This episode is rated dead last in the IMDb User Ratings, redeeming a shred of credibility in that dubious index. As I watched it, it just seemed like a mess. At the end, I realized it was worse than that — it was also a hugely missed opportunity.
Rather than the usual snotty recap — because it is almost recap-proof — maybe just a few observations like I had for another fiasco, Poltergeist.
I haven’t seen Pam Grier in many things, but from what I’ve seen and heard, this is a pretty unusual role for her. She does well as the psychiatrist and not just because the rest of the cast is so bad. But they are.
Natasha Gregson Wagner gives such an awful performance that the ending made me question whether it was a conscious acting choice. Maybe the wooden, stilted delivery was meant on convey that someone else was doing the driving. I don’t think that is the case, but if so, the director should have told her to moderate it a little. Or a little less.
The director’s thought process also eludes me. Jefery Levy did a great job with the suspenseful Dead Air. He also made the bizarre After Life into a solid episode. His style here is radically different, though. Granted, he was portraying a different environment — the psyche of a trouble young woman — but this is just off-putting. The constant jump cuts and flashing lights are just too jarring to be effective. I would advise avoiding if you have epilepsy; or good taste. Add Wagner’s leaden voice-over, and it is deadly.
I’m not sure I can fairly evaluate the writing because the execution was so bad. That’s why the Grammys present separate awards for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. This episode is like if Elton John were forced to live with William Shatner’s version of Rocket Man as the only rendition of that song the public would ever hear.
There are enough good points — and actual ideas! — throughout, that I tend to think the direction, the performances and the poor presentation on YouTube conspired against this script. The end reveal is great, and like Bitter Harvest, it is followed up with another twist.
This has been a good series so far; it deserved a better fate. This episode represents its low-point.
Post-Post:
- Sydney says she was young when her mother died. Natasha Gregson Wagner was eleven when her mother Natalie Wood died. Both mothers died under questionable circumstances.
- Her father Robert Wagner was in a TV series named Switch.
- Director Jefery Levy co-wrote Ghoulies.
The first five seconds of this episode are just wrong and wronger . . . no, the ones after 
Crewman Mark Stevens is inspecting the area and hears the screams from the container. He finds the Captain [1] and First Mate Taforner and tells them he thinks they might have stowaways because he hears “whispers, moans and screams” in the cargo hold of the ship, and they don’t sound like 
Turns out the Captain and Taforner are in cahoots. They tell Stevens the things inside are not human. The Czars used them to terrorize the serfs. The Russian mob uses them as assassins. And as they get hungry, they feed on their own.
Sheriff Jeff rides out to the Tom & Ben’s shack in the desert. The town council is concerned about the two old coots living with no visible means of support. They claim to be homesteaders but can provide no evidence of being farmers or prospectors.
The Sheriff is on their side and just needs some evidence, any evidence that they are really homesteaders — say, growing a single crop or mining enough gold to sustain them. The absurd plot-point is that they finally agree that if the geezers can grow a single rose bush that flowers, they can can technically be considered farmers. Are we sure these guys aren’t making campaign contributions? That kind of sleazy technicality is the essence of politics.
One month later, the Sheriff comes by again looking for Killer. He doesn’t find Killer, but the boys do show him a thriving rose bush on top of a burial plot-shaped mound of dirt.
William Benteen is in charge of 187 people on a distant rock. They left the earth 30 years ago, according to Serling, “In search of a new millennium.” The year is 1991, so the joke’s on them — they could have stuck around and it would have soon come to them. After three decades, the earth has become a distant memory for many and a legend for the young. Now they have finally received a signal that a rescue ship will arrive in one month.
Like the meteor shower, the close-up of the ship is like nothing seen before in TZ. In fact, many of the sets for this episode are the best in the show’s run. The cavernous . . er, cavern, the shanty town, the bleak landscape, the number of extras — all are on a scale never seen before.
Later on the ship Benteen tells Sloan that he expects his group to stay together after the return to earth — under his watchful eye. He has not asked their opinion on this. He regards them as children — he must decide what is best for them. Fearing he is losing his grip on his flock, he gets the group together in the cave. As they ask about different parts of the US, he tells them they will all stay together and he magnanimously agrees to continue as their leader.
Serling: “William Benteen — once a god, now a population of one.”
It takes two cops to bring Duane “Eater” Mellor into the station. They install him in the kind of cage that we need more of — unpainted, crumbling walls, exposed bricks, a metal toilet.
As Dani reads the file, she imagines the scene where Eater cuts off a captive woman’s tongue and fries it up. Despite not being very bloody, this is admirably horrific for network television. When he goes back for seconds and raises the tin-snips to her nose, I was genuinely disgusted. Kudos to everyone involved.
That is both the appeal and the curse of the episode. Mattingley and Steinwitz as themselves were obnoxious jerks of Trumpian proportions. When possessed by Eater, they become even worse — fidgety, sweaty and grotesque. As the last half of the episode consists of each them alternately alone with Dani as she figures out what they really are, they wear out there welcome very quickly.
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