Jean Reed comes into the emergency room, asking to see a doctor.  In the time it takes for Dr. Peterson to show up, she goes completely blind which sounds typical.  He removes her dark glasses and sees a white film over her eyes like giant cataracts or Act III of a scene on Pornhub.

After nurse Claire Hendricks turns away an old couple for having no insurance, she is told Mrs. Reed is asking for her.  She goes to the room and says, “You wanted to see me, Mrs. Reed?” which you should never say to a blind person.  Mrs. Reed says she thinks the two of them are alike, but does not elaborate.

The next day, Claire is calling about a phone bill that is $50 higher than expected.  Dr. Peterson interrupts and says Jean Reed’s husband has come in, and he is blind also.  He doesn’t care that his wife is there, though, because she abandoned him when he went blind.

A nurse tells her she needs to go to the ER.  She finds a dozen people have come in with a similar sudden onset of blindness, although that also might be due to Pornhub.  The head of the hospital says he has never seen anything like this.  Hundreds of people in every major city are suddenly going blind.

The next day, Mrs. Reed tells Claire the others call her a “dedicated woman” because of how hard she works.  She again says the two of them are alike.  “I know what is happening, I know how it’s happening and I know why it’s happening.” She says we are like monkeys.  “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  We turn a blind eye to the pain around us.”  Although I’ve always heard that once you can no longer see evil, your ability to hear evil is enhanced.

A research group learns that just before the first case, there was an explosion at a top-secret biological research lab in Alaska.  Certain unstable forms of bacteria were released into the atmosphere.  As the doctor is reading the report to the group, he goes blind.

After the meeting, Peterson finds Claire curled up in her office crying.  Her marriage is breaking up, she has become callous toward patients, she has cut herself off from the world to avoid the pain.  She has come to agree with Mrs. Reed that the blindness epidemic is a punishment.  Then she goes blind.

This episode was a breakthrough for me as it really made me realize how easy it is it make a snap judgment, or offer a knee-jerk criticism.  The first time I watched this episode, I thought it was a bit of a mess.  The blindness was was caused by a physical layer of skin over the eye, yet it seemed to occur within seconds. The explosion in Alaska just seemed to muddle things.

Watching it again a few weeks later, I realized my error.  The episode is not about the blindness epidemic; it is about Claire.  The concept might have a few issues, and be too reminiscent of the hokey (but well intentioned) I am the Night — Color me Black.  But use that just as a backdrop for Claire’s self-examination, and suddenly the  episode becomes a pretty nice little character study.

The ending, which I will not spoil, and the adorable as hell Karen Valentine make this one of the better episodes of this TZ run.

The title is clever, referring to a tom-cat of a man and a mousey young woman.  Unfortunately, it sets up an expectation for an episode of suspense and thrills.  This is not that, and that is not this.  But it works out.

Narrator:  “Andrea Moffit longs for true love.  A man who is strong, handsome, and exotic.”  Maybe she should have longed for a cinematographer.  The first shots are of her dressed in white and and a man dressed in white standing in a white room.  OK, you might say she is very shy and this is symbolic of her desire to blend into the background unnoticed.  But the guy is a pharmacist — they are so extroverted they insist on standing 6 inches over you in the store.  It’s just a poor choice.

Carl asks her out, but she shyly says she is busy that night.  Her friend Elaine tells her she can’t afford to be picky and that Carl is a good catch.  But Elaine is also downing a handful of pilfered downers (and justifiably so) at the time, so she might not be the best judge.

That night as Andrea is curled up with a book, a cat comes through her window.  She gives it a bowl of water, but it prefers to check her out while she is showering.  When she comes out of the bathroom, she is startled to see a man in a short white robe.  Well, not startled — she barely registers surprise.  She should have been screaming at the sight of this intruder in her home.  Or at least howling in laughter at his goofy short robe.

She grabs the phone and he says, “Call the police.  Tell them that you’ve seen a man turn into a cat.”  Then he turns into a cat before her eyes.  And, unfortunately, back into a man.  With a smarmy French accent, he criticizes her coffee, insults the people of Turkey, touts his love-making skillz and, most egregiously, says his name is Guillaume de Marchaux.

Caught banging a sultan’s wife centuries ago, he was cursed to be a man only at night.  He says, “It is not such a curse.  I have spent centuries loving women, showing women how to love.  Women like you.”  He offers to leave but warns her she will never know the pleasures that only he can make a woman feel.  That’s all it takes, and they make the love.

Day 1 at the pharmacy, she is full of glee and probably morning-after pills.  TV Step 1 to beauty:  she has let her hair down.  She rushes home after work to make out with Guillaume.

Day 2 at the pharmacy is TV Step 2 to beauty:  she has ditched her glasses.  Elaine tells Carl that nobody changes that much unless sex is involved.  After work, she brings him a cat collar, but he hisses at her.  Later, as a man, he condescendingly explains that during his transformation into a human, the small collar world have choked him to death.

That night, he is still lounging around in that absurd robe for the third day.  Andrea shows him a negligee that she bought.  He dismisses it, and throws her coffee in the fire, calling it sewage water.  He insists that she go get some of that serious gourmet shit immediately or he will leave forever.  Stupidly ignoring this opportunity to get rid of him, she obediently heads out to Starbucks . . . to get a Frappuccino for herself; then to Dunkin Donuts for some palatable coffee.

Elaine just can’t stand the thought of Andrea being happy.  She has twice said said she wanted to be a fly on the wall to see what caused the change in Andrea.  With that Frenchman sitting around 3 days in a robe, she will not be the only one.  She goes to Andrea’s house, and Guillaume nails her in 20 minutes, beating my record by 3 months.

Andrea is furious at Guillaume for literally less than 20 seconds.  When he says it is time for him to move on, she begs him to stay.  He says he is going to Elaine, but Andrea asks him to stay one more night.  He continues to insult her until the downers she slipped into his coffee knock him out.

He awakens the next day as a cat, in a cage, in a veterinarian’s office.  Andrea asks to have him fixed.  He hisses and tries to claw her.

This works so much better than it should.  It seemed like another insipid episode with a dreadful sickeningly-sweet score.  It stars the narrator from the mediocre The Hitchhiker series.  Some performances are over the top and others are too staid.  And yet . . .

I expected the worst from Page Fletcher.  Not only is he best known from a weak series, he wasn’t even an actor in it.  However, he was amazing here.  Being from Canada, I don’t whether his natural accent is quasi-French or quasi-American, but he created a perfect archetype here of the condescending, parasitic European guy.  He not only creates a believably repulsive character, but that in turn makes Andrea’s love for him maddening for the audience.  Bravo!

Similar to yesterday’s Outer Limits, the ending here rewrites the tone of the episode.  Yes, the score is indeed awful, but there is a winking nastiness to the finale that, in retrospect, makes it all feel like parody.^[1]  I wouldn’t want episodes like this every week from TZ, but this was well-done.

Footnotes:

• [1] You’re not supposed to think about this:  What is Andrea really doing?  She is the one who made most of the bad choices here.  Guillaume is the one who has been cursed for centuries.  He inarguably changed her life for the better.  And she is cutting his balls off.

An agrarian society on the other side of a mysterious portal which is being secretly researched by the military.  Night Visions knew what to do with that premise — an awesome episode entitled A View Through the Window.  Twilight Zone once again drops the ball to create a feel-good episode.  They don’t even get the title right.  The Wall?  How about The Gate, The Portal, The Doorway, The Window, Das Fenster?  It’s not about a freakin’ wall!

Major Alex McAndrews is escorted to an underground facility.  We know it is Top Secret because it uses facial recognition technology.  It is either very good or very bad because it allows John Beck without a moustache, and I have never seen him without a moustache.  Some people, you just expect to have hair on their upper lip, like John Beck, Tom Selleck, Joy Behar.

He meets with General Slater.  Not to get all Cinema Sins, but does it makes sense that he is wearing a 1st Cavalry Division patch?  I mean, I know they don’t still fight on horses, but how did their mission evolve into manning underground bunkers?  But it’s still a cool patch, so I’m deducting one sin.  Gnib.

Slater says two months ago, this facility was a particle physics lab, nothing unusual.  During a wormhole experiment, there was an explosion and they discovered this phenomenon.  They put on some welding goggles and Slater opens the vault door.  The awe-stricken McAndrews gasps. “My God!”, even though all he can really see is a bright light.  Slater says they brought in top scientists from all over the place — Cornell, NASA, JPL — but they are baffled by the quantum fluctuations, the gravitational anomalies, and talking to girls.

This gateway is being held open by equipment that somehow survived a blast that punched a hole into another dimension, but they don’t really know how it works.  Or how to turn it back on if someone spills coffee on it.  The military wants McAndrews to go through the gate and report on what is on the other side.  He is a former test-pilot, so they naturally figure he is the best guy to explore a subterranean hole in the ground.

He is not the first person to go through.  Slater shows him pictures of the people that have been sent through the gate and have not returned — a Mexican ( Emilio Perez), a Woman (Evelyn Marx), and an African-American (Henry Kincaid).  Draw your own conclusion there, I’m not touching it.  McAndrews has recently been given a desk job and his wife left him, so he volunteers to go in.

He is outfitted in a spacesuit and climbs through the gate.  He loses contact with the general within seconds and collapses.  He awakens in a wooded earth-like area, and finds one of his predecessor’s gloves.  He soon meets Captain Kincaid and a woman who appears to be Amish.  They take him into a farming community.  McAndrews asks, “What is this place?”  Kincaid answers, “Call it Heaven!” but I notice he’s stepping pretty gingerly through that cow pasture.

They meet with the other officers.  Lt. Perez is a navigational expert.  Again, the military decided this was the expertise needed by a guy going into a hole in the ground.  It worked out, though.  By studying the stars, he has determined that they are not on Earth or anywhere near it.

McAndrews figures out that Kincaid lied about them not being able to go back.  Kincaid admits it, saying that if they went back, the military would flood in and destroy this paradise.  I don’t disagree, but what the hell would they want there?  McAndrews, however, feels duty-bound to report his findings as ordered.  No wonder his wife left him.

McAndrews finds the gate and returns to the underground facility.  He reports that the other side is an agrarian society whose threat to national security is “nil”.  Of course, the military dweebs immediately begin planning an invasion.  McAndrews drops his major insignia on the floor (but only one, I notice) and walks back to the gate.

He destroys the equipment keeping the wormhole open, then jumps through.  I know he doesn’t want the military to follow, but this is all wrong.  First, how did he get back after first destroying the machine?  Second, this just sets up yet another TZ happy ending.  It would have made more sense dramatically for him to sacrifice himself to save the other society.  As is, we get a brief epilog to show that he made it back to this simple idyllic community for a happy life of polio, cholera, syphilis, and shitting in the woods.

Even though they Disneyed the ending, it was still a good episode.

Simon Foster comes home to his apartment which seems to consist of one hallway.  However, it looks futuristic and has a videophone.  He has a video message from the unemployment office telling him his benefits have run out.  Since the current unemployment rate is 33%, this is going to be a problem.  OMG, these soviet-style hives, the enormous poverty, what century is this dystopia?  Oh, 1999.  C’mon, TZ, only 10 years in the future?  I expect more confidence in America from Canadians.

Simon puts a few items in a box and takes it to a pawnshop.  We see him walking over a bridge with a train passing underneath.  Is this intended to illustrate that he must walk because he can’t afford a ticket?  It is a strangely out-of-place shot since it is only 6 seconds, and the only outside shot.  For some reason, it had an effect on me.  Maybe because the rest of the episode is all interiors, maybe because it subtly conveyed information about the character, maybe because it explained the decision to only go 10 years ahead (no budget for a fancy 21st century train).  Sometimes it is the most insignificant things that catch my eye.

Quint the pawnbroker looks through the items and offers only $50.  Simon says the watch alone is worth that and haggles Quint up to $65.  Quint has an idea how Simon can make more money and leads him through a door marked PRIVATE.  Luckily there are no gimp shenanigans back there. Quint has an illegal memory-dipping operation.  People in 1999 pay to have other people’s memories implanted in their brain.

Bravo to TZ for adding some texture to the process.  Unfortunately, Control-C / Control-V memories are less vivid, washed out.  To get good, sharp memories, you have to do Control-X, or even better Control-XXX.  Unable to find a way to tax the process, the government has made it illegal.  Simon admits he has not had an exciting life, but Quint says ordinary memories are valuable too; just mundane life events like a soap opera.  Sadly he is ineligible for the really big money as he has no evil twin.

There is another nice futuristic touch when Simon goes home.  He slides a card through a device to unlock his door.  Nice; but even better, this alerts his landlord ^[1] to get on a speaker and threaten him with eviction if he doesn’t pay his rent.  It takes so little to add a little something extra to a story, why is it so rare?  The final straw is when a cockroach falls into Simon’s bowl of soup.  His desperation is perfectly conveyed, and heightened due to the viewer’s visceral reaction to the bug.  More congratulations to TZ for finally showing some signs of life. ^[2]  I look forward to many fine episodes in the years to come.  Oh, only 8 episodes left.

Simon returns to Quint’s shop.  He sells the memory of his high school graduation where he received the aforementioned watch as a prize.  Wow, who wrote this, a writer?  Despite his regret, he returns to sell a birthday memory.  Then, he sells the memory of his first steps — this guy has some memory!  Then a trip to the circus, and his first date.

Now with plenty of cash, he gets a new suit and an opportunity for a new job.  Unfortunately, he blows the interview because he can’t remember his skillz and experience.  Then he sells his first sexual experience, although the second was probably longer and worth more.  He immediately regrets this loss and demands Quint restore the memory.

The ending is a little muddied because it isn’t clear whether it is a happy or sad one.  It doesn’t feel set up as a dilemma.  It feels more like they couldn’t decide which way to go, so just ran it up the middle.  Regardless, it is a big, clear premise, the casting is great, and there are some surprises in the script.  One of their better efforts.

Other Stuff:

• [1] When is the triggering word “landlord” going to be outlawed?  Really, calling back to a time when serfs couldn’t own land?  And mentioning the lord?  I feel very threatened.
• [2] Even more amazing as this episode is from the director of Ray Bradbury Theater’s dreadful Banshee.

Theoretical Biochemist Martin Decker is in the titular cell 2426 for “displaying anti-social behavior, wrong thinking, and other intellectual crimes against the state.  Diagnosis: Schizophrenia, curable only by intense therapy sessions, followed by a full confession.  Once cured, Martin will be released . . . or buried.”

I understand releasing him if he has been “cured” (i.e. he now mindlessly spouts the deep state’s talking points on all matters).  He would then serve as 1) a warning to others who might dare to think independently, 2) a proselytizer for the regime, 3) the new weekend host on MSNBC.  But if he was “cured”, why would burial be an option?

Decker is brought in and strapped to a chair.  Dr. Olstroff looks into his eyes and decides he needs another “treatment”.  He is zapped with electricity.  Olstroff says, “You could make things very simple by telling us where to find the notebooks.”  Apparently “What notebooks?” is not the desired response as Decker is jolted again.

Decker is afraid that, with a few modifications, the GMO plans in his notebook could be used to created a weapon of mass destruction.  Asked why he designed such a thing if he was afraid of it being used, he says, “I am a scientist.” He believes that ideas have an intrinsic value.  The old man agrees, “Value when used in service to the state.”

Decker thought his creation was a way to end famine and hunger, but nukes can already do that.  Oh, he was thinking of increasing the food supply, not decreasing the mouths?  I guess would work too.  He fears the state would just use it for biological warfare.

As if incarceration and torture weren’t enough, the state gives him a roommate.  The guards bring Josef in and give him a pretty painful looking shot to the melon.  Josef immediately begins talking of escape.  Decker reminds him of the stone walls, but Josef says he can go anywhere he likes “with his mind”.  So maybe that beat-down really did some damage.

As Josef is telling him about teleportation, a guard comes in and says, “The doctor will see you now.”  Great, the only doctor who doesn’t keep you waiting.  The doctor taps a syringe, and suddenly we see Decker and Josef sitting in a nice European cafe.  He can’t believe he’s there.  Josef says you just have to believe.  Hunh?  Decker just said he doesn’t believe.  More importantly, a European babe comes in and sits near them.

Anyhoo, it is just seconds later that Decker is back in the chair and getting a shock that must make him envy that lucky bastard Josef getting away with a mere concussion.  Decker later tells Josef he knows it was just a drug-induced dream because the girl had shaved her pits.  He is convinced that Josef’s teleportations are also just dreams, and tells him he doesn’t want to share in his insanity.

After another brutal beating, Decker eases off on that insanity talk.  Josef talks him through the teleportation process, and they both awaken in a safe-house.  Decker says he must understand how this was done.  He theorizes that it was “some kind of biochemical energy exchange.”  So like a theoretical biochemist!

Because Decker is too well-known to venture outside, Josef offers to retrieve the notebooks for him.  Decker writes down the location and Josef takes off.  Decker can’t resist looking out the window. He is stunned to see he has teleported not into a safe-house, but into a 1968 episode of Mission Impossible.  The street noises he heard are coming from speakers.^[1]  He has never left the prison.

The spy Josef and the Olstroff are watching him through a one-way mirror. ^[2]  With all the resolve and anger that Decker can emote — and being played by Dean Stockwell, that is just about zero — he vanishes before their eyes.  Olstroff tells Josef, “If he is not found, you will be held responsible” like he had any freakin’ idea that would happen.  Ya know, I think this guy just likes hurting people.  What a bad egg.

The last shot is of Decker tearing pages out of his notebook and tossing them into a fire, thus dooming millions of starving people to a life of misery.

As this series is wrapping up its third and final season, maybe they are starting to figure it out.  This was a great, atmospheric episode.  Even though it ultimately had another of the TZ happy endings that I am sick of, it established its willingness to go to dark places.

Good stuff.

Footnotes:

• [1] It is strange that, in contrast with the overall quality of the episode, this reveal is botched.  In the first, totally unnecessary sweeping shot, it isn’t even clear what we are seeing.  The second static shot makes it clear, and is entirely sufficient.  Was the episode running 1 second short?
• [2] Classic Wiki definition:  A one-way mirror, also called two-way mirror . . .