So help me, Truman Bradley actually got me excited at the beginning of this episode.  No, it wasn’t the way he is poured into that suit.  He described “a man-made moon, circling the earth.”  Wow, is this episode set in the distant future?  Cool!  Is it like a Deathstar?  Wow!  Or is he saying our regular ol’ moon is actually man-made (SFT has a precedent of calling alien technology “man-made”)?  Intriguing!  Sadly, none of the above.  SIGH . . . he is just referring to a weather satellite.

He continues on to introduce us to Dr. Milhurst, who lives “several miles from a southwestern city.”  Thanks for narrowing it down to the entire southwest and several miles into the northwest, southeast and sliver of the northeast.  Way to paint a picture.  Are you afraid I’m going to drop by?  Here, Milhurst works “ceaselessly delving into the mysteries of the universe.”

He has invited three other imminent scientists to his lab.  In a first for SFT, he does not have a hot daughter living with him, and none of the other scientists sent his daughter as a surrogate.  He confesses that the recent breakthroughs he made in satellites and orbital mechanics were not his own work.  They came from someone else.  “I don’t know his name.  I don’t even know where he lives, or what country he’s from.”  But he does know he is a “he”.

One place he might have suspected is in Spain because this plot is suspiciously similar to SFT’s Postcard from Barcelona which just aired 7 months ago.

“Some months ago I was doing experiments in the extremely high bands of the electro-magnetic spectrum.”  He made a broadcast in that band, expecting no one to hear it.  He immediately got a response in a clear english-speaking voice.  The voice did not tell him much, but instructed him to tune back in the next night at the same time; also to buy Lucky Strikes.  Eventually, hoping to make earth more peaceful, the voice gave Milhurst the orbital equations.

The other three scientists come back for the next transmission hoping to glom some info to make them famous like Milhurst.  They transmit questions about Chemistry, Atomic Energy, Computer Technology, and how to talk to girls.  An hour later, the voice returns with answers to technical issues they had been researching for years.

The next night, the boyz are a little more altruistic.  They are concerned about ICBMs destroying America before they get a chance to cash in.  They ask if it is possible to build a device that would alert us to incoming missiles.  Or, better yet, destroy the missiles before they landed.  Some sort of Initiative for Strategic Defense!  Maybe call it ISD!

The voice gives them the data to build such a system.  As they watch a radar screen, they are able to identify satellites.  One of the blips is not a satellite, though.  They watch it moving across the screen.  As it moves vertically up the screen, one of them says, “It has an upward trajectory.”  Er, on a 2-D global map, wouldn’t that indicate it is moving north?  He is not the dumbest in the group, though.  As the blip approaches Montana, Milhurst says, “It is over south-central New Mexico.”

The tests go perfectly.  Milhurst even discovers an undocumented feature of the voice’s invention.  Although if WordPress, Microsoft, or Adobe have any say in it, they will add needless steps or eliminate the feature entirely.^[1]  He is able to locate the source of any radio transmission.  They discover the transmissions are coming from the vicinity of Jupiter.

Not much story here, and the story that is here was here 7 months ago.  However, bravo to SFT for getting some small things right.  They correctly placed Jupiter about 367 million miles away (even TZ never seemed to understand how big space is).  They acknowledged that live dialogue was not possible at that distance.  That made the delay a reasonable 64 minutes.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Seriously, are these companies letting interns push out updates now?
• According to SFT: A History of the Television Show, Millhurst was the highest paid actor, pocketing $600.
• Variety called both the directing and screenplay “so-so”.  Maybe they should have given one of the guys a daughter.

Host Truman Bradley: “If you pussies at Variety don’t like this episode I’ll kick your asses”

They must have been a little short on story this week as it is an interminable 4 minutes before they get started.  There is some obvious padding as we have to wait while Truman Bradley dials a number on a rotary phone in the intro.  This torture is lessened by the fact that 1) this was back when phone numbers apparently had only 6 digits, and 2) it is followed by a cool little clip of how the caller is connected to the callee.  All this is to set up how the brain is superior to this technical marvel.

78 year old Dr. Milton — sweet Jesus!  This guy is only 78?  They hired a 69 year old to play him, but he looks 100.  Anyway, he drops by the lab of Dr. Alan Cathcart ^[1].  He asks Cathcart how he would like to be able to “measure nerve impulses in micro-volts and expressed in a typewritten language.”  Cathcart is intrigued because who wouldn’t be?  They go to Milton’s lab.

Milton shows Cathcart his new discovery that allows brain impulses to be transmitted as language.  Unfortunately, Milton feels he doesn’t have long to live and wants the youthful Cathcart to collate his notes, finish the research, and open a jar of pickles.

Cathcart agrees to continue Milton’s research and comes to the lab the next day.  Several men are testing the mind-reading device on Joyce.  Judging by her radiant smile, she is not reading their minds, or maybe she is!  The machine begins printing data from Joyce’s mind.  Milton sees it as gibberish.  Cathcart suggests the symbols can be decrypted, although Joyce quickly shoots down his proposition that “gamma = in the butt”.

Sadly, Milton has a stroke leaving him unable to move except for one finger.  At the hospital, Cathcart says, “Listen carefully.  Let 1 represent the letter A, 2 B, 3 C, and so on.”  Milton wiggles his finger to indicate he understands the system.  He begins communicating by moving his finger to indicate the binary numbers associated with the letters forming the words of his response.

After his initial plea of K-I-L-L-M-E, Milton informs them he has memorized the code.  He instructs them to keep his brain alive after death and he will attempt to send his thoughts to the printer.  His supposition is that without the other pesky organs confusing his thoughts, the data should come out in perfect english.  Recognizing this is a 30-minute show, Milton dutifully croaks during the commercial.

His brain is preserved in a vat of nutrients.  The printer (actually an electric typewriter) begins producing data.  Cathcart’s assistant looks at the data and says, “That can’t represent the alphabet; there’s more than 26 characters!”  Wait, this is a typewriter, how is it just making up symbols?

Or is he counting punctuation?  Like S-E-R-I-O-U-S-L-Y-K-I-L-L-M-E-I-M-A-F-#-$-^-%-&-I-N-G-D-I-S-E-M-B-O-D-I-E-D-B-R-A-I-N !

Cathcart takes the message to the US Signal Corp in Washington DC to be translated.  They use the most sophisticated decryption equipment of the era which seems to be a chalkboard.  After a few hours, they crack the code, but it is not very interesting.  A message from Heaven would have been better.  A message from Hell would have been awesome.

On 06/21/56, Variety said:  This one may be a hit at Caltech, but it is a miss on TV . . . A viewer tuning in in the middle might get the impression it was partly dubbed in Pakistani . . . Actors doing their best with thankless material . . . Paul Guilfoyle’s directing is unimaginative.

Wow, I thought I was tough.

Other Stuff:

• [1] BTW, the new Catch-22 series is looking dreadful.  WTF are any of these people other than Clooney?  The 1970 version was also not good, but what a cast!  Go read the book!
• Correction:  The first episode of Catch-22 was surprisingly not-awful.  The actors playing Yossarian, Cathcart, and Daneeka were especially good; the others might grow on me.  This version also captures a few of the verbal set-pieces better than the original movie which sometimes sounded like a table-read.  Go read the book!
• The big money this week went to Dr. Cathcart ($800).  The lovely Joyce made a mere $80.

“One of the most important parts of air research is the efforts of the metal scientists known as robots metallurgists.”  They are researching materials that can withstand super-sonic speeds in aircraft.  Drs. Connors and Rudman are witnessing another failure in the wind tunnel as a model melts from 2,500 MPH winds.

Dr. Rudman’s daughter Jean enters because, as is usually the case on SFT, the older scientist has no wife, but has a hot daughter.  Also, typical of the show, Rudman’s protege happens to be dating the daughter.  They go out to dinner, leaving Rudman to his work.  He is interrupted by a man in black.

The intruder introduces himself as Ralph Parr and says he just escaped from prison.  He knows Rudman has been researching metals and pulls a roll of black metal from his jacket.  He demonstrates how the material can be rolled up, and can be easily cut.  Then he pulls out a pistol and fires several shots at it.  He says, “Lead bounces on this stuff like spitballs off a brick wall.”  Hunh, his spit bounces?  Maybe this was during the polar vortex of ’56.

Parr asks Rudman what it is worth, and the scientist says, “Priceless, absolutely priceless.”  Rudman worries that he is being scammed, but Parr assures him, “Just because I’m a con doesn’t mean I’m a fake.”  He hands Rudman the gun and tells him to try it himself.  Once he has the gun, Rudman demands that Parr give him the key to the door, although I’m not clear why Parr has the key to a door in Rudman’s house.

When Parr makes a move, Rudman fires the gun.  Unfortunately, the bullet ricochets off the mysterious metal and he hits himself.  They aren’t fooling around — the shot hits him right in the melon.  He puts a hand to his face and falls to the floor.

Soon after, a crime wave is sweeping the city.  The police say the robber has “a strange disregard for firearms.”  They know his identity but “the mystery of the Bullet-Proof man goes unsolved.”  Dr. Connors inexplicably deduces the Bullet-Proof man is the same man who killed Rudman.  In the lab, he says, “Whatever the killer stole from this room made him Bullet-Proof.”  So, he is completely wrong in both of his deductions.  We need an act break to sort this out.

OK, the BP man continues his one-man crime wave.  We see the police firing at him as he runs away wearing a cone over his head, or maybe it is the governor of Virginia.  Such are the amazing properties of this metal that it somehow prevents the police from firing at his chest, or even chasing him.  OK, maybe he is wearing metal long johns, but he seems pretty agile. ^[1]

Still pursuing his theories 2 weeks later, Connors goes to see George Martin, president of the nation’s largest steel mill who oddly went on to be the Beatles’ go-to producer.  Connor wants Martin to issue a press release announcing to the BP man that the metal he possesses would be worth a billion dollars!  Parr later hears the announcement on the radio.

Jean and Connors go see Martin after he hears from Parr.  Martin says, “He took the bait, but he priced it a little high — $50,000.”  Bloody record executives!  Wait, was $50k more than a billion in the 1950s?  I know the British changed the definition of billion; did we do that too?

Martin stuffs the $50k into a valise.  Connors will deliver the loot to Parr.  That afternoon, the Connors and Parr meet in the desert.  To prove the density of the metal, Parr takes off the black metal cone from his head and sets it on the ground.  He fires a bullet that ricochets off the cone.  The bullet does not penetrate, and does not even knock the cone over.  That also demonstrates the density of the writer.

Connors asks how Parr knew Rudman had this metal, and Parr finally sets him straight.  The night he escaped prison, he saw a UFO.  He shows Connors some of the debris left behind by the aliens.  Connors thinks maybe we can use that metal to visit their planet.  Like every villain on AHP, Parr gets busted.  He is pretty chill, though.  When the cops take the $50k, he says, “Easy come, easy go.”

Footnotes:

• Sadly, the regularly scheduled episode When a Camera Fails does not seem to be online anywhere.
• [1] BP later describes the cone as being “hot as a furnace”, so I don’t think he is wearing the aforementioned long johns.

Truman Bradley reminds us that animals are smarter we think.  He shows us a chimp named Terry operating a kind of typewriter.  The li’l fella plunks keys that bring up cards stating [TERRY] [LIKE] [BANANAS].  Fortuitously, the machine does not include cards for [RIP OFF] or [FACE].  We also see a smart snake and brainy bugs.

Then he brings out a dog that “has been exposed to large doses of radiation in an experiment to see how much radiation a living body can safely carry.”  Awwww.  Don’t worry, they have “shielded the animal’s spleen”.  He is “given constant care, daily baths, regular blood transfusions, attendance by a staff of veterinarians, feeding from a special kitchen, and certain new drugs.”  Thus, Truman tells us, dogs like this “can live a normal life.”  Yeah, normal except for the spleen shielding, constant care, daily baths, regular blood transfusions, attendance by a staff of veterinarians, feeding from a special kitchen, and certain new drugs.

At the atomic research facility, security chief Davis thinks Dr. Maxwell Carnaven might be stealing secrets.  Director Scott wisely points out that he would be stealing secrets that only he knows.  On the other hand, Carnaven was probably a Nazi 10 years ago, so who knows.  Davis also complains that Carnaven and his secretary go in through “the back gate” but I don’t feel that is any of our business.  The director says allowances must be made for a genius like Carnaven.

Still, Davis is concerned that Carnaven has been irritable lately and has access to the nuclear button and the Kuerig machine.  He brings in psychiatrist Dr. Frake.  Scott asks if Davis has a point about Carnaven’s irritability.  Frake wisely says, “Diagnosis by hearsay is impossible.”  He and Scott might be the smartest guys ever on SFT.  Frake does say that tension and overwork can lead to a breakdown.

Frake is introduced to Carnaven, but seconds later, there is a crisis at the nuclear facility — one of the radioactive dogs has escaped.  Davis’s team jumps into action, bringing on another shift, and arming the men with scintillometers, although I think geiger counters would have made more sense.  This plan aggravates Carnaven so much that he declares this to be the dark ages and storms out.

Now that Dr. Frake has had a full 20 seconds to observe Carnaven, he feels qualified to make a diagnosis.  He says Carnaven is overwhelmed by guilt and seems to be hiding something.  While the search is on for the dog, another scientist alerts Davis that four pounds of fissionable material is missing.

The dog is found, coincidentally, near Carnaven’s house.  The whole area is showing signs of radioactivity.  Dull story short, Carnaven has been atoning for his atomic research by building a “benevolent bomb”.  Combining radioactivity with choroplasm, and exploding it over the desert should turn the sand fertile.

Sadly, Carnaven has been exposed to lethal doses of radiation.  He surrenders peacefully to the authorities, shrewdly putting Uncle Sam on the hook for his long, painful, and expensive death from radiation poisoning.

Other Stuff:

• C’mon, according to SFT: A History of the Television Program, a big star like Whit Bissell was only paid $200 for this episode?  But then, this was before his groundbreaking work in I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

Truman Bradley tries to teach us about hibernation by dropping a raw egg on a table versus dropping a frozen egg.  I don’t think that is a good analogy, and it irks me that he wasted an egg — that was someone’s child!  He says the principle is also true in some animals.  He shows us a cold, hibernating bear cub on the table.  Fortunately, he does not toss a conscious bear out the window to prove his point.  “This is the theme of the story you are about to see.”

Dr. Samuel Willard is checking his artificial hibernation equipment. An important patient is being brought in with massive infections, a temperature of 107, and the worst case of hypertrichosis John has ever seen.  Hey wait, that’s Jambi the Orangutan from the local zoo!

John asks if hibernation can be used although it is not clear why.  Hibernation will cool him down, but with a little hat and bowtie, he’s already the coolest orangutan in town.  It would halt the infection, but it not cure him.  Dr. Willard says he has only ever tried the procedure on squirrels and hedgehogs.  He agrees to try, but does not expect success.

They put Jambi into a coffin-like box filled with ice which will 1) chill him down to 80 degrees, and 2) be very convenient if this doesn’t work out.  When he gets down to 81, Willard tells Ruth it is close enough for gorilla work and to stop the chilling.  But since he is buried in ice, how is she going to stop the temp . . . oh, nevermind.

Jambi had been given 12 hours to live, but 24 hours later Jambi is still alive and his body is fighting the disease.  WTH?  Truman Bradley just said infections are stopped during hibernation.  Maybe this is more like an induced coma . . . too easy. ^[1]

After one more day, they revive him.  Dr. Willard gives him the banana test.  He figures if Jambi eats it he will be OK.  Success!  The town rejoices and the newspaper headlines return to calling President Eisenhower a fascist imbecile.  Willard is a smart guy, though; he cautions his family it will take many more years of research, studies, tests, patents, and government funding to make this single achievement a success.

That night, Willard is shocked to get a call asking him to repeat the procedure on . . . a gorilla.  OMG!  Wait, another freakin’ monkey?  Well it does worry him that it is a step closer to man.  He gets over it quickly, and goes to his lab that night.  The caller shows up with a gorilla with the worst case of alopecia he has ever seen.  Oh, wait, it is a boy, not a gorilla.

Mr. Barton does not care about Dr. Willard’s protests that the procedure is not yet safe for a human.  Willard punches him out and calls the cops.  Barton says if Willard calls the police, his wife and son will die.  Barton has kidnapped them.

Willard puts the boy into the icy hibernation chamber.  The next morning he is alive, but with a week heartbeat.  You know, like you might get from hypothermia since humans can’t hibernate.  But he has lasted longer than his previous doctor expected, so it is all good so far.   Ruth comes in and they determine the kid has a kidney infection.  For the next 4 days, the kid is hooked up to an artificial kidney.

Blah blah blah.  There is a subplot where Barton is going to see Willard’s wife each day to deliver her insulin only as long as Willard cooperates.  Even with this extra wrinkle, the episode is just deadly dull.  Dick Foran as Willard is laughably bad in some scenes.  Some blame is due to the director, but his performance often feels like a silent movie.  A few times, the director has him speak directly to the camera in an extreme close-up.  Despite the sound, I expected a title card to pop up.

John Doucette as Barton was just loathsome.  I guess he was supposed to be.  But he should have also had a bit of humanity as he was doing this to save his son.

There are silences, deliberate line readings, sluggish dialog, just about every problem you can think of.  This is an episode that had potential — a scientific (if implausible) theory, a guy getting punched out, blackmail, a wife who could be killed at any time, an orangutan, and Ruth the smokin’ hot assistant.

After a promising start in Season 2, this is just a bomb.  Not the bomb, just a bomb.

Footnotes:

• [1] Once again, reading this later, I don’t know what this means.  The episode was inducing a coma for me?  Was that the titular long sleep?