In the first 2 minutes, this is shaping up to be way too melodramatic, with way too many insufferable 1980’s relics — big hair, upturned collars, MBA-speak, gigantic glasses, yuppies, Martin Kove.
Carl Wilkerson (Jeffrey Jones) has thrown a party for some reason. Do you need a reason? You do, right? Maybe that is part of my problem, but I digress. When a big-glassesed yuppie pulls Carl aside for some MBA-talk, Joe Farrell (Kove) meets Carl’s wife Sally in the kitchen. She is egging Joe on to kill Carl. She describes him as “a machine — no heart, no passion, no nerves.” To be honest he seemed like an OK guy in the 10 seconds we spent with him.
Sally and Joe go back out to the party and meet Carl. Tomorrow is the titular Opening Day of duck season, Carl can’t wait to bag some ducks at his fancy club with the $100,000 dues, so they plan to meet at 4:30 the next morning. There’s three things I don’t understand right in that sentence.
At dawn, they paddle their canoe to a nice spot on the sound-stage and wait for the horn that announces it’s duck-murdering time. Carl gets one on his first shot. Before he can massacre the whole family, Joe whacks him on the head with a rifle butt. Carl goes into the water and Joe holds his head under since that is easier to explain than a gunshot wound.
After the cops show up and and he describes what happened (leaving out the more murdery parts, of course), Joe goes back to Carl’s house. He looks at a photo we saw earlier of Carl & Sally, only now it is of Joe & Sally. Then Carl’s kids run in and recognize Joe as their father. Sally comes in and sees him as Joe also. She says he needs to get ready for the big party. He tempts fate by wearing the same clothes that Carl had worn the previous night. At the party, he sees Joe wearing his clothes, and disappear into the kitchen with Sally.
After the party, he confronts Sally about her affair with Joe and their plan to kill Carl. He tells her that maybe he will come back from the hunting trip without Joe. The next morning, they row back to the same sound-stage. I know what they were going for even if I don’t really understand what happened. As Joe-as-Carl is about to club Carl-as Joe on the noggin, he sees Carl’s wristwatch disappear from his wrist. So he is turning back into Joe. But he was already Joe; or at least looked like Joe. So why not go on with the murder? That’s the problem with body-switches, it screws up your perception. Or maybe that’s the virtue. See what I mean?
Anyway, for no particular reason, justice is done. But not early enough to save the duck.
With the exception of Jeffrey Jones, the performances only ranged from irritating to adequate. And it was’t a big shocking or flashy twist, just a slice of life in the TZ. But, sometimes that is enough. I did appreciate some of the small throwaway bits like the lovely bogus bog at dawn (no, seriously), and the sassy daughter, and who knew duck hunting was such a big thing?
With Shadow Man and even the skipped segment, this was something of a comeback episode for TZ.
Post-Post:
- The Sheriff is played by Frank McRae. What the hell ever happened to him — he was always great.
- Swinging 80’s bachelor Joe drives a station wagon? Was Miami Vice using all the cool cars?
- Skipped Segment: The Uncle Devil Show. Nice little 8 minute segment, I’m just not going to get 500 words out of it.
That night as he is in bed, his mother opens his bedroom door. Since he is 15, thank God she has the good sense to knock first. She shuts off all the lights in his room, telling him he is too old for such things. She leaves him in total darkness. Immediately after she leaves, the window shade suddenly rolls up letting a little light into the room.
That night Danny is armed with a Polaroid, but falls asleep. The entity arises and again says, “I am the Shadow Man and I will never harm the person under whose bed I live.” He vanishes out the window before Danny can get a picture. The entity kills another student that night. Everyone at the school is now afraid to go out after dark.
As Danny is getting ready that night, the entity emerges and says “I am the Shadow Man and I will never harm the person under whose bed I live.” Alright, we get it! Christ, what windbag! Hmmm . . . I wonder if this bit of repeated exposition will be important.
The voice-over tells us we are on “the campus of one of our great universities near Washington, DC.” This is immediately called into question as they have a Department of Parapsychology.
Van Dyke interrupts to say the government wants Lawton to go the North Pole. The all-man crew at the weather station are “in a state of mind that is incredible and unreal. They are suddenly psychic.” Eighteen hours later, Lawton, Van Dyke and Edna are on the way to the North Pole. The pilot radios ahead that he is landing with “one witch doctor, one chicken colonel [1], and one luscious babe.” One of the men senses their friend Grayson is in trouble, so they rush out to find him before he freezes or has to cut open a tauntaun.
her head and use her to transmit the instructions . . . because it will be much better coming from a woman. The ship falls to Earth and eventually disappears from the radar.
This is the act break for the credits. After only four minutes, it is already obvious what the problem is with this episode. Daniel Benzali is unbelievably emotionless and dull. As a coma patient, he would be too subdued; as the father of a dead son who is playing God, he is virtually inhuman. This is dullness on a Gabriel Byrne level. Like Byrne, he has a unique talent for sucking the life out of every scene, every line-reading and every word; also like Byrne, he has an inexplicable talent for getting 
While he is out, Rebecca has a vision, but is is seen through ex-Justin’s eyes; memories from his POV. Justin II is a sentient infant like the one in 
Rebecca promises Justin that Graham will never go near him again. She senses that Graham is going to push her down the stairs, so flees toward the attic. I’m not one to criticize the staging of a scene mostly because I’m usually too dense to notice. It really is egregious here, though. Rebecca pushes past Graham and goes down the hall. Despite him being only 10 feet behind her, the pregnant woman has time to 1) grab a stick with a hook on it, 2) use said hook to lower the folding stairs to the attic, 3) climb the stairs to the attic, 4) find the light, and 5) work the mechanism which will pull the stairs back up.
Graham is finally able to lower the stairs, climbs into the attic, and approaches Rebecca. He calmly (how else?) tells her she has nothing to be afraid of. Is his stoicism because he is psychotic or because he is sincerely worried about her? Since it is exactly the same monotone as every word he has spoken in the episode, it is impossible to say. However, since his demeanor has not changed one iota in 41 minutes, it does seems premature when she shotguns him.
Walter Durst is scheduled to give his final lecture on clairvoyance. His wife Judith is angry that the tiny ad in the newspaper would need a clairvoyant to find it. He is a clairvoyant of the kind you see only on TV — genuine. He is concerned that he dreamed of a murder last night.
A few days later, Walter has a vision. Somehow the vision has left him with a bloody hand although damn if I can figure out why. Judith suggests he might want to wash his hands, but he would rather call Scotland Yard. Possessing super-vision, Judith concludes that it is Walter’s own blood.