Last week we began at the Bureau of Scientific Investigation; this week we begin at the similarly generic Department of Agricultural Research.  As they both seem to be located in the Capitol, we can assume they are up to no good.

Lane is studying a map of the 48 United States.  He calls Les Nelson in to have a chat about the search for Dr. Kramer.  They flash back to their last encounter.  In his boarding room, Kramer is ladling sand into a beaker testing his discovery to turn to sand to water, or else making the world’s driest martini.

His much younger neighbor Nicki stops by to pick up tickets he promised her.  She complains about how hard waitressing is on her feet.  Kramer suggests “someday you will not have to be a waitress.  Maybe  someday it will be somebody who will be serving you.  Somebody who will be happy to do things for you.”  Yeah, that’s the vibe I get at Arby’s.  They’re f***ing thrilled to serve me. ^[1]

Nicki thinks that is unlikely and complains about the seats Kramer got — not near enough to the front for her.  She is clearly using the old fool for the gifts, but is at least honest enough to say this to his face.

Nelson knocks, breaking up the loveless-fest.  He is trying to recruit Kramer to make “murder weapons.”  To be fair, in his old country, the government took his work, used it kill thousands and threw him in a concentration camp.  So I can understand him being leery of getting involved in a criminal enterprise like the US Government.

Nelson looks over Kramer’s bucket of sand and tub of water.  He asks if this is related to Kramer’s theory on diatomic water even though Occam’s Razor would have suggested sand castles.  Nelson has heard that the diatomic water could dissolve any substance on earth, so maybe inventing something to store it in should have been the first step.

Nicki returns and tells Kramer he was crazy not to go to work with Nelson.  After all, she says to his face, it would enable him to buy her more gifts.  He asks Nicki to travel with him, maybe even get married.  She warns him that anyone marrying her would have to have a lot of money as she has expensive tastes.  She continues to taunt Kramer about his age, his lack of employment, his experiments — at this point, I was wishing this was an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

He gets angry with her, telling that a “counter-girl” should be thrilled to marry Dr. Franz Kramer.  He is giving this cocktease a little too much credit as she hasn’t worked her way up from waitress to counter-girl yet.  He shows her his miracle solvent that could make him financially solvent if he just sold it.  He tosses in lab equipment — which in the 1950’s naturally included an ashtray — which she watches dissolve in the liquid.  To be fair, he does mention that the giant beaker is made of the only substance immune to diatomic water, and only he knows the secret.

Lane and Nelson learn that Boston, New Haven, Baltimore and now Philadelphia are now underwater, and not just from corruption and lavish government pensions.  They can’t quite figure out what connects them.  I wonder . . .

When Kramer learns his niece has been killed in an atomic blast, he cracks up.  He promises “they are going to pay!”  Then he vanished.  Like Nicki.  I wonder . . .

Lane and Nelson get an update that new pools have formed in Atlantic City, Wilmington and Scranton.  This leads Lane to proclaim that the floods are moving inland!  Well, I’ll give you Scranton, but Wilmington is pretty close to the ocean and Atlantic City has a bloody boardwalk on the ocean.  Christ, did no one on this show own an atlas?  Or finish 6th grade?

They find Dr. Kramer sitting outside Lane’s office.  Inexplicably Lane just goes on his merry way; well, as merry as possible, given the destruction of 5 great cities and Baltimore.  Kramer takes responsibility for the disasters, but has a demand, which he doesn’t ever actually demand.

The police interview anyone who knew him.  Sadly, they begin with Nicki who I  hoped had been liquefied.  His landlady correctly speculates that the death of his niece set him off.  Lane rants that Kramer must be found or we risk the entire earth being submerged. “This is a manhunt that must be successful!  Our world is drowning!”  The episode closes with stock footage from various floods.

So, like a Batman villain, Kramer is creating floods all along the east coast.  However, even by the end of the episode, he never reveals what his demand is.  Some men just want to watch the world flood.

Another lackluster episode.  A little more science-fictiony than last week, but that’s not saying much.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] In fact, my last two visits there were so disgusting I will never go back.  But I digress.
• Kramer’s discovery was the anti-Ice-Nine.
• Capital vs Capitol.
• How can anyone not like Waterworld?

When a jet plane disappeared in thin air, what was the explanation?

An announcer tells us this is the story of a great aviatrix ^[1], Paula Martin.  So imagine my surprise when she disappears, and the headline reads “Paula Bennett Lost at Sea.” IMDb plays it safe just calling the character Paula. ^[2]

Paula’s husband Donald is working the short wave trying to find his wife.  He believes some mysterious indecipherable transmissions might hold a clue.  We are told he never gave up searching for his wife. Presumably he did take off a couple of days to marry his 2nd wife Deidre.

Donald gets a call from an old friend, Sam Rutgers who says he will be over in 15 minutes.  Deidre makes good use of this time by nagging him over his obsession with discovering what happened to Paula.

Donald flashes back to when he and Paula were first married.  Paula is posing for photographers after winning her second Bendix Trophy. Donald suggests that now that she has won her 2nd trophy, she can “stop proving things” she can marry him and iron his shirts.

She counters that she still has a lot of unfinished business up there. She could never be happy if she gave up flying.  They married and she continued flying.  Then she began disappearing for weeks at a time, apparently filming stock footage.  She was also frequently in the company of a mysterious man.

Donald is just as jealous as his future wife, although not over a corpse.  He suspects the man might have a wiley post and confronts Paula about her disappearances.  She says she has “never allowed anyone to lock me in a hangar and she’s not going to start now.” Nobody puts Baby in the Cessna!  On a trip across the Pacific, she disappears.

Back in the present, Rutgers shows up to talk to Donald and Diedre.  He also asks their maid Anna to stay because “she was closer to Paula than anyone,” which suggests that their marriage was a plane-wreck even before she took off.

Rutgers says he was just given the go-ahead today to explain what happened to Paula. The government recruited Paula, as the country’s leading woman flyer.  She went to an obscure island 2,300 miles out of San Francisco which housed a rocket base.  The government wants her to be part of the crew to test the stresses of space on a woman’s body.

Rutgers tells her it will be extremely dangerous, and she replies, “That wonderful new world, from millions of miles away, pulls at me across all that space as if it had me by the hands.”  As the rocket is only going to the moon, which is just 240,000 miles away, the millions of miles make no sense.

He continues telling Donald, Deidre and Anna how they watched the rocket take off perfectly through giant telescopes, going into outer space until it became a tiny speck. Sadly, the government has determined that Paula died when the ship crashed into the moon.  But it wasn’t her fault, she blew the horn.

Don, who has spent 4 years searching for clues to Paula’s fate, announces that she is glad she’s gone because he’s finally free.

Kind of a disappointing outing.  There really wasn’t much science-fiction in this episode. We get talk of a rocket only at the very end; the rest is mostly melodrama.  It was not helped by the casting.  Donald’s current wife is, frankly, a little scary.  Paula was also no beauty, but at least had a cool butch haircut and was believable in her part (i.e. a woman some man would actually have married).

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Possibly the greatest word in the English language.
• ^[2] The name-change is somewhat plausible as her husband’s last name is Bennett. So maybe she kept her maiden name as her professional moniker ^[3].  Still, why would the newspaper use her non-professional name?  Just sloppy.  Also, was she lost at sea or in thin air?
• ^[3] Possibly the 2nd greatest word in the English language.
• I had heard Veronica Lake’s name before and thought she was a glamorous babe from the 1940’s.  But no.  Well, she was from the 1940’s.
• At one point, the actor portraying Donald accidentally calls his maid Anna by his first wife’s name.  That’s kind of amusing, but it also makes you appreciate that they were doing this live and didn’t have their eyes tharned on cue cards like most of the cast of SNL.
• In the next scene, Paula calls the maid Emma — OK, maybe an occasional glance at a cue card would be OK; or showing up sober to rehearsal.
• I’m not entirely sure, but it also sounded like Rutgers called Anna Hannah.
• Anna, Hannah bo Banna Bonana fanna fo Paula Fee fy mo Memma Emma!

The Bureau of Scientific Investigation apparently has its offices on the roof of the Capitol.

This episode takes place in the distant future year of 1965.  And still no flying cars.

The Bureau of Scientific Investi-gation tells Larry Calhoun they have top secret info which must be forgotten when his job is done. The US has developed a new missile, the R8D. Somehow part of the plans were stolen and Calhoun is to investigate.  His boss tells him to take along the new Lie Detector machine which is described as “the most important device in criminology” since the doughnut.

At the plant, Calhoun finds security tight.  He meets the detector’s inventor Dr. Chappell and his daughter Phyllis.  Calhoun decides to test all 580 employees at the plant, from the chairman to the janitor.  If it only took 5 minutes each, that would be 2 full 24 hour days.

Calhoun tests the lie detector himself.  He purposely tells a whopper and the machine accurately busts him on it.  None of the 580 employees are caught in a lie, however. Calhoun is still sure it is an inside job.  When he determines that the phone is tapped, he uses that opportunity to have a bogus conversation with the security officer.

That night, having taken the bait, a man breaks in to steal the plans.  He surprised that a camera inside the safe takes his picture as he opens it, and he runs away.  But not before having a nice 8×10 glossy taken of him.

They question the man in the photo, Elwood.  He plays dumb about the theft and the wire tap.  He demands to be tested by the lie detector. Hooked up to the gizmo, he claims to innocent, and the machine says he is telling the truth — he has beaten the lie detector.

Back at the Bureau of Scientific Investigation, Calhoun’s boss tells him that 48 men across the country have beaten the lie detector.  He tells Calhoun that if this problem isn’t solved, “this country will move into a new [titular] age of peril in which criminals have the upper hand.”

Calhoun goes back to the plant to see the security officer and Irene.  At Calhoun’s insistence, the security czar finally agrees to take the test.  He too passes.  When Chappell removes the sensors, however, the needle jumps when Calhoun mentions a man in California who beat the machine.

Well, well, well . . . it turns out Dr. Chappell has been hypnotizing murderers, rapists, thieves and various low-life burdens on society so that they could beat the lie detecting machine that he invented.  Calhoun and his boss point out the danger of his plan.

Chappell replies that he is not just hypnotizing them to beat the machine, he is hypnotizing them to not be criminals any more; also to cluck like a chicken.  Calhoun is a brilliant guy because he asks the question that I was thinking: “What about the crime they committed to begin with?”

Chappell gives an answer that would only a raving psychopath ^[1] could embrace: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” ^[2]

Chappell then gives a thoroughly unconvincing demonstration which actually does nothing to support his claims.  Calhoun, suddenly not so brilliant, calls his boss to pitch the idea.

Really not much science-fiction here as lie detectors have been around since 1921.  I guess this one was supposed to be fool-proof, but the flaw in the system is the whole point of the episode.  The absurd premise and the illogical flow of the story just doom this outing.  Too bad — for all its cheesiness, I have have enjoyed the series so far.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] I originally wrote sociopath, then consulted this article.  I’m not sure one diagnosis can contain her multitudes.
• ^[2] The actual line is “What does it matter, so long as they never commit another?” Pretty close.  Yes, Mrs. Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth is starring in our Grand Re-Opening play, but he’s feeling much better now.

Peter Talley of this episode: 4.

Brought to us this week by CH Masland & Sons, makers of Masland Beautiblend Broadlooms.

Peter Talley has a shingle outside his shop which states, “I have what you need.”  On the window, it specifies Curios although surely they also sell  knick knacks, bric-a-brac and give a dog a bone.  Is it possible to have a 2-for-1 sale on bric-a-brac? ^[1]

Reporter Tom Carmichael stands outside; as a customer leaves he makes notes.  This being the old days, the reporter a) wears a trench-coat, and b) actually exerts a few calories and confronts the shopkeeper.  While he is there, a dapper old man comes in to pick up “what he needs.”  Maybe this is set in Detroit because, in his case, it is a pistol.  He hands the shopkeeper $5,000 which is what I need.

While we all might occasionally need a pistol once, Carmichael notes that he has seen people leaving with an egg, rubber gloves and a test tube.  Presumably not all for the same guy unless he works at an in vitro fertilization clinic.  Getting nowhere, Carmichael takes a different approach and says that he would like to be a customer. Talley does hand him what he needs and asks that he not return to the shop.

Turns out, what Carmichael needed was a pair of scissors.  He shows it to his thoroughly unlikable, unsupportive, unattractive and uncreditted ^[2] girlfriend.  I think I know what he needs the scissors for.  While he is nagging his publisher for an advance to pursue the story, his necktie gets caught in the printing press.  He really needs a pair of . . . wait a minute!  His publisher grabs the scissors and cuts him loose.  Of course, had he not gone into the shop and gotten the story, he would not have needed the scissors.

At the end of Act I, we get a commercial from CH Masland, makers of carpets and now hunting gear.  The announcer shows off their new fishing vest which he points out has many pockets suitable for fishing gear and cigarettes.  He also points out the many rings for keeping your hands free to handle fishing gear and cigarettes.

After the break, Carmichael comes back to the shop.  Talley says that he was a scientist with an interest in astrology; maybe the only one.  That led him to invent the machine which gives people “what they want” — when the orgasmatron didn’t take off, he invented the What-You-Need machine.

Carmichael is not happy to just be alive, he plans to blackmail Talley into sharing his secrets with him.  Talley sends Carmichael a pair of shoes which cause him to slip and be hit by a car.  Overcome by guilt, Talley smashes his machine — the one that he earlier said had been responsible for the invention of the polio vaccine ^[3].  Sorry, kids.

So while Carmichael really was an asshole and a member of the media, Talley was ready to destroy a machine that stood to save millions of lives via a polio vaccine and who knows what else.  Who do you root for in that stand-off?

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Basically the same gag as George Carlin observing that if you break a crumb in half, you have 2 crumbs. Except his got a laugh.
• ^[2] Despite having significant speaking parts, Talley’s wife and Carmichael’s girlfriend are not credited.
• ^[3] This episode aired 3 years before the polio vaccine was invented.
• Based on a short story by Henry Kuttner, and also the basis for an episode of The Twilight Zone.