The redundantly-named Poll-O-Meter was invented to detect what people are watching on TV, presumably for tax purposes because everything is for tax purposes.  Specially designed vans collect this data as they drive through communities. ^[6]

That is, “Until the morning of June 20th when the Poll-O-Meter gave a result which was apparently contrary to reason and possibility” and not just finding a viewer of HBO’s Girls. ^[3]  Dr. Jim Wallaby was called in to explain the results and so people could make fun of his name.

As they drive, the POM efficiently detects the viewing in each house.  All is well until one house is determined to be watching channel 84, which was never assigned by the FCC. ^[1] You might ask then why there is even an 84 on their dial?  Well, I’d like to know why my Toyota’s speedometer goes to 160 MPH. ^[5]

They go into the house to be sure nothing is escaping taxation.  In a rare departure for this series, there is actually a funny scene.  The woman who lives on the first floor is a motormouth.  She enthusiastically answers Wallaby’s questions even though her TV won’t be delivered until tomorrow.  Her upstairs tenant, Mr. Rohrbach, says he was watching channel 9.  As Wallaby leaves, the woman amusingly continues babbling about the mahogany-cased TV she does not have yet. ^[2]

That night, Wallaby is still trying to figure out how he was getting a signal from Channel 84.  His beautiful girlfriend has an idea:  Go back and see what was being transmitted on Channel 84.  Wallaby, the driver, a camera-man, and the cute girl crowd into the micro-bus.  The result is not what I usually see from this scenario online.  They report the phenomena to the FCC.  Wallaby describes the transmission as “a scrambled alphabet”, although there are clearly words on the screen.  To be fair, I guess he was technically correct.

We see Rohrbach setting up equipment in his apartment.  He begins scanning a page from the encyclopedia, which is how I went to sleep when I was a kid.

Back in the office, the bus gang is reading a printout of the “scrambled alphabet”.  Wallaby says it was a “brain breaker” to crack the code which, as far as I can see, was mostly inserting spaces between words.

Wallaby is visited by a man from the government.  He says he works “for the agency that investigates UFO”.  Singular.  He repeats, “UFO, Unidentified Flying Objects.”  So I guess the O used to include the S.  Since this was filmed before the Bill of Rights — hey, my public school education pays off again — they go back to search Rohrbach’s apartment.

Rohrbach returns, but isn’t too upset by Wallaby’s intrusion.  The conversation turns to Einstein and E = MC² , as it frequently does during a home invasion.  Rohrbach says it is not only possible to send TV pictures via energy, but also objects and people.  When Wallaby returns to the Van, they take another look at the Channel 84 transmission.  They see Rohrbach teleporting out, Star Trek style.

The UFO man suggests Rohrbach was an alien scanning the encyclopedia to transmit back to his superiors as a report on Earth, which seems like cheating.  I guess that’s why he didn’t just simply teleport the whole encyclopedia.  Sure, he would have gotten the gold gilded pages and rich Corinthian binding, but he would have been nailed as a plagiarist like a certain scumbag president in Volume B.

This is the last episode of Science Fiction Theatre.  It was a paradoxical sci-fi series because the first season embraced the new technology of color broadcasting, then it reverted to lower tech B&W in season 2.  B&W was really a better fit because it lowered your expectations of a well-written and competently acted show.  On the other hand, after 60 years of color TV, we now know that color is not a sign of quality.

The series never aired on a major network or NBC — it was syndicated.  I’m not sure what the air date stated on IMDb means then, but it would have had stiff competition that night from Rin Tin Tin, Flicka, and Coke Time with Eddie Fischer (apparently guest starring his daughter Carrie this week).  Woohoo!

Other Stuff:

• [1]  For kidz reading this, TVs used to have a VHF dial for Channels 2 – 13 and a UHF dial for Channels 14 – 83.  They also had a knob for Brightness, but it didn’t make the shows any smarter (Gallagher, circa 1985).
• [2]  This episode was directed by Eddie Davis who directed the series’ best episode, Sun Gold.  He also directed Killer Tree which contained the exact same chatty woman gag.  It was such an unexpected bit of humor and characterization that I Iaughed both times.
• [3]  A better reference would have been HBO’s Arliss, but so few people remember it despite running 7 seasons, that it is a little too good of a reference.
• [5]  Done because engineers want the actual top speed to be in the high-visibility 10:00 to 2:00 territory.  In supermarket parlance, this was formerly known as the Bud Light Shelf Display Zone.
• [6]  As was actually done when the BBC used Detector Vans to see who was watching Masterpiece Theater without a license.  They soon found it cheaper and more accurate to scan for the sound of snoring.

Ahh, Science Fiction Theater.  I haven’t heard that overwrought theme in months.  And with only 2 episodes left after tonight, soon it will just be a distant memory, like the time I had Shingles. ^[1]

Terry and his grandfather are heading up to the family cabin in the mountains.  13 year old Terry wants to take his electric train, but his mother reminds him there is no electricity at the cabin and that he’s not six.  Terry obnoxiously — and this kid is awful — insists that he take the train.  He counters that Grandpa is taking his fishing gear, but there are no fish in the creek.  That’s valid — why is Grandpa taking his fishing gear and rowing to the middle of the creek alone? ^[2]

They pass a man wearing a jacket & tie walking along the road carrying a suitcase.  Back in 1959, this guy looks demonic with his beard.  In fact, he looks like a young me heading to the local motel, except he’s carrying a suitcase.  Turns out, the man is on the wrong road.  Grandpa offers him a ride and offers to let him stay overnight at the cabin.  Then he will drive him to his destination in the morning.  

Terry sets up the train and plugs it in, knowing there is no juice. He just wants to pretend.  Wait, if there is no electricity, why are there electrical outlets?  Oh, grandpa explains that he built the cabin and wired it in anticipation of getting on the grid for a couple of years before electric car mandates account for every kilowatt.

The next morning, the man is gone, but his suitcase is still there.  Grandpa goes to fetch some water from the creek.  Terry, rather than getting the water for the elderly man, snoops around the case and sees it has an electrical outlet.  He plugs in his train, and it takes off.  Like a European train, I mean, not an American one.

Grandpa is amazed that the train is running.  He looks in the suitcase hoping to find the mysterious source of this power, and maybe some Fig Newtons.  Inside, he finds that miracle of 1950’s computing:  a board with lights on it.  

Grandpa puts the suitcase in the car and drives back home.  To be fair, he leaves a note in case the man comes back, telling him to just hang out until they get back and that there are some nudie magazines in the rowboat. 

He shows the device to his son-in-law John who is an electrical engineer.  He says it looks like a board with lights on it.  Grandpa rigs up a test to show the suitcase can power several appliances and, for some reason, a band saw.  John’s wife screams like this is the devil’s work.  A better reaction would be rapture because this suitcase is worth more than all the $1,000,000 bills that could fit in it (at the beginning of the Biden administration).

John takes it to the lab to show his boss and soon the Feds are sniffing around too.  Scientists attempt to see what is inside, but the board is as impenetrable as the mustard packets I got at Culver’s today. ^[3]  The old man, though born before electricity, has the great idea to use the awesome power of the board to penetrate the board.  They are successful and determine that the board is made of metallic hydrogen (which is a real thing).

They conjecture that the man is an alien.  He left the enigmatic rectangular object to inspire humanity like we were the apes in 2001, which seems about right.  

Not much story here.  The take-away from the episode is the performances. Charles Winninger as Grandpa is dreadful.  His hamminess might be due to being born 45 years before talkies.  Freddy Ridgeway as Terry has no such excuse, being born 15 years after talkies began.  His shouting of lines, whining voice, and misplaced inflections are excruciating. 

I  would like to see this series take an unexpected turn to quality in its last gasp like Halloween Ends, but confidence is not high.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Yikes, I need a new series.  At the rate I’m going, I’ll be done with SFT in 2026.
• [2]  I just got into Virtual Realty Porn Gaming.  I was shocked to see VR Fishing is a real thing.  Or did it say Fisting?  Either way, I can’t imagine.
• [3]  Seriously, WTF?  My guess is that some dicks from McKinsey told them if only 20% can be opened, people will grab five times as many as they need.

Host Truman Bradley tells us we are at Mattering Institute of Technology.  It is usually a good sign when SFT gives its setting an actual name rather than a generic moniker like “small midwestern college”.  Unless this is the real MIT using an alias out of shame.

Dr. John Hustead has been experimenting with a magnetic field “that will not only make objects weightless, but actually reverse the effects of the earth’s gravitational pull”  so that dropped toast will finally land jelly-side up, but on the ceiling.  Elizabeth Wickes enters and tells him she just filled in at a lecture that he absent-mindedly forgot.  Later, from 4:00 – 4:10 she will cover his weekly office hours.

Kudos to SFT for again being progressive in showing a female scientist.  If I knew how to insert a flowchart, I would follow that up with: IF the woman is not his wife, THEN she must be dating his protégé.  Hustead shows her how he is able to float a block of wood in a magnetic field.  He worries that the Dean will not be sufficiently impressed by this miraculous feat that will forever change construction, transportation, aviation, and whole economies; especially after the Dean sees Hustead’s I Like Ike bumper sticker.

Ken Waring drops by to tell Dr. Hustead the Dean wants to see him.  After Hustead leaves, Waring hoists some wood of his own as he gets handsy with Elizabeth.  Aha!  As predicted, it is revealed that he and Elizabeth are engaged.

Wow!  I do not see this engagement working out.

Sure enough, the Dean tells Dr. Hustead he has to show more progress to the Board of Regents, and can start by getting rid of that f***ing bumper sticker.  Also, his funding has just about run out and all he has to show for it is the second greatest achievement in physics of all time ^[1].  Hustead promises to have something by Friday.  As I always tell my boss, that means 5 pm — don’t start asking at 9 am.

Back in the lab, Elizabeth and Ken tell Dr. Hustead that during the thunderstorm that just blew up, the wooden disc shot to the ceiling.  They try to reproduce the phenomenon but succeed only in blowing up the transformer.  Hustead theorizes that something gave the disc negative mass.  He says if the disc were left in space, it would rise. ^[2] I think I know what he means, but the Board of Regents will not be thrilled by the incoherent ramblings of a confused old man; they aren’t MSNBC, after all.

At 3 am, Dr. Hustead stealthily enters the girl’s dormitory to find Elizabeth.  He drags her away from the pillow-fight with her lingerie-clad roommates [SCENE MISSING], back to the lab to show her he has succeeded in floating the disk to the ceiling.  The next morning, he calls the Dean in to witness this breakthrough.  Unfortunately the demonstration fails and they blow another transformer coil.

After way too much talking, Hustead figures out the device needs fresh air . . . or cool air . . . or micro-changes in air density . . . or something.  Frankly, I need this device to make my eyelids elevate.

He calls the Dean and Ken back to the lab.  After opening a window, the experiment is a success.  To further prove the device works (i.e. to show off), he points it at an air conditioning unit.  Amazingly, Elizabeth is then able to easily lift the 1-ton unit.  Even more amazing, she does it by lifting one side and it does not tip over.  Hmmm, the unit is not up to code and is apparently not connected to any conduit or ductwork.  No wonder they had to open the window.  Hey, wait a minute, this thing had negative mass — it was supposed to float by itself!  Shades of Theranos! ^[4]

Anyhoo, the Dean finally realizes he can exploit Dr. Hustead’s research and ability to sneak into the girl’s dormitory.  Elizabeth’s fiancée Ken Waring is strangely absent for most of the episode.  There is a barely mentioned sub-plot wherein the Dean is going to evict Hustead and give his lab space to Ken for his ground-breaking Blender research.  Elizabeth and Hustead don’t seem bothered by this.  Then, when Dr. Hustead earns the right to stay, Ken does not seem upset by the cancellation of Operation Purée.

Dr. Hustead jokes that after the wedding, Ken can use the device to carry Elizabeth’s fat ass across the threshold, which seems gratuitous and out of character.  Although, to be fair the audio was a little garbled. ^[3]

I rate it 2500 BTUs.  I mean ATUs — we buy American in this house!

Other Stuff:

• [1]  I’m not even sure what the first would be.  I guess this is a good set-up for a funny joke, but this is neither the time nor the place.
• [2]  The narrator tells us, “They were not able to make the disc float as high as it went before.”  C’mon SFT, that’s not how negative gravity works.  If it floats even a little, it will keep going until out of the grasp/push of the Earth’s gravity.
• [2]  He also says, “It remained slightly tipped with respect to the vertical.”  Well, it is wobbling, but flat like the Jupiter II, not like the spaceships in Arrival.  So wouldn’t it be “with respect to the horizontal?”  Or why not just say it wobbled, Dr. Fancypants?
• [3]  OK, he did make the threshold joke, but her derrière was admirably proportional.
• [4]  Pop Quiz, Hotshot:  Is this a) an Elizabeth Holmes reference, b) a Marvel movie reference, or c) an exclamation by Perry White?
• Title Analysis:  The 2nd consecutive Fail.  It is not zero gravity, it is negative gravity.  Or gravity negative, to follow the pretentious, Yoda-esque template of the  title.
•   Available online, but why would ya?

What happened this week?  Was there a substitute teacher?  This episode is relatively awesome!   Relatively.

• Truman Bradley actually names the location of the first scene rather than giving the usual generic description:  He says “The Smithsonian Museum” rather than “a large east coast museum built on former swampland in the most corrupt city in America.”
• We meet archaeologist Dr. Susan Calvin.  To be fair, SFT has often been progressive about featuring women as scientists.  The interesting thing here is an actual literary allusion!  This has got to be a reference to Isaac Asimov’s recurring character Susan Calvin in his robot stories.  She wasn’t an archaeologist, but it’s progress.  
• Explosions
• Stunts
• International locations (well, some inserts from Machu Picchu).
• Ancient Astronauts

Howard Evans enters Susan Calvin’s lab expecting to find a man.  She lets him dangle for a few questions before admitting she is Dr. Calvin.  He reaches in his pocket and grabs two stones.  With his other hand, he shows her two glassy green rocks.  She tells him they aren’t emeralds, but he already knows that.

She says they were created by a nuclear explosion, but he knows that too.  He adds that this is sand from Peru that has been fused together.  Dr. Calvin is surprised that the glass came from Peru.  Evans says they were found “high in the Andes.”  Wait, there is sand high in the Andes?  Why didn’t those Uruguayan soccer players eat the sand which is there?  Sandwiches there?  Anybody?  Is this thing on? ^[1]

He asks to use her “dating machine”, but it doesn’t find any hot matches 20 years younger than him.  It does, however, determine that the glass is 2,000 years old.  Dr. Calvin says, “You can hardly expect me to believe such a fantastic assumption!”  She knows Peru did not have nuclear power 2,000 years ago, and has her doubts about electricity in 1956. 

Evans tells her a top secret expedition is going to Peru to find where this glass came from, find how a nuclear explosion was set off, find who could have done it, and find lodging with indoor plumbing.  And guess what? You’re on it!  The expedition, not the plumbing.

They travel to Cusca, capital of the ancient Inca Empire.  To go up into the Andes, they must travel by mule.  At a remote monastery, Padre Xavier welcomes them to the Inca Empire, but says they have no throne.  He warns them not to go to Red Ghost Valley.  “It is a place of landslides and evil forces.”  Xavier’s student Sallah Tawa joins them as a guide.

Half-Time Report:  This episode has already distinguished itself as one of SFT’s best.  The dialogue has been snappier than usual.  The writer was no Tarantino, but it is definitely an improvement.  There have also been fun ideas such as a poison arrow booby trap. ^[3] We get actual stunt work as both performers appear to take a fall down a rock chute.  At one point, there was a rumbling and I expected a giant boulder to chase them.  It’s not Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it might be Crystal Skull.  Next, they find a mysterious metal mirror.  When they move it, a giant plume of fire shoots out of the rocks.  Bravo!  Just great stuff compared to past episodes.In Red Ghost Valley, using the hieroglyphics on a stone tablet, they begin solving the mystery.  Dr. Calvin translates, “Four stars make up a sun on earth.  One star on the 15th step of the big staircase.  One star on the yellow peak.  The third star on the block below.  And the fourth star right where we’re standing.”  They are finally able to figure out the cryptic locations, especially the “right where we’re standing” one.

They position reflectors at the four spots and aim them at the ancient mirror.  An intense fire appears a few feet from them and uncovers a cave.  When the area cools, they find more green glass, although part of it is an old Heineken’s bottle.  This means the fire was as hot as an atomic bomb.  Dr. Calvin, also hot as an atomic bomb, is astounded because Peruvians 2,000 years ago could never have designed this system.

They drop into a cave (another stunt!) and find a fortune in Incan gold.  Hieroglyphics describe how the reflectors can form a beam to turn rock into gold.  The tablet also says this technology came from people from the sky.  They find a skull that is too large to be from a human, even Leonardo DiCaprio.^[4] Dr. Calvin suggests, “Do you think they came from outer space, leaving the Incans this gift of progress?”  Holy crap, did SFT just invent Ancient Astronauts?

In the 2nd half, the fun continued with stunts, explosions, and actual ideas.  Even the shortcomings work in its favor.  Howard Evans is not developed much as a character. ^[2] But that is largely because Marilyn Erskine as Susan Calvin blows him off the screen (but that is none of our business). Not only is she beautiful, but she drives much of the detective work solving this mystery.  Another example is some wind noise in the Andes scenes.  I suspect it is a technical error (not Hollywoody enough), but it totally works in establishing the harsh environment.

I can’t express how much I love this episode.  It might be objectively terrible, but compared to the previous 70 episodes — I never imagined this would happen with SFT — I have to give it an A. ^[5]

Other Stuff:

• Who to credit for this masterpiece?  Writer Peter Brooke?  His career is almost entirely packed into four years.  Then, presumably, his wife told him to get a real job.  Thirteen years after a story credit on a 1964 The Fugitive, he rebounded with one episode of The Six Million Dollar Man.  I didn’t even know she was sick.  He did manage to parlay this early effort into six Sugarfoots (or Sugarfeet).
• This was director Eddie Davis’s 9th SFT, but I don’t remember any others being standouts.  I see on IMDb he also directed 16 episodes of The Unexpected which looks pretty good.  Sadly it seems it be lost forever.  
• [1]  Joe Miller Jokebook circa 1739.
• [1]  They were rugby players.  Why does everyone always call them soccer players?
• [1]  But all seriousness aside, would there be sand in the Andes?
• [2]  Dr. Calvin is more developed, but it’s hard to tell in that lab coat.  Heyoooo!
• [3]  As in Raiders, I wonder who resets these ancient booby traps?
• [4]  Would also have accepted: Ted Kennedy.  That had to be a 30-poundah.
• [5]  I’ve watched 70 of these things?