OSB once again, to great effect, uses historical and stock footage to add depth to a story which is just not that interesting. We open with several shots of WWII Dunkirk and London in 1940 before we arrive at a bunker where a group of men cheer Winston Churchill’s rousing “finest hour” speech on the radio:
- ’bout time somebody give those Nazis what-for!
- Churchill’s a real British bulldog!
- He’s the leader we’ve been needing!
- It really gives one hope
Of course, in 5 years with the war over, these same blokes will be kicking him to the curb. Bloody ingrates!
This is an odd assortment of a farmer, a coal miner, a chaplain, a bank teller, a chemist, a grocer, a retired one-armed WWI hero, a young volunteer, and the headmaster of a girl’s school. It is a different time when this group of patriotic civilians would prefer to defend their country rather than going to work in their own jobs every day (well, except the headmaster, I imagine).
Charlie tells Hubert Blakely that he saw his wife Ethel in town. She sends a message that he should wear a scarf, and that his tropical fish just had 28 babies. Marlowe marvels that they still act like newlyweds even though they have been married 20 years. Well, Blakely must have been 50 when he got married, because this guy is old! [1] In fact, except for one young guy, this whole crew looks like COVID-19’s dream smorgasbord.
Col. Marlowe tells Tim that he and the young man, Willie, are to man the outpost tonight. Tim complains that Willie is not up to the task. In fact, Willie does seem a little twitchy and frightened. The men know he was rejected from joining the service, but he won’t say why. Blakely offers to take Tim’s place. The men head out armed with . . . wait, what? A sawed off oar and a pitchfork! Wow, we really did save their arses.
At the outpost, Willie confesses that he really is scared. Blakely assures him that is normal. Willie reveals he was rejected from the service for “bad lungs”. Willie’s confession about his bad lungs seems as if it should be significant, but why? It’s not as if anyone thought he was rejected by the army for being scared — I don’t think they diagnose that at the induction center. PTSD, I could see, but he was never actually in the army. In fact, wouldn’t he want the guys to know he was rejected for a legitimate medical reason?
Strangely, almost halfway into this episode, we don’t really know who it is about. Blakely and Willie have had the most screen time. However, several others have had a line or even a scene such as the Colonel, the Chaplain, or Tim.
The elderly Blakely takes the first watch. Nazis row the boat ashore, hallelujha — wait, that’s not how that goes! But he has already dozed off. He dreams of his wife Ethel, as well he might — she is only 35 years old! Uh, wait a minute, Charlie said they had been married 20 years. Oh well, it was the olden days, I guess.[2] He dreams of Ethel at home asleep in their bed as bombers release their load, which is more than he’s done lately. The old guy is awakened by the whistling of the bombs, the explosions, and his enlarged prostate. Good thing, too, because at that very second, a Nazi is peeking into their bunker.
Blakely kills him with the pitchfork and grabs his Luger. He and Willie go to sound the alarm, but encounter another Nazi. Blakely shoots this one, even though he still had that swell oar. Willie picks up the Nazi’s machine gun. Another Nazi inexplicably decides to wrestle zwei out of drei falls with Blakely. Willie pulls him off — hee hee — then strangles him. The rest of the Nazi’s are killed, thus concluding the comedy portion of tonight’s episode.
Back at the bunker, Blakely admits to Col. Marlowe that he fell asleep. He says he awoke just in time to kill the Nazi because of the bombs exploding over his house in his dream. Marlowe says no bombs were dropped in their town, but Blakely goes home to see for himself.
He finds it was indeed bombed. He searches through the burned-out house, but there is no sign of Ethel. Devastated, he returns to the bunker. Blakely is overjoyed to find Ethel there. She says she had a dream of him fighting Nazi’s. That woke her up in time to hear the bombs and flee to the basement. Wait, he didn’t go to the basement when he searched his house. Wouldn’t that be the first place you checked after a bombing or tornado?
Another not particularly interesting — not even really a twist — but more of a gimmick or hook this week. It really is a mixed bag though, with some great elements. The episode had great potential with an large cast of defined characters, but didn’t know what to do with them. Too many people were thrown at the viewer at once, and arcs were hinted at but never paid off. The shaky kid did kill a Nazi, but that wasn’t really a satisfactory resolution. Well, not for the kid.
On the other hand, OSB continues to astound with its production design. It might start out in a one-room bunker, but it eventually moves outdoors (even if it was on a set) to show some effective fighting with the Nazis. The devastated town that Blakely walks through is utterly convincing. That and the bombed out home are worthy of a movie in that era. Much as I love The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, they never matched the visuals on this series. If it had not been so committed to such a narrow genre, this series might have been remembered as the equal of those classics.
Other Stuff:
- [1] This not an exaggeration — the actor is 72.
- [2] The actress playing Ethel was 37 years younger than Blakely. The creepy scene of them in bed looks like the first 30 seconds of a Pornhub video except she doesn’t call him Step-Daddy.
- I honestly didn’t think WordPress could get worse after their previous update. What I found after being away 6 months was an abomination. Like Adobe and Microsoft, they seemed determined to make their products more freakin’ unusable with every update.




A hot blonde walks in and busts them for quarreling as usual. Frequent SFT viewers know that scientists on this series frequently have hot daughters, and often the daughters date their father’s proteges. Although there have been many female scientists on this series, I think this is the first with the cliché daughter. Dr. Adler says her daughter Marie disproves the genetic memory theory. “Distinguished scientists on both sides of the family, and Marie has not one brain in her head. How do you explain that?” Marie says, “I’m a throwback to Aunt Elenora. She didn’t have a brain in her head either”.
Joe sits out the race. When there is a crash in the race, all agree that is a sign that if Joe had been in the race, he would have been killed, but that it would have been great TV.
Alice and Mildred are walking out of a theater. Mildred says it is amazing what they can do with the bible, and Alice mentions how long the movie was. I figured it was The 10 Commandments, but we see part of a sign advertising The Wives of Solomon. That does not seem to be a real movie. The IMDb auto-complete returns The Real Wives of South Boston. If 10 commandments take 3.5 hours, how long would Solomon’s 1,000 wives take? Give the answer in square cubits.
The next morning, Alice gets dolled up to go to the police station. We also meet her daughter and son-in-law who are living with her, having just moved back from California. Leo seems to be a layabout who should be out looking for a job. Mabel is . . . well, I don’t know what she is, but she insanely hot. Way too good for Leo or the name Mabel.
She meets with Lt. Meade who is wearing a tie so thin it makes a bolo tie look like a lobster bib. Alice says she got a good look at the man’s face. Meade gives her a stack of mugshot books to look through. Alice methodically reviews the hundreds of photos before she finds one that looks familiar. One of the men looks just like Leo, but the name on the mugshot is William Draves.
Back at the house, Leo is nagging Mildred to give him $20. When she refuses, he tells her she spends more than that on a permanent even though she appears to have never had a permanent unless it was a temporary. She tells him she knows he will just take the $20 and waste it at the track. Leo is lazy and a mooch, but is wearing a tie; and, unlike Lt. Meade, one with two dimensions. He claims to have been a stockbroker in California, so tries to get Alice to give him $20 to “invest”. Mabel tells him to beat it.
Alice asks what Leo did for a living in California. Mabel says she has told her mother several times that Leo was a successful stockbroker. That’s how she got her furs and jewelry. In a way-too-long scene, Mabel assures her mother that Leo is a good man. He just needs time to get established in the east. Alice is still worried about that mugshot, though.
Blah blah blah. There is a lot to like in the episode. The actors, especially Alice and Meade, do great jobs. The twist is excellent, and atypical of what we usually get with AHP. Unfortunately, it just feels bloated in more than one scene. Still, despite dragging a little, it is worth watching for the ending. Rather than reading this, you should watch the episode; or do just about anything else, really.
SPOILER:
Inexplicably, the final shot zooms in on Mabel alone as she approaches a door frame and pounds it, looking completely beaten. She’s a crook, no better than Leo. She does not deserve the focus of the last shot. We should have ended up on Alice’s face. She is the center of this scene. Not only has she learned her daughter — who she clearly loves — is a criminal, but she is responsible for sending her own daughter to prison. Ya got tragedy, anguish, guilt, helplessness, and just plain old bad luck. There’s your last shot.
The screaming! My God, the screaming!

He stands silently outside the adit [1] for a moment, appearing to be dazed. Then he suddenly starts shrieking again. I see where Stevie gets it. One of the good samaritans holds him back from returning to the mine.