, but flees when she sees Johnny’s corpse. Old Man relentlessly 
Hey, it’s TV’s Big Ben! Were they required to set a certain number episodes in England? I really can’t think of another reason to do so. The setting really has no bearing on the story.
originally purchased with cash that had already been taxed at least once. The necklace is currently “in a hotel safe” but not “in a hotel, safe.” Benson is instructed to verify the location of the necklace.
Benson meets Lady Avon at the airport when she lands in France. This is a potentially fun scene where a waiting gendarme can’t grasp that 1) Lady Avon doesn’t have the jewels, 2) that they were not insured, and 3) that she stole them from herself. The elements are all there for a snappy routine . . . except for competent performances. I guess I could have mentioned this in the first sentence, but Moore’s performance is ghastly. His constant wide-eyed mugging is a huge distraction in every scene. The Frenchie’s delivery and thick accent are also komedy kryptonite.
Once again, this segment is like being the best synchronized swimmer at the high-dive event. Or maybe it’s nothing like that, but at 1 AM that’s as close as I’m going to get. It is a fine story and Peter Riegert is very good in it despite being a little over-the-top in a few scenes. It’s just not the Twilight Zone. Sure, time travel is a standard TZ trope, but it is buried in such sentimentality here that it loses its edge.
The next day, young Gus is running from some bullies and runs smack into 
There is a revelation and it is not that Gus shouldn’t be wearing that same suit for a week. Walking to young Gus’s house, Gus finds him sitting in a hole that he dug. This one is big enough for a real soldier, but that also not the revelation nor is it even commented upon. Gus suddenly remembers when he was a kid, he was also visited by himself. He realizes he is the cause of most of his own problems, but ain’t that usually the case? He shifts back to the present. He must have only been gone a short time because his flashlight is still shining, he has no beard, and local dogs did not eat him.