Little Brian seems to be a bit of a firebug.  When we first meet the 7-year old, he is getting quite the little campfire going in the backyard, but he ain’t camping.

His sister Julia, who calls him “The Mutation” wishes that he would actually torch the house so she wouldn’t have to stay there anymore. Their mother, who Julia refers to as “Der Fuhrer” comes out and turns a hose on the little fire (not to be a grammar-Nazi, but wouldn’t she be Die Fuhrer”?).  Mom reminds Brian that she has told him not to play with matches.  The 7-year old outsmarts her by holding up a lighter.  If the matches ain’t lit, you must acquit.  His mother laughs and gets all kissy-face at his dangerous insolence.

Julia says that lately she can’t even look at her mother without wanting to stab her repeatedly. ^[1]  She hates being there so much she takes out a small cassette player and says, “I hate this place.”  She likes it a little better when she sees a local slab of beefcake mowing the lawn.  Well, not lawn so much as he is mowing a wooded area whose chief vegetation seems to be dead leaves on the ground.

At lunch, Mom throws the lighter at the Dad, blaming him for Brian’s indiscretion.  Mom repeatedly protects Brian against suggestions from the others that some punishment might be in order.  Quite reasonably in this crazy family, Dad breaks out the scotch at lunch.  Julia opines that “Dad is like an echo.  A tiny pathetic reflection of whatever mother says.”  He certainly echoes her attire — both sport an odd pairing of flannel shirts covering a turtleneck.^[4]

According to Julia, her father said he bought this place to get away from things, but she thinks what he really wanted was to get away from his family.  Again, understandable, but why would buying a family vacation home accomplish that?  Claim you have to go out of town for work.  Or send the kids to camp — that Camp Crystal Lake has a nice brochure.

Julia sees the handyman still working in the yard.  She wants to take him a drink, but Mom tells her to knock it off, that he is here to work.  Julia later sees the handyman drilling holes in 2 x 4’s.  She unbuttons a couple of buttons on her blouse and approaches him.  He doesn’t acknowledge her.  In fact, he walks toward the house and passes right through her like a ghost.  The man, his wood, and the drill all disappear.

Julia tries to tell this to her family. Brian says Mom says there is no such thing as ghosts.  Dad says he has heard Mom say that.  Julia correctly points out that the hunky handyman always seems to be working here but, like Ralph and Alf ^[2], he never seems to get anything done.   She concludes that he must be a ghost.

Julia is pining away for the “10” woodsman in her bed that night, dreaming of being drilled. She hears a noise, and sees the man pounding nails into the wall, which is almost as good.  She tries to speak to him, asking how long ago he died.  It is only after hitting his thumb with the hammer that he can see Julia, so apparently profanity pierces the veil.  He flees the room.

The next day, Julia asks her mother why she never believes anything she says.  Julia’s case might have been stronger had she not lied about crying 3 seconds earlier.

The next day, she sees the handyman washing his ghostly SUV.  He gets in the vehicle and Julia jumps in the front seat, unseen by the man.  When she touches his face, he suddenly sees her and crashes his SUV.  He screams that he just wants to be alone, that he is not responsible for what happened to them, that they’re dead . . . dead!

Julia is suddenly transported back to the house.  Now she sees that it is a burned out shell.  Brian finally burned the house down.  She realizes the handyman was horrified seeing her dead body, scarred by the fire.  Mom is able to convince her to accept that they are dead.  Once Julia buys in, they all continue living in the sunny day on the lakefront vacation home for ever and ever.

The basic story has been done countless times — one notable example is The Others which opened just 2 weeks before this episode aired.  But originality is overrated, it is really more interesting to see how the story is presented.

The actor portraying Brian is just unbelievably awful.  For a 9-year old, though, this is really more about the casting and direction than his talents.  Plus he was playing a 7-year old, so at least he had range.  The father was written as a non-entity, but I’m not sure why. Maybe grief over what happened to his family, but he seems to be more a victim of depression and a nagging wife.

On the positive side, the Mom was very good even if I often found her motivation baffling.  Julia (Marla Sokoloff) really carried the episode, though.  She was in every scene, sometimes just providing narration.  She also played a few years younger than her age, in 20+ minutes convincingly portraying anger, teen angst, indifference, insecurity, crush-love and finally acceptance of her reality.  She has a great career in shows I never watch.^[3]

Overall, a very enjoyable outing; and with Bitter Harvest, a very solid episode.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Julia attributes this line to “a girl in some TV show.”
• ^[2] Shamefully, there are no decent clips available of Ralph and Alf from Green Acres.  Internet, pfff!  Here is Hank Kimball instead.
• ^[3] Except when she was Joey’s sister in an episode of Friends.
• ^[4] When grabbing pictures, I finally realized that Brian shares this sartorial quirk.  Mom, Dad and Brian do share a bond that Julia does not, but how this corresponds to flannel, I have no idea.  Sadly, unlike Mort’s in the Bazooka Joe comics, Brian’s turtleneck does not cover his mouth.
• Title Analysis: Presumably a take-off on the TV show that had gone off 5 years earlier.  Maybe that was the show.^[1]

For anyone who thought the Home episode of The X-Files was too much of a light-hearted romp, this is the episode for you.  It might have dipped too much into realism (like Megan is Missing) for my taste.  If this is what you’re looking for, though, bon appetite — this is great stuff.  Spoilers ahoy.

Young Shane Watkins and a couple of pals are checking out his horse Ginger who will be having babies in a couple of months.  They are wary of neighbor old man Jennings walking by.  They have reason to be concerned as he 1) is carrying an axe, and 2) is portrayed by Jack Palance.

The rumor is that old man Jennings shot an encyclopedia salesman and buried him behind his barn.  Also that his mother was a witch.  He lives on a farm bordering Shane’s in a house with several No Trespassing signs.

Occasionally, Shane has ignored the signs and snuck over to fish at a fishin’ hole on Jennings’ property.  And by “snuck”, I mean walked across a large open yard in broad daylight.

One day, as he is sneaking to the fishin’ hole, he checks out behind the barn just to be sure.  There is indeed a mound of fresh dirt.  Well, looks like dirt on You Tube, but I’ll give Shane the benefit of the snout when he says it is just cow manure.

Jennings catches him.  As Shane runs away, he accidentally switches on a combine.  Or maybe it is some other piece of farm machinery, but I like the sound of the word combine so all farm equipment is combines to me.  Jennings, following closely behind, trips and his hands get caught in the gears. Shane’s mother then emasculates me by knowing that the machine was an auger rather than a combine.

One night, from his window, Shane sees Jennings standing at the barbed wire fence separating their properties.  Barbed wire fences make good neighbors if you live next to a pissed-off Jack Palance.  Tragically, he lost both arms in the auger.  Also tragically, the dolt from the county who is helping him has dressed him in a button-up coat.

The next day as Shane is working on the horse, or whatever it is that you do in a barn, Jennings shows up. He tells Shane’s father that the boy has been naughty — Shane has been trespassing on his property to fish. The thing about causing him to have his arms chewed off does not come up.

In exchange for whatever fish he caught, Shane’s father offers his son’s services to help Jennings out until his prosthetics arrive.  The next day, Shane knocks but gets no response.  As in every show I have watched for this blog, Shane just walks right in.  He is startled when Jennings comes out wearing a short-sleeve shirt.  As am I.

Jennings puts Shane to work cleaning the gutters where he nearly falls, and does badly cut his hand.  Later in chopping wood, his hand starts to bother him, but he is not going to mention this to the guy whose arms he destroyed.

While Jennings is at the hospital for rehab, Shane sees a brown mound that really is dirt. Shane naturally digs it up. It contains a blanket belonging to his horse . . . Jennings severed arms are also wrapped up in it.  The episode is so good I won’t question how he buried this stuff with no arms.

The next day, when Shane goes to Jennings’ house, the old man is bobbing for soup.  It is just very sad to see his face covered with food, and him have to ask Shane to feed him. On the plus side, Jennings does say it is time to do some auguring. When it jams, Jennings suggests that Shane stick his arm in there.

At the end of 2 weeks, Jennings actually pays Shane for his time.  As Shane goes to leave, he tells him to take Ginger’s blanket saying , “I won’t be needing it no more.”  As he arrives home, Ginger is giving birth — to a foal with no legs.

I was pretty satisfied at that ending.  The accident was squirm inducing, and seeing a beautiful horse suffer for the accident was tragic.  But then, holy shit . . .

Jennings is again staring at Shane from across the barbed wire.  His parents console him that there was nothing that he could have done, but that the horse will have to be destroyed.  On a happier note, his mother says she is going to have a baby.  Jennings continues smiling in the moonlight.

I give this one 5 out of 5 bushels.

Post-Post:

• Jack Palance was in the classic Shane.
• For anyone who didn’t get it, no-neck says in his epilogue that Shane will find out in nine-months how vindictive Jennings is.  So, apparently, his mother is zero-days pregnant.  That must have been some conception last night.
• And Jennings could have been a little more focused with his vengeance.  Yeah, sucks to be Shane; but it sucks more to be his little brother.

Rollins’ Intro:  A monster has moved into 2460 Terrell Street.  Family man Jim Osgoode must now battle the beast.

The Osgoodes (Apt 207) receive a letter informing them that a convicted sex offender has moved into their condo complex (Apt 221).  Sally’s husband Jim isn’t too concerned, thinking a parole officer or someone must be keeping an eye on him.  Or he suggests that maybe the guy did something not-so-bad, like being a flasher.  Just when ya have Jim pegged as an idiot, he states that he is a lawyer; so asshole is probably more accurate.

Sally expects him to “do something,” but his natural inclination to protect the criminal kicks in.  OK, to be fair, I think he is concerned, but at a loss over what can be done . . . thanks to a system corrupted by people like him.  So I still don’t let him off the hook.

Some neighbors drop by after receiving the same warning letter.  They get out the binoculars and check out the perv through a window across the courtyard.  It would be easy to get sanctimonious about quick they are to indulge in some creepy behavior . . . but they do see the childless man unpacking some toys.

It pains me to say it, but the lawyer is the voice of reason here.  He counters that his uncle collected race cars.  Probably his unmarried uncle, but still.  When the mob is just about ready to do a drive-by shooting from the Welcome Wagon, Jim talks them back down to sanity.

The next day, Sally is watching over the kids at the Condo’s playground. Unfortunately, the new neighbor comes down and sits on a bench near the kids.  We can tell he is evil because he is kept out-of-focus in the background.  Of course, with this lousy YouTube transfer, the foreground looks equally evil.  Sally gathers the kids up and hustles them back home.

The Osgoodes install bars on the windows and are looking into motion detectors.  As Sally is talking to the contractor, their daughter Janey goes outside alone.  Sally catches a glimpse of her daughter as the elevator door closes in front of her and the perv.  Sally runs down the stairs to meet the elevator.  When it opens, her daughter gets out and says the man just went to the basement to throw out some boxes.

The grown-up mob reconvenes and they agree it is time to send this guy a message.  The kiddie mob convenes at a sleepover and the girls dare Janey to go to the man’s unit, er condo, and bring back proof that she was there.

The menfolk man-up, get their testosterone flowing and react like alpha male brutes — they go to the parking lot and key the man’s car, break a window and start whacking it with a hammer.

Janey climbs up a trellis and into the man’s window.  She selects a toy to steal, but the man comes back home at that second.  As she tries to escape, the man rips a handful of her pajamas.  When the police can’t help, the neighbors agree it is time to stop him for good.  Jim is chosen to pay him a visit.

Jim kills him with one shot.  His neighbors provide an alibi for each other.  Unfortunately, the next day, the Osgoodes receive a letter stating that the previous letter contained an error — the sex offender actually moved into 212 rather than 221.  D’oh!

Post-Post:

• Rollins’ Closing:  There’s still a monster living at 2460 Terrell Street and every time he looks in the mirror, Jim Osgoode will see it.  I really wanted this to be an error, but the complex is at 2460, and units were indeed different numbers.
• Although that 2nd floor seems to be a cesspool of perversion, voyeurism and murder.

We open with actual scenes from Gulf War I including George H.W. Bush, General Schwarzkopf, and various scenes of shock and/or awe. Mix in some soldiers and tanks, bring to boil with a man on fire, and garnish with the American flag.  In case you don’t know the real enemy yet, the producers cut to a Veteran’s Day celebration.

We are subjected to the last lines of a speech, by some unctuous idiot politician:   “Remember when you walk down Main Street under the blues skies of liberty, those who paid the price for our freedom.”  I’d prefer to remember those who sent other people’s sons to pay the price for the liberty of a bunch of yahoos who have no idea what to do with it.  Can’t say all those dead Americans have done much for my sky.  But I digress.

Stillman sees three of his men in the crowd and they ask him to join them for a drink at the tavern.  He replies, “What time?”  One of the men says, “We’ll find ya.”

At the tavern, which seems to double as the VFW Hall, we get older vets discussing whether the Korean War was a true war or a UN Police Action.  And whether Viet Nam was a war or a conflict.  And so on with actions in Bosnia, through Baghdad.  Stillman shows up looking for his friends.  The codgers recognize Stillman as the local hero who saved his entire squad, and mention that he is unemployed.  But do they buy him a beer?  No.

Stillman has a flashback to the war. Their vehicle hit a landmine and rolled over in the desert, the men barely escaping from enemy snipers.  Stillman is captured and literally thrown into a bunker doing a nice tuck and roll.  His Iraqi captor loads a revolver with 5 bullets and questions him about the location of his platoon.  On a scale of 1 to Sayid, this interrogator is about as Iraqi as I am.  When he refuses to answer, the Iraqi pulls the trigger, but Stillman gets lucky and it jams.  He then dowses Stillman with gasoline and threatens to light him up if he doesn’t talk.

Back in the bar, there seems to have been a sandstorm as the floors and counters are covered.  He finally sees that his old crew has arrived.  As they talk, we hear gun fire and cracks in the bombed-out walls.  Missiles shoot over head in the sky visible through a half-destroyed roof.  Clearly, this is all in Stillman’s head, yet he does not much react to any of it.

The men accuse him of abandoning them, but he reminds them that he got a medal for his uncommon valor.  They tell him that they are dead, suddenly appearing wounded in their fatigues — this, he does see.  Their recollection of that night is a little different. Stillman was paralyzed with fear.  In fact, he watched another man being tortured — a man who actually was set ablaze.  This display prompted Stillman to give up his outfit’s location.

In his hallucination, Stillman sees his men shot just as they had been in the war, again by a gunman clearly not middle eastern.  The last shot is aimed at Stillman.  He falls from his bar stool and blood pours out of a bullet-wound in his noggin even though there is no weapon found. Now he truly is a still man.  Cut to a stop watch which is engraved “To Lt. Dale Stillman for Uncommon Valor.”

First the positive — Jay Mohr is very good as Stillman.  And, though not really original, the story is a classic genre trope that I always like.  Second, a caveat — it is impossible to know how much the terrible You-Tube quality effects my perception.

As usual for Night Visions, there are some loose ends that don’t make sense.  What’s up with all the uncommon valor talk? Why not just call it a Medal of Honor?  And was he awarded a pocket-watch rather than a medal?  Is this one of the hints that all is not as it seems (along with the PTSD, the pills, and the offhand reference to Stillman’s unemployment)?  The watch seems more like a participation trophy or maybe the equivalent of a “World’s #1 Dad” t-shirt.  But, remember, the bogus story of his heroism is the official story, so he would have been entitled to the real medal.

This watch has a crazier pedigree than the one in Somewhere in Time.  The Iraqi interrogator took it from the man he actually killed and gave it to Stillman.  Rather than pass it along to the man’s son like Captain Koons, Stillman keeps it.  To be fair, it probably smelled better that the one Koons handed over.

The watch has nothing engraved on it when Stillman looks at it earlier in the episode.  At the end, it contains the inscription “To Lt. Dale Stillman for uncommon valor.”  Why did he not perceive the inscription earlier?  He had possession of the watch the whole time; did he get it engraved himself?

None of this really matters.  I enjoyed the episode for its performances and direction.

Post-Post:

• Kudos for the update while I was away, WordPress!  You have made adding a link 50% more difficult.  Some might have taken the easier route.
• Opening:  Lt. Dale Stillman has the face of a hero.  But most heroes only have to live through Hell once.  OK, I’ll buy into the 2nd half, but what exactly is the face of a hero?
• Closing:  The greatest heroism isn’t facing the enemy, it is facing the truth.  The truth takes no prisoners.  Fair enough.

Bloody hell!  This is the other episode that prompted me to rewatch this series 14 years later.  A View through the Window was just as great as I remembered, so I had high hopes for this one.  Unfortunately, like yesterday’s episode, it is silent running due to copyright issues.

Bridget Fonda is enjoying a quiet night at home with a glass of wine.  She falls asleep watching Ray Bradbury Theater (just an assumption) and finds an empty plate and crumbs on the counter of her meticulously kept kitchen.  So naturally she calls the cops.

After they leave, she goes upstairs and puts on some lipstick to go out to dinner alone.  A guy tries to pick her up in the restaurant.  He maybe thinks she’s a hooker.  Hard to say with out sound.  She goes back home and find a dress has been taken out of her closet, and her make-up tray is in disarray.  So she calls the cops again.

She continues seeing signs of an intruder.

I can see that if this episode had sound, it would be as I remembered it — just as A View through the Window was — absolutely awesome.  Not only will I not spoil it, I won’t even watch the rest of it.  Someday it will surface with sound and with a decent transfer. It will be worth the wait.

Post-Post:

• Directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins).