Coming off a mediocre Tales of Tomorrow and an unwatchable Fear Itself . . . if it turns out the other passengers on the Lady Anne are just dead, I’ll scream.

Alan and Eileen Ransome go to a Travel Agency to book a trip to London.  They hoped travel by ship, but the Agent says they are all booked.  Well, all the reputable ones are.  Reputable, I fear, meaning ones where all the other passengers are not dead.

Eileen asks about the Lady Anne.  It is the slowest boat on the water, but leaves in less than a week.  Despite Alan and the Agent’s resistance, she insists on purchasing two tickets.

Alan and Eileen arrive at the dock and meet an elderly couple — Toby and Millie — that are pretty close to validating my fear.  Toby can’t believe this young couple actually has tickets and makes them prove it.  Seeing them, he still insists this is a mistake, that this is a private excursion.

Eileen is thrilled with their large ornate cabin.  Alan is not far off the mark when he proclaims it “maybe the most ridiculous room in the world.”  Of course, he never got to see the gilded New York Casa de Trump.

They go up on deck. Toby and another elderly man ask them again if some mistake has been made.  They try to scare the Ransomes into leaving by telling them what an old dilapidated ship this is.  Then they try to bribe them by offering $10,000.  Ransome must be doing pretty well as he refuses.  In fact, it is his pre-occupation with work that led Eileen to insist on this trip.

The next morning, Eileen is up at the crack of eleven.  They go up on deck for the mandatory Fire Drill training.  They are stunned to see that all the other passengers are old enough to literally remember the Maine, which might explain their enthusiasm for the fire drill.  Alan later finds that they are the only ones on the ship under 75.

At the bar, they order a couple of martinis.  Eileen tells Alan she wants a divorce. Because, what better time than the first day of an expensive cruise where they will be stuck on a fully-booked ship and share a single room for a week.

They have dinner with Toby and Millie.  Toby gives them the good news that they will be allowed to stay on the ship.  Millie explains that he means they won’t have to die. Hmmmmm.

To make an interminable story short, when Alan thinks he has lost Eileen, he realizes how much he has neglected her.  They learn that the oldsters had fallen in love on the ship eons ago and want to finish their lives together on it.  How they intended to do this is not clear.  Were they going to poison themselves?  Were they going to sink the ship?  Run it aground into a waterfront Farmer’s Market?  Serling only tells us they sailed into the titular Twilight Zone.  The super-annuated passengers are basically sailing to Valinor. ^[1]

Not what I feared, but not really what I wanted either.  Your nautical mileage may vary.

Post-Post:

• It would just be churlish to question who was crewing this ship.  Were there a bunch of 75 year old men shoveling coal down below?
• Wilfred Hyde-White (Toby) was always great playing bumbling old Englishmen — actually the same bumbling old Englishman. He didn’t have much range, but was a great character.  And always old.  So old.
• ^[1] Kind of a non-sequitur, but I love it:

We open in Ferguson’s Wax Museum.  Do these things even exist anymore? ^[1]   Mr. Ferguson himself is leading a tour which includes two sailors on the tamest furlough since Gomer Pyle went back to Mayberry. After checking out waxy Marie Antoinette ^[2] (who is sadly not topless in either sense of the word), they move on to waxy Cleopatra. This place ought to be called the Museum of Murdered Women.^[3]

Next they are led to “the most infamous black-hearted killers of all time.”  They first meet the flesh-and-blood curator Martin Senescu who introduces them to the Murderer’s Row exhibit:

• William Burke & William Hare – They suffocated their victims with pillows, frequently prostitutes.
• Henri Desire Landru – French serial killer of spinsters and lonely widows.
• Jack the Ripper – English serial killer of prostitutes.
• Albert W. Hicks – A mate on an oyster boat who killed his entire crew with an axe. Given the attitude of this museum, I have to suspect that it was an all-girl crew.

Martin Balsam is excellent as Senescu.  He is clearly devoted to this exhibit, and is slightly creepy.  He steps on a switch that causes Mr. the Ripper to slash away with his knife.  This is a pretty good gag, but freaks out the sailors who “blow this creepy joint.”

Later as Senescu is dusting Landru, Ferguson tells him that the museum is going to close so he can sell the location a company for a supermarket.  Ferguson decides not to open a new museum because, even 60 years ago, he sees this is a dying industry.  He reasons that people see too much horror in every day life.

Senescu asks to buy the wax figures as he can’t bear to see them destroyed; although, he doesn’t seem to care much for Cleopatra and Marie Antoinette.  Movers deliver the figures to Senescu’s house.  He installs the exhibit in the basement which he has rigged up with a new industrial strength air conditioner.^[4]

Weeks later, Senescu’s very patient wife is concerned that her husband still has no job and the new A/C is costing a fortune.  Senescu seems to spend all his time in the basement acting as a valet for his new friends.  Emma tells her brother Dave about the problems she is having with her husband.  He suggests that sabotaging the A/C might solve the problem.

That night, Emma sneaks down to the basement to take care of the A/C.  She is creeped out by the figures, but makes her way to the plug.  As she reaches to unplug it, Jack the Ripper’s arm slashes toward her and she screams.  The next morning, Senescu finds her dead on the basement floor and detects blood on Jack’s knife.

Fearing he will be blamed, Senescu buries his wife in the basement and repaves the floor.  Emma’s idiot brother Dave — an incredibly obnoxious performance — stops by and becomes suspicious.  After Senescu throws him out, he breaks into the basement. When he finds traces of Emma’s blood, Albert Hicks takes an axe to him.

Ferguson stops by and tells Senescu that a museum in Brussels wants to buy the figures.  While Ferguson is measuring them for shipment, Landru garrotes him.  When Senescu sees another dead body, he chews the wax figures out for betraying him.  He grabs a crow bar to destroy them, but they become animated.  They stiffly move toward Senescu claiming that he committed the murders, and fall on top of him.

At the Murderer’s Row home in Brussels, there is the titular new exhibit — Martin Senescu leaning on a shovel as he digs his wife’s grave.

After several very good 4th season scripts from Charles Beaumont, this one was a bit of a let down.  Everyone has an off-week, but this one might be due to the fact that Beaumont’s deteriorating health forced him to farm the job out to another writer.  There are a few rough edges that maybe Beaumont could have polished.

The causes of death are a little muddled.  Emma’s murder could be related to the switch that Senescu revealed during the museum tour — was she murdered or did she just step on that switch which made the wax figure slash her throat?  Dave’s murder is not seen which lends credence to the figures’ assertion that Senescu is the real murderer.  Then when Ferguson is murdered, we actually see Albert Hawks strangle him.  So are the murders 1) accidents, 2) committed by Senescu, or 3) committed by the wax figures?

When the wax figures advance on Senescu, how does he die?  He is portrayed as a murderer in the titular new exhibit, so it must have been a heart attack.  If he had been axed, suffocated, slashed or strangled, he would have been considered just another victim.

All of that is mostly just being churlish.  The strength of the episode is in Martin Balsam’s performance as Senescu.  He and Will Kuluva as Ferguson ground the episode.  Despite a few rough spots, this is still a good episode in the unfairly maligned 4th season.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Apparently they do exist, and there are even a couple of chains.  Here is fun article from Vice about a visit to one.
• ^[2] Like Cersei on Game of Thrones, Marie Antoinette was put on trial for multiple crimes including incest.  Both had their hair cut off and were stripped naked (Marie at least got to put on a simple white dress (in front of her guards)).  Both were paraded through town to the jeers of the peons.  Marie was tied up, but at least got to ride in an open cart while Cersei was perp-walked naked on foot.  On the plus side, they didn’t chop off Cersei’s head at the end of the trip.
• ^[3] It is not clear whether Cleopatra was murdered or committed suicide-by-snake. It is interesting that, like Cersei and Marie, her downfall was a nude-fest.  Several paintings (many sharing the unimaginative title The Death of Cleopatra) portray her as topless at her death.
• ^[4] Oder, auf Deutsch.
• Martin Balsam was last seen in The Equalizer.

Even though Rod Serling is revered as a master writer in TV’s alleged golden age, and certainly was the creative force behind The Twilight Zone, some of the other contributors really could write circles around him.  Maybe it was just the volume of scripts he was committed to cranking out.  In just the first few seconds here I was amazed at how real these characters were, and at the little pieces of throwaway business.  The papers on the desk, searching for a cigarette, a broken chair, a “circulation” pun, and use of the word gloomcookie.^[1]  Just great at establishing a world and two likable characters.

Owner Douglas Winter is struggling to make ends meet at The Dansburg Courier.  He is interrupted by his supportive girlfriend Jackie.  They are interrupted by Andy the linotype man.  Unfortunately, Andy has not been paid in 8 weeks and the greedy bastard is quitting to take a paying gig.  Winter reaches in his desk and pulls out a bottle of scotch to calm him down.  This is in the era when a reporter kept scotch and cigarettes in their desk, not pictures of the president with little hearts all over them.

Andy knows the paper is unlikely to survive now that the big, bad Gazette has moved into town.  Even worse, Andy is going to work for them.  Jackie really chews him out, but Winter understands.  After they leave, Winter compares that day’s Courier to the Gazette. Both have as their main story the mayor’s daughter winning a beauty contest. Only The Gazette suggests there might have been fraud involved.  Frankly I would subscribe to The Gazette over The Courier too.  The Gazette is also tarted up with more pictures and larger headlines like USA Today.  Meanwhile The Courier’s front page looks as interesting and as doomed as a phonebook.

Winter drives out to a country bridge, scotch still in hand.  As he prepares to throw himself off the bridge, he is approached by Mr. Smith (TZ 4-timer and Rocky 3-timer Burgess Meredith).  He requests a ride back to town.  As Smith lights his awesomely twisted cigar with his flaming finger, we get the idea he might not be just another angel on the bridge.

Smith finally succeeds in getting Winter to put down the bottle by joining him at a bar.  Winter has run up a tab of Normian proportions, but Smith happily picks up the tab. As the waitress walks away he awesomely comments, “She moves fast for a big one.” Smith claims to be a newspaperman and offers to work for free as a linotype operator and reporter.

Winter and Smith go back to The Courier where Jackie has apparently returned to do some important midnight filing.  Smith not only plays the linotype machine like a piano, he has a nose for news and $5,000 in his pocket to keep the paper afloat.

Smith has a knack for having stories reported, written and typeset immediately after they happen or even sooner — a feat similar to current reporters who also use pre-written stories, although theirs are handed to them by politicians, lobbyists, activists, and corporate PR departments.

His scoops bring attention to The Courier.  Smith even starts hawking papers on the street in his spare time.  Circulation triples!  The Gazette even offers to buy The Courier.  Eyebrows are raised when Smith reports a fire at The Gazette even as the firetrucks are heading to the scene.

Finally, halfway through the episode Smith reveals what was obvious all along — that he is the devil.  Writer Charles Beaumont was wise not saving this until the end since the audience was already hip.  He is also very deft in how the devil maneuvers Winter into signing away his soul.  In just a few sentences, Beaumont deflects two tropes which are too common in The Twilight Zone: The blatant last-second twist, and people not reacting as a real person would.  It is also pleasant to hear conversations rather than speeches.

Smith goes on reporting tragic story after story, always minutes after they occur.  He has rigged the linotype machine so that now any story it prints will come true in the future.  He uses this to coerce Winter into giving his soul up earlier than planned. Winter outsmarts him with his own device, however, resulting in a happy ending for him and the newspaper; at least until the internet is invented.

Once again, Season 4 exceeds expectations.  Maybe that is because Charles Beaumont wrote 4 of the 9 episodes I’ve watched so far.  He has tended toward happy endings even if not by conventional standards of happiness.  The main characters, all men so far, are able to escape from an isolated life or to get a second chance.  Whether this escapism was a conscious choice related to Beaumont’s own troubled life, who knows.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] No idea if this is the first use of the word.  All the Google entries I’m willing to scan at 3 am refer to a more recent comic book.
• Of course, The TZ theme is iconic.  But to get the full effect, wake up and listen to it through a good pair of speakers at 3 am.  Black & Decker wishes they could make a drill that good.

Office drone Charley Parkes is slaving away with both hands working his adding machine which is the size of a Thanksgiving tenkey. On his lunch hour he heads over to the museum. Nothing like absorbing a little culture, refreshing your humanity and zest for life. Well, actually he was going to the museum cafeteria.  Since the cafeteria was closed he hit the shitter and took in an exhibit.

At the Victorian exhibition he is drawn, as any grown man would be, to a dollhouse. Peering inside he sees a tiny hot piece of ash seated at a piano.  As he turns to leave, he hears music.  Leaning down to look in the dollhouse again, he sees the doll inside is now actually playing the piano.  Fascinated, he asks the guard how they make the doll play the piano.  The guard doesn’t cotton to this kind of tomfoolery.

Arriving back to the office late, he finds a note to see the boss.  Charley is just too much of a loner, plus he now has this one-time-ever tardiness on his record.  So he is let go. Back at home, his mother is outraged.  Clearly, he is about as strong and independent as Buster Bluth.  His mother turns down his bed, fluffs up his pillows, unties his shoes, makes him cocoa.  This is a little strange — according to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, these are things his sister ought to be doing.

The next day, having plenty of time on his hands, he goes back to the museum.  He makes a beeline back to the dollhouse.  He is momentarily distraught when the doll is not sitting at the piano.  However, she makes a sweeping entrance down the staircase and is even met at the bottom by a snappy young maid who she begins to kiss.  No wait, now I’m imagining things.  As the doll begins playing the piano, the maid lets in a gentleman caller dressed in top hat and tails.  Arm in arm, they head out on a date.

The next day, he returns to the museum.  Now he begins talking to the doll.  The following day, he goes back yet again, this time tailed by his sister.  She busts Charlie gazing into the dollhouse.  She drags him to a coffee-shop and lays into him about being alone and acting like a child.

The next day, Charley is telling the doll about a blind date his sister set him up on.  The gentleman caller shows up again.  When the maid protests, he breaks his cane over her head.  Wait, what?  When the doll sees him, she faints and he carries her upstairs.  This is too much for Charley and he claws at the house trying to stop the assault. Finally, he grabs a statue and breaks the glass display case.

Charley’s next stop is at a psychiatrist’s office.  This is interesting for two points — the doctor begins by lighting up a cigarette, and Charley is there wearing a robe so he must have been committed.  Attempting to convince Charley that the doll is just made of wood, the doctor pulls a box out of his desk and takes out the doll.  Charley rubs the doll against his face as tears stream down his face.

The doctor tells Charley’s mother the the constant pressure of trying to be something he wasn’t contributed to his breakdown.  He was unable to cope with this world so his mind created another world.

Charley escapes out the window and heads back to the museum.  He hides in a sarcophagus until closing time then goes to see his sweetie in the dollhouse.

Really, there is only one way that this story was ever going to end, but that doesn’t make it bad.  In fact, it was another pretty good episode — where did all the scorn of the hour-long episodes come from?  Oh, yeah, sometimes from me in my ignorance.  Maybe Charley took one too many trips to the museum, but who cares.  It was beautifully written, engaging, and Duvall is always going to be great.

Most surprising were Barbara Barrie as his sister and Lennie Weinrib as his brother-in-law.  Both of them took very slight characters and through interesting line readings and minor physical business, created real characters.  You know . . . like acting.  I’m not usually one to compliment actors, but something about both of them really seemed special.

Post-Post:

• Title Analysis:  Meh.  It is a miniature house, but not really a microcosm of anything. In fact, more of an anti-microcosm: a non-existent world where Charley is comfortable.
• Nine years before Robert Duvall played Tom Hagen in the Godfather.
• Written by Charles Beaumont  just 4 years before he died at only 38 years old. Christ, what this guy would have done with another 50 years.

Blooper: A peaceful valley would be to the right

Phil Redfield and his dog Rollie are lost on a backroads short cut.  He is relieved to see a sign for Peaceful Valley, Population 981. Running low on gas, he stops for a Phil-up.  Giggity.

While paying the gas station attendant — this really is The Twilight Zone — his dog Rollie runs off after a little girl’s cat.  As Phil approaches the girl, she whips out a device and makes Rollie vanish. The girl runs inside her house. Phil bangs on the door until her father comes out.  Further contributing to the twilighty zonish nature of the episode, it is Scotty from Star Trek and he has no accent!

Scotty promises to help Phil look for his dog.  When he is out of sight, around the corner, he pulls out the Popeil Pocket Transporter and causes Rollie to reappear.  Phil gets back in his car and goes on his way.  He passes the closed Restaurant and goes into the local hotel which claims to have no vacancies.  When he leaves town, his car crashes into an invisible barrier.

A few local yahoos just happen to be nearby and take him to the doctor. They actually take him to see the head yahoos in charge.  When he roughs them up, one of them uses another device on him.  He disappears form the doorway and reappears sitting down in a chair.

Head yahoo Dorn tells Redfield that he can never leave.  100 years ago a visitor came to their town bearing science hundreds of years ahead of his time.  They take him to the basement and show him a “disumlator” which is able to makes items vanish and return; but wait — that’s not all!  Dorn stabs one of the other men with a letter opener, then uses the disimulator to not only heal him, but remove the blood stain from his shirt!  Now how much would you pay?

Kudos to the other man, also.  He knew he was going to be stabbed and allowed it just to show Redfield they weren’t kidding around.  OK, he knew he would be healed, but surely that would have stung a little.

Having already seen the transporter, shields, and healing gizmo, they then show Redfield a food replicator. Finishing the tour, Dorn shows him a book which contains all the secrets of the amazing things he has seen. Surprisingly, it is not called Chicago Mobs of the Twenties.

The strange visitor must have been an alien because we get the same condescension seen in thousands of Star Trek episodes.  A few men were given this gift of knowledge, but warned not to to share it with others because humans were not ready.  Dorn illustrates this by stating how we misused the power of E=MC².  We then get the old horseshit about how many thousands of lives were lost rather than how many thousands of lives were saved.  Dorn laments that it wasn’t used to bring water to the deserts and to feed the hungry.  Well, tell that to the people who stopped the building of nuclear power plants in this country.

Redfield pretends to accept Dorn’s offer to stay in Peaceful Valley forever.  He finds that another invisible shield has been erected around his house.  The next day a local girl agrees to flee town with him.  He first snatches the book and shoots the town leaders. Strangely enough, the murders and some backstabbing result in a mostly happy ending for everyone.

Unlike the last episode, this one zipped by with no obvious padding. Thus far, the 4th season’s poor reputation is not deserved.  This episode might have been better at 30 minutes, but it was pretty good at 60.

Post-Post:

• Natalie Trundy was in every Planet of the Apes movie except the one written by Rod Serling.