At the Pecos Proving Grounds, physicist Robert Barton and Carl Eberhardt are working on Operation Torch.  The goal is to light up the night sky, enabling glaciers to melt and fertile fields to wither even faster they do now.  Dr. Smiley has been dispatched from Washington to observe the test and determine if there is a way to tax the new illumination.

Carl shows Dr. Smiley the rocket which contains a “beautifully simple” method of producing light.  It is actually quite complex, at least in the number of words, but sounds good to someone who knows nothing about science, like me or the SFT producers.

Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Springdale, real estate developer Sam Gilmore is very upset about the latest person to buy in his new development.  He proudly proclaims, “I restricted against everything I could think of!”  Somehow, though, he neglected to restrict against “a convicted criminal — a jailbird!”  I’ll bet he thought the ** ahem** other restrictions would keep out the criminal element.

The resident who sold Matt Brander his house had to know he was a criminal.  His trial was in all the papers back when people read them.  The Trumpian Gilmore wanted this to be “the finest development anywhere, with the finest people.”

Afraid that property values will plummet, he plans to run Brander out of town.  His partners point out that this is illegal.  Mr. Law N. Order now says, “The law has nothing to do with this!  We’ll use my truck and we’ll dump his stuff right out in the desert!”  Self-awareness is not among Laurel Manors’ amenities.

Gilmore picks up a baseball bat and asks his partners how they can care so little about a scumbag living in their community. Then he pulls a nylon stocking over his head and insists they join him in the attack that night when no one can see their identities.  Self-awareness is not among Laurel Manors’ amenities.

His partners agree to help him terrorize Brander into leaving.  Gilmore isn’t sure of their loyalty, though, so demands that they take an oath.  They repeat after Gilmore, swearing their loyalty like a couple of kids, or Masons (Free, not Brick).

The next morning we see Brander — hey, it’s Star Trek’s Dr. McCoy! — and his wife standing amidst the horrific mess, the debris, oh the humanity!  Wait, the Gilmore gang has not attacked yet; it is just moving day mess.  Brander vows to his wife they will not be run out of their new home!

Back at the Pecos Proving Ground, the boys launch their rocket successfully,  However, it doesn’t fall to earth as scheduled.  That night, Springdale is illuminated by a “substitute sun”.  Washington instructs them not to self-destruct the rocket.  It goes on lighting up the sky all night.

Well, old man Gilmore sees this localized phenomenon as a sign.  He tells his posse, “Last night we were going to pull a dirty trick.  But it didn’t get dark, you see!  It didn’t get dark!”  He sees this as an opportunity to do the right thing.  He calls off the attack.  Maybe he’ll also get out of the real estate developer business and shave off that pencil-thin mustache.  He leads his bois in a new more inclusive oath.  Coincidentally, the rocket burns out at just that moment, plunging Springdale into normal nighttime darkness.

The episode was nothing special, although I did like how they tied the stories together.  But it was worth it just to hear Pencil Thin Mustache again.

Other Stuff:

• Yesterday’s AHP about a guy who couldn’t go to sleep starred the same guy who was in a TZ episode about a guy afraid to go to sleep.  Today’s SFT is about an unnaturally lengthy day; there was a TZ about an unnaturally lengthy night.  I got nothing for this.

Host Truman Bradley opens the bible to Genesis 1:1, although this must be the September issue as there appears to be about a hundred pages of ads before it. He reads, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and every living creature that moveth” thus proving my theory that Brussels sprouts are the devil’s work.  This introduces this evening’s theme: What caused the first spark of life?

Wow, now this is a fascinating subject!  How can they possibly do it justice in just 22 minutes?  I mean, the physics, the biology, the religious implications, the philosophical theories, not to mention the ethics of trying to create life in a lab.  Probably the best way to begin is to spend literally the first 1/3 of the episode establishing that Dr. Donaldson works too hard.

After a rare good night’s sleep, he is up at the crack of dawn.  His associate Dr. Heller helps him with a piece of equipment, but is shot in the hand by a stream of photons.  His hand goes numb, so Donaldson takes him to the infirmary which is surely equipped for such an injury.  The doctor says the muscle structure has been destroyed and can’t be regenerated.

Back at home, Dr. Donaldson’s father, credited at IMDb as Dr. Donaldson Sr., tells him maybe man was not meant to explore such things as how to create life.  Junior tells Senior, “You’re acting like a comic book father-in-law.”  Well, wait a minute, that’s his father-in-law?  Why do they have the same last name?  But then he tells his wife Kate that the man is “my parent” so I guess . . . oh, who cares?  Donaldson feels like Kate and this older gentleman are ganging up on him so he goes back to work for some peace.

After the commercial, Truman tells us, “In the course of the following month, Kate Donaldson experienced another attack.”  Another one?  When was the first one?  Donaldson Sr. takes Kate to see Dr. Heineman.  For some reason, her father-in-law is in the examination room while she is getting dressed — to be fair, she is behind a screen.  Dr. Heineman says the results “are a little technical”.  Since Kate is apparently the only person in the city without a doctorate, she is sent out of the room so the men can have an important discussion.  Discussion about her.  About her life.  And boobs.

As the door closes, with almost comical bluntness, Heineman blurts out, “She’s dying.”  The examination revealed “a disproportion of the body chemistry” and “it is due to the malfunction of some gland.”  How do you even mock something like that?

Meanwhile, back at the lab, Heller says Donaldson has created “something from nothing, matter from energy.”  Isn’t energy something?  When it is Donaldson Sr’s turn to look through the microscope, the little crystal buggers have stopped moving.  More importantly, Kate has another episode and her oblivious husband is too wrapped in his work to notice.  She collapses.  Donaldson finally notices her and says, “What’s wrong with her, Dad?”  Dad’s reply to him is, “Mostly your blindness.”  Oh, and also a fatal disease caused by some gland.

Kate lapses into a coma and Donaldson hates himself for being so absorbed in his work.  After an unprecedented 3 days away from the lab, he returns.  He is shocked to find Heller purposely firing more photons through his hand.  Heller had tried firing photons through the crystalline entities and they were reanimated.  The next logical step was his hand, which is showing some signs of feeling again.

Since Heller was able to revive his lover, Donaldson wants to try it on Kate.  They bring her to the lab and begin firing photons at her.  Yada yada, her condition is upgraded — seriously — from coma to regular sleep.  The doctors feel she’ll be snoozing within 24 hours and catnapping by the end of the week.

Donaldson Sr. might have his own issues.  Rather than just acknowledging his son has discovered the secret of life, he suggests that it was partly Donaldson Jr. saying he loved her that revived Kate.

With such a massive premise, this is what they came up with.

Other Stuff:

• Judith Ames (Kate) was quite lovely.  She has shown up several times, in The Hidden Thing, YORD, and The Strange People at Pecos.

T. Bradley shortly before beating.

Host Truman Bradley breaks the glass on a fire alarm and pulls the switch.  An alarm begins blaring, and he says, “In a few minutes, 23 fire engines will converge on this place to fight a 3-alarm fire”.  He gives a big laugh.  “Only, there isn’t any fire!  I merely wanted to explain as graphically as possible what happens to a human body overpowered by spreading infection.”

He says when the human body is in danger, “an alarm goes up” and white corpuscles flock to attack the scene of the infection.  Like the 50 pissed-off fireman that will beat the crap out of him about 2 minutes from now.

Dr. Scott and a cat walk into Dr. Bach’s office.  Bach says only one week ago the cat had a broken back.  It was cured by a dose of Scott’s new miracle hormone.  In one of several laughingly bad bits of dialogue, Dr. Bach recalls the drug’s previous success:

“The miraculous cure of a rabid dog and a tubercular guinea pig.”

However, Bach still refuses to allow him to try his new wonder drug on a human.

Well, there is one candidate, a hopeless case.  They go to the room of a patient “in the last stages of tuberculosis.”  I mean the very last — she will die in a few hours.  Kyra Zelas agrees to try the experimental drug.

Over the next few days, she regains her vitality, begins to eat, and sits up in bed.  Scott and Bach examine her x-rays and see that her lungs are entirely clear and shapely.  Kyra doesn’t know what to do with her life now that Dr. Scott has cured her. She says:

“He made a dog well and cured a cat.  Now me.”

Bach assures the grown woman twice that she is a very important girl.  He says, “Why don’t you come stay a few days at my place?”  He gives her an injection of vitamin B and notices that the puncture wound heals immediately.

After work, the doctors go to Bach’s house to check on Kyra.  Bach tells him about the puncture wound healing and says, “this case is not finished.”  Bach’s housekeeper tells him that Kyra never showed up.  They get a call from the police.  Kyra was picked up near the unemployment office a few minutes after they were robbed, with $700 in her pocket.

The doctors go to the police station.  The clerk from the unemployment office is able to give a description of the robber.  “She was skinny, looked sick, had on a blue dress, black stringy hair.”  They bring in a line-up of women for him to make an identification.  Dr. Scott says she is not in the line-up.  Bach, however, recognizes her as the 2nd from the left.  Scott says, “That’s impossible.  That girl is blonde and beautiful.”  However, Bach recognizes . . .

“the same bony structure in the face”

Sadly, at this point, the video’s sound went out.  If they had a sign language interpreter, he would be slapping his knees at some of this dialogue.

Kyra continues to show up throughout the episode with increasingly stylish hairdos and snappy outfits.  Even without sound, it is not hard to follow, though.

Eventually, some creep with a hose in his hand is peeking in her bedroom widow as she goes to sleep, which gives me deja vu.

Hey, wait a minute, I saw this exact same scene in Tales of Tomorrow’s The Miraculous Serum two years ago!  That’s why that’s why the Peeping Tom act feels familiar . . . er, yeah, that’s it.

The guy slips the hose in her window and pumps in CO2 to knock her out.  He knows it is enough when the candle by her bed goes out.  In both episodes, Dr. Bach and Dr. Scott ^[1] worry that the cured woman has grown too beautiful, too smart, too powerful, and out of their control, ergo must be put back in her place.  This must be a metaphor for something . . . or maybe it is just the thing itself in the 1950s.

Both episodes give a story credit to Stanley G. Weinbam for The Adaptive Ultimate. ^[2]

Other Stuff:

• [1] The doctors retain the same names from the story (give or taken an “e”), however the exotic Kyra Zelas was a pedestrian Carol Williams in the version aired 3 years earlier on Tales of Tomorrow.
• [2] Weinbaum used the pseudonym John Jessel on Science Fiction Theatre.  But after his name appearing on Tales of Tomorrow, who wouldn’t?

A couple of dicks — you’ll see in a second — are driving up to the Daniels Farm.  “An ideal place to bring up a child.  But also a place that is lonely and secluded, if there are secrets that one wishes to hide from the outside world.”

Jean Gordon and Frank Jenkins walk up to the Daniels’ front door.  Daniels’ son is deaf and mute.  These two want to see if Daniels would like his son to go to the clinic.  Jean rings the bell and a boy answers the door with a raven on his arm.

The bird flies away and Jean asks if he is Timmy.  C’mon, she knows he’s deaf and mute!  But the boy nods.  Jean asks, “How did you know to answer the door?”  Frank gruffly opines, “If you ask me, the kid’s faking.”

Jean asks, “You did hear that doorbell, didn’t you?”  Tim shakes his head no.  Frank gruffly says, “You can’t stand there and lie, boy!  Speak up when a teacher talks to you!”

Jean says, “I know you heard that bell.  Now just tell me where your father is.”  When the boy doesn’t respond, Frank says, “Now he’s trying to make us think he can’t talk too.  If he was my kid, I’d give him a lesson in manners!”

IDIOTS, YOU CAME UP HERE BECAUSE HE WAS DEAF AND MUTE!

SFT gets one great shot and it is blocked by trees.

Walter Daniels comes in from the field and Timmy runs to him. He asks these two yahoos who they are.   Jean says she is from the State Clinic for the Deaf and Mute, and introduces Frank as a truant officer.

Walter sends Timmy off to play and tries to explain his son’s condition to these chowderheads.  He says Timmy doesn’t use his ears, “he kind of reads your mind.”  Jean says, “Are you sure his speech and hearing are impaired?”  For the love of God, lady, give it up!

Walter says Timmy has been tested.  “He will never talk or hear. He’s hopeless.”  No wonder Timmy prefers talking to animals rather than people.

They see Timmy playing with a Raven and Collie,  He puts the Raven on the Collie’s back and they walk away.  It is a pretty amusing shot, although frustrating.  It is a great shot as the bird rides cowboy-style on the dog.  But they stupidly compose it so trees obscure them for 30% of the frame.  Then they repeat the same piece of film cropped a little differently.  My guess is that someone with a good eye perceptively realized they had accidentally caught an interesting shot — an intern or visitor to the set, the caterer maybe — and they wanted to give it a little more air time.  Maybe they couldn’t re-shoot because of budgetary constraints; or the fact that they had caught a bird riding a f***in’ Collie!

Jean sees Tommy’s gift as even more reason for him to be tested.  Walter is afraid of him being locked up in a laboratory.  They see Timmy run into the woods. Walter says it is because they were talking about taking him away.  Jean says he was too far away to hear them talking.  OMG, I think this women needs to be in a clinic.

While Frank goes back to work, Jean helps Walter look for Timmy.  When she is cornered by a snake, Timmy runs to her aid.  He picks the snake up and begins petting it.  Jean says, “He sensed I was in danger and saved my life.”  Suddenly she is on team-Timmy.

Some time later, Jean goes to see Dr. Hoster at the Speech Clinic. The State Department of Education has sent him the report she wrote about Jimmy.  He questions her crazy tales of ESP, but does not question why she is still wearing the same dress days later.

Three weeks later, Timmy has surgery at the clinic.  Naturally, the operation restores his speech and hearing.  However, it also robs him of his psychic abilities just like Ilsa in Mute.

More of the same.

I went looking for Talk to the Animals, but found this.