Always before a big date!

This episode is rated #1 on IMDb’s notoriously suspect ratings board, and it has the 3rd highest number of votes of any episode.  So I went in tentatively hopeful.

Robert Patrick is hauled into a cell by a huge alien.  As only happens in TV & movies, his roomie is a hot babe named Bree.

Nicole de Boer is a space cadet — literally — who has been held captive for a few months.  She shows Patrick a patch of alien skin that they have grafted onto her.

Really, there is nothing to be gained by going on.  This is a great episode and should not be spoiled.  Watch it.

Update — Hulu has moved this behind the paywall.  Just one more reason to hate them.

Post-Post:

• Director Brad Turner has come a long way since Ray Bradbury Theater.
• Brad Wright is tearin’ it up, having written the previous episode, and a third one earlier in the season.
• Hulu sucks.

The episode starts poorly with an excruciatingly awful song, but recovers quickly with the introduction of the dependable Frank Whaley.  He is sitting in a bar and jangles the ice cubes in his empty glass at the bartender.  Being a very young Curtis Manning from 24, Frank’s lucky he didn’t get his ass kicked.

While daydreaming — as you do — about killing his boss, Rebecca De Mornay sends over a drink.  She comes over and asks what he was thinking about.  He wisely keeps his boss-killing fantasy to himself.  But maybe not so wisely decides to go upstairs to the Christmas Party where is boss is.  Rebecca says she knows people up in the office and will go with him.

As the elevator doors open on the office party, he pulls a pistol from his waistband and kills three people before being shot in the stomach by a security guard.  Not John McClane, but a rent-a-cop — oh the ignominy!  He turns to look at Rebecca and she fades into thin air.

After the credits, he rushes outside in an out-of-place bizarrely-lit shot.  Things improve immediately as the freakish lighting is not sustained, plus he carjacks some mulleted yuppie scum.  He thoughtfully calls into the office to see if anyone was killed.

Running low on fuel, he coasts to the side of the road as the radio broadcasts information on him.  As it gets dark, he walks to a small restaurant.  He goes into the bathroom to examine his wound and wrap it in paper towels whilst thanking God they don’t use hand-blowers.

Maybe God hears him, because he shows up in Frank’s booth; or at least someone who seems to know a lot about Frank, his wound, the waitress, and bean-and-bacon soup.  He also knows that if Frank leaves tonight, he will be killed.  He gives Frank a magic handshake which not only perfectly heals his bullet wound, but mends and cleans his bloody white shirt.  Oh, and picks up the check — hail to the king, baby!

The — let’s call him an angel — angel points out how Frank’s financial misdealings have hurt others and makes Frank see that he is just a pathetic, lonely crook.  As Frank goes back to the bathroom, the angel stuffs some napkins under his shirt.  Either he is stealing them, or has empathically acquired Frank’s wound.

Frank now regrets shooting those people, but the angel says they weren’t really people, just “things” manufactured for the party.  The angel’s people intervened and planted these bogus humans at the party just before Frank opened fire.  Frank has killed no one.

The angel switches bodies with Frank just as the police come in and arrest him.  Frank watches the other Frank being hauled out.  Looking in a mirror, he sees the angel’s face instead of his own.  He walks out a new man — literally.

Presumably the angel’s body that he just acquired does not still have the bullet wound the angel absorbed from Frank — that would have been a bitch.  Cue that same excruciating music again.

Post-Post:

• Not sure this is a conversion so much as an enlightenment or redemption or atonement or just plain 2nd chance.
• About these manufactured “people.”  So the county now has their hands on these mandroids that were just witnessed walking and talking hours before?  That can’t turn out well.  And maybe that security guard isn’t so hot after all, letting these strangers roam the office.  For angels (or possibly aliens), these two leave a lot of loose ends.
• Rebecca really seemed to be egging Frank on to do the deed.  Not very angelic even if there was redemption planned.
• This is Rebecca De Mornay’s only directing credit, but no problems except for that brief 2 second LSD shot outside the office building.  For an under-appreciated early-career RDM flick, watch Runaway Train.  To see how amazingly she is ageing, watch Mother’s Day.
• Cigarette-Smoking Man is here, but mostly in the background.

Generally, put a few peeps in a spacecraft and I’m immediately entertained.  Not so much here, though.  First we start off with the hackneyed idea of a craft becoming stuck in a region of space with no stars.  Just off the top of my head, in the Star Trek universe this trope has been used in Night, The Void, Where Silence Has Lease, and The Immunity Syndrome.  But as I always say, originality is over-rated — I’m still on board.

John Heard is at the helm — or at least beside it — of the the Nestor as it is sucked into an area devoid of stars.  Annette O’Toole, sporting an ill-advised short hair-do, chews him out for letting his co-pilot take the helm.  OK, the co-pilot showed up 10 minutes early for his shift.  Clearly he was qualified and would have been sitting there alone shortly anyway, so what is the beef?  Heard was two feet away.

In the void, they detect the USS Slayton, lost 10 years ago.  As luck would have it, in the entire universe, they have stumbled across a ship that Heard’s brother was serving on when it disappeared.  They send in a probe that records all of the dead bodies, still perfectly preserved in the vacuum of space; including Heard’s brother.

They also spot an alien ship trapped in the void.  The Nestor sends over a probe to investigate, but the alien ship destroys it.  In reviewing the Slayton’s data logs, they discover that the alien ship had sent a message.  I appreciated the fact that the transmission was so “well, alien” that it “couldn’t be assembled into data, much less decrypted” — unlike some movies I could name.

They find a huge chunk of matter that is “so massive it could theoretically warp time and space.”  O’Toole asks if it is so massive why aren’t they being crushed by the gravity — which sounds stupid even to me.  Drawn in and caused to crash, yes — but crushed?  Is it increasing the atmospheric pressure in space?  The crew also gets on my bad side by slaughtering the name of Yuri Gagarin — twice.  I’m no comrade, but the actors and producers grew up during the space race – how could no one catch that mistake?

As the aliens begin appearing on the Nestor, Heard’s dead brother briefly appears.  The Slayton’s dead captain also appears on the bridge.  He explains that even though they are dead, their souls can’t “pass on” due to the void they are trapped in.  Thus we have another foray into religion which typically is not a good mix for sci-fi.

Turns out that Heard’s brother has a secret in his past that has tormented Heard.  The brother has an idea that might save the Nestor, but Heard argues with him.  For the 2nd time in the episode, he proclaims, “I’m 37 years old!”  Not to nitpick, but the actor is 50 — not even close.

The Nestor teams up with the aliens and is able to escape the void.  Heard’s brother makes amends for their secret.  Everyone is happy.  Except the people who sat through this episode.  OK, it’s not bad, just a little mawkish.

Post-Post:

• Obviously, the Slayton is named for Deke Slayton.  Having made that effort, you would expect the name Nestor had some significance.  But not that I can see.
• Slayton’s sad fate in the Mercury program was not covered in the film of The Right Stuff.  Maybe in the book — time for a reread on that one.  Both book and film are excellent.
• How to pronounce Gagarin.
• Paul Lynch also directed Prom Night.
• Not a bad projection of a future notebook, except for the 144 pt font:

Not to be confused with Under the Bed.

I feared I was on thin ice when I saw director René Bonnière had not only an accent grave in his name, but also an accent aigu.  What is this, Ray Bradbury Theater?

Ridiculously cute kids Jillian and Andrew Rosman are sent to bed by their single mother Sharon.  Andrew is missing his teddy bear and hears it beckoning him from below the bed.  Not being named Teddy Ruxpin, this is suspicious behavior even to a dumb little kid.  When he tries to retrieve the bear, his sister sees a tentacle grab him.  The girl does a great job of registering the attack, and even gave me a little chill.

After a particularly awful opening narration, TV’s favorite yuppie Timothy Busfield arrives to save the day.  He meets up with detective Caitlin Doyle who immediately suspects the absentee dad.

The next day, Busfield goes to Police headquarters where Doyle has dragged in Mr. Rosman for questioning.  I was happy to see the police station is at the Strughold Mining Company from The X-Files.

Left: Outer Limits, Right: X-Files. Are they ever going to fix those windows?

Being a 40-year old guy on TV, naturally Busfield has daddy issues.  Turns out they became estranged after Busfield’s brother mysteriously disappeared much like Andrew.  The next day, Busfield is again pumping the detective about Andrew’s father.

Busfield then asks Jillian to act out the abduction with dolls.  Jillian tosses the Daddy doll away.  As she is searching for a way to explain the abduction, Busfield again prompts her to implicate her Daddy.  “Not Daddy,” she says, tossing away the Daddy doll she already tossed away seconds before.  Jillian names the boogeyman as the abductor.

Jillian just won’t give Busfield the answer he wants so he finally resorts to hypnotizing her to get more information.  As she relives the trauma and screams about the thing under the bed, Busfield once again tries to inject Daddy into her mind as the culprit, “What makes Jillian afraid?  Is it Daddy?”  Thank God Jillian is more honest than Busfield, and she blames the boogeyman again.

This guy has more daddy issues than a season of Lost.

Later, Jillian is called to the window by Andrew.  As she opens the window, Andrew becomes the boogeyman and grabs her arm.  Busfield shows up and immediately asks again if it was her father.

This obsession would have made sense if that were the point of the B-story with his father, but it really wasn’t.  He never suspected his father was responsible for his brother’s disappearance.  This was just him being the worst, most leading anti-father child psychologist in history.

Busfield finally gets off the Daddy-wagon and figures out that it really is the boogeyman.  But not before Jillian is taken.  Busfield and the cop find Jillian and kill the boogeyman.  It is strange that zero-mention is made of her brother Andrew.  Presumably he is dead, so I credit them for not going for the feel-food ending.  It is just kind of strange that they don’t mention him or look for his body.

The last scene of the episode shows the Eiffel Tower and then a French kid about to be abducted.  I knew René Bonnière was going to jam France down our throats at some point.

Some good performances, and I actually got a legitimate chill.  But still only manages to be so-so.

Post-Post:

• The police station / Strughold Mining pictured above is located at the Britannia Mining Museum in British Columbia.
• William MacDonald (Daddy) played 5 different credited roles in the X-Files.  I thought that would be a record, but there were at least 4 other actors in the 5-timers club.
• Per IMDb, this is the 2nd lowest rated episode from Season 1.  Of course, the worst was White Light Fever.

Father Jonascu is on Skid Row handing out blankets to the bums. The police roll in and starting roughing up the crowd.  Jonascu is knocked to the ground in the chaos.  A cop asks if he is alright, but when he turns to the cop, he sees a demon in a police uniform.  Looking a second later, he sees a human cop.

He tells his assistant he thinks he is losing his mind.  Understandable, because whoever heard of a priest believing in something supernatural.  One of the bums knows that Jonascu saw the demon and begs him to tell others.  Father Jonascu will not offer this slight comfort.

Father Jonascu says that he is considering a reassignment, and this is a man who knows what he wants:

Jonascu, when is life is on the line, opts for a scientific reason for his vision.  He is diagnosed as having a brain tumor.  He takes this as a cause rather than effect.  He was fine until he saw the demon, he reasons.

During his next sermon, he sees a woman in the back of the church who is a demon. Seconds later she appears human again, then a demon again.  Knowing she has been busted, she runs out.  Jonascu gives chase, but collapses.

He begins telling his doctor about the hallucinations, then the doctor plunges a syringe into his neck.  The doctor wants to introduce some friends — he opens the door and the demon cop and demon woman are waiting.  He turns back to the doctor, who reveals himself to also be a demon, although he says he does not like that label — perhaps the D-word.

The woman says they are “the way,” and that all our religious teachings have descended from them.  They have come to deliver the power to heal to humanity.  They want Jonascu to be the human face to deliver this gift; understandably.

The lady D-word grabs Jonascu’s head.  She cures his tumor, but the transference kills her.  Apparently there are no young boys in the hospital, so he lays hands on a young girl injured in an auto accident, and instantly heals her. Once the press is notified, his life becomes very busy as he heals hundreds.

Jonascu’s assistant overhears the D-words discussing their real mission — to siphon off earth’s atmosphere.  He is dealt with appropriately.  For some reason, it takes Jonascu a long time to figure out he might be able to resurrect his assistant.

Turns out, he was only “mostly dead” and Jonascu  brings him back.  Ironic since the doctor is played by Prince Humperdinck.  The two priests confront the D-words.

At this point, I got completely lost.  Jonascu grabs the D-cop’s head, but the “healing” action somehow kills the alien.  Does that mean the aliens can’t heal each other?  Does that mean the aliens aren’t “normal”?  That after removing the bad parts, there was nothing left?  Seems a little racist.  Then the D-doctor grabs the priest’s head; and the priest grabs the D-doctor’s head at the same time.  As they struggle, the assistant priest jumps into the mix and grabs the D-doctor’s head.  After a lot of sound and fury, Jonascu and the D-doctor are dead, and the assistant has the healing power.  It took slow-motioning this a couple of times for me to get it.

In a long shot of the carnage on the altar of the church, we see the D-woman observing from the back of the church.  But wasn’t she killed after transferring her power?  Does that mean the D-doctor and Jonascu are going to come back to life?  It’s one thing to leave the story open-ended, but you have to establish some rules.

Once it was clear this was going to be another religion / sci-fi hybrid, I feared another White Light Fever caliber fiasco.  Luckily it was handled better this time, and turned out to be a good episode.

Post-Post:

• Stuart Gillard also directed Sandkings.
• The little girl healed by Jonascu also played Samantha Mulder.
• Etymology of Skid Row.  The tree-dragging scenario sounds a little too neat, but who knows.