“It’s hard to believe that termites cost millions of dollars every year by their devastation of telephone and telegraph poles in the United States.  This is the central research laboratory of the Continental Telephone Company.  Scientists are employed by this firm to develop chemical preservatives for telephone poles in defense against woodpeckers, carpenter ants, and termites.”

Unless one of these termites is the size of a bus, this is shaping up to be dullest episode ev– hey, what is Truman Bradley doing in the story?  No, I guess they hired an actor who looks exactly like the series narrator, Truman Bradley.  Guess that’s going to happen occasionally when every part’s casting call is for “40 year old white guy.”

Bill Twining has come to the telephone company about a job.  Pat Hastings asks him what he was doing during the gaps on his resume.  He says, “Fishing.”  Dude, always say “Consulting”!  However, this seems to satisfy Pat’s rigorous screening process, so she hires him to join her working for Dr. Clausen, heir to the pickle fortune. ^[1]

Clausen tells him Pat’s father, Dr. Hastings, mans the termite research outpost in Peru.  He had asked for an electronics expert to be sent down.  The last “chemical shipment” that came from him was accompanied by moldy, unreadable notes.  Pat ran an analysis on the solution, assuming it was a new insecticide.

She produces a beaker of river clay and adds water.  When she adds the solution her father shipped to them, it causes “complete molecular dissociation!”  What this means to a layman is that clay was broken down into its elements; what means to a scientist is probably a hearty guffaw.  Not only has the clay broken down into 15% iron, 7% aluminum ^[2], and 20% silicon ^[3], the materials have sorted themselves out by atomic weight like a geologic pousse-café.

Clausen explains that this could revolutionize mining.  We could extract all the minerals we need from common dirt by mixing it with this solution.  Unfortunately, they don’t know what is in the solution.  Er, so exactly what kind of analysis did brainiac Pat do on it earlier?  Dr. Hastings has been incommunicado for 3 weeks, so Pat and Bill get a couple of pith helmets from the supply cabinet and head for Peru.

They arrive at the outpost, which is a tent in the jungle.  They immediately find the generator has been stripped for parts.  Pat, quite the detective, notices that Dr. Hastings had not changed the calendar in 22 days; but maybe he just had the hots for Miss October. ^[4]  Not only that, she knows her father had 3 pairs of glasses and all 3 are there in the tent.

Bill repairs the radio.  Radio Lima confirms that Dr. Hastings did not go there for supplies or to renew his Playboy subscription.  Pat wonders if an animal could have carried him off.  Bill assures her there was no sign of a struggle.  “What about a giant anaconda?” she asks.  He says there’s no time for such shenanigans.  Bill says he will beat the bushes, and then search the area for Dr. Hastings.  He suggests Pat search the tent for clues about her father’s research, and maybe do a little vacuuming.

Bill returns, having not found Dr. Hastings.  Pat’s search turned up a coil that produces a high-frequency field but, to be fair, she had a much smaller area to search.  They take Dr. Harding’s equipment outside.  Bill uses the coil to detect electronic activity in the area.  He is such a brainiac that he is able to triangulate the location with just two bearings.  The signal is coming from 50 feet inside a nearby hill.

On top of the hill, they find a crevice which leads to a crevasse.  There is a ladder which leads down to a cave where Dr. Harding has more equipment and Playboy calendars.  They spot two viewing devices.  The viewers provide a magnified look into an ant colony, but housing termites.  So I guess you’d call it an ant-colony-except-with-termites.  Pat says they are just about the most ancient species of life.  Dr. Hastings’ discovery was a species of termite that secretes the solution he shipped back to the lab.

They notice a tunnel that was not in Dr. Hastings’ notes and conclude that the termites swarmed the area to create it.  Pat grimaces as she realizes her father was “eaten alive by termites.”  Bill says, “It must have happened while he was asleep”  (i.e. he was sleeping like a log).  He further concludes the termites were attracted by the Doctor’s morning wood from dreaming about Bettie Page, but is too much of a gentleman to say so.

Pat continues her father’s research, but the termites begin to swarm again.  She and Bill flee the cave.  It collapses, but Pat is happy that her father will be remembered in scientific journals for the discovery of this new solution, and in Ripley’s for being eaten alive by termites.

The synthesized solution will revolutionize mining and mineral extraction — increasing production, lowering cost, and making melodramatic movies about trapped miners a thing of the past.  At least until the inevitable spill destroys the planet like Ice-Nine, leading to the inevitable New York Times headline: TRUMP DESTROYS EARTH.

Meh.  The shots of the termites were probably cool for kids in the ’50s.  Not so much for their parents who didn’t sleep a wink and called the exterminator the next day.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] Ach du lieber!  Pickles have their own web-page!  I feel a little better about the digital real estate I’m squandering.
• ^[2] What, no bauxite?  Finally, my geology class pays off!
• ^[3] Where did they get this “clay” from, a freakin’ meteorite?  And we’re light on the composition, too.  Maybe the other 58% was Pyrex, because that beaker didn’t go anywhere.
• ^[4] This theory is implausible because any guy alone in the jungle in 1955 would still have his calendar showing January:  Bettie Page!

“Middleton College in New York State is a respected institution of learning.  Professor Alex Bondar, teacher and authority in parapsychology, is about to give a demonstration . . .”

Well, which is it?  Are they respected, or do they have a department of para-psychology?  It can’t be both.  Dr. Bondar is about to give a demonstration of hypnosis.  He has determined that elderly Mrs. Canby can be put under by shooting sound waves through her head at 14,000 cycles per second.

In a few seconds the old woman’s face relaxes and her eyes shut.  The overly-optimistic Bondar does not check her pulse, but rather asks, “Mrs. Canby, do you know me?”  He tells his students that not only is she not asleep, but some are her senses are more acute than when she is awake.  He drapes a handkerchief in front of her face, and has a student hold an open book behind it.  She astounds the class by being able to read the text, although she mistakes a booger for a comma.

Bondar explains this feat by saying that under hypnosis, her mind might be more sensitive to infra-red rays.  Hunh?  He says he has also seen Mrs. Canby describe things that were far out of sight where infra-red rays wouldn’t explain it.  He awakens her by counting slowly from 10 down to 1.  And I mean he takes his bloody time and doesn’t miss a digit.

It is also a countdown of a different sort as Bondar has a bombshell announcement.  A college administrator has actually pulled his head out of his ass for once and canceled the parapsychology program, judgmentally calling it “nonsense.”  Bondar is leaving the College, and not by no astral projection, either.

He gets a call from the police that his colleague Dr. Bernhardt Mannheim, driving in from Montreal for a parapsychology lecture, has been missing for 2 days.  Bondar describes him as about 70, small, frail, with white hair, and having a goatee; so indistinguishable from every other German scientist on TV.

Back at home, Julie Bondar is saddened by the loss of her husband’s cushy job.  She suggests that maybe if he had concentrated less on the para- and more on the -psychology, he might still have the gig.  He says she was never supportive and considers his work “the foolish fumblings of the family idiot!”  Sing it, sister!

That night, the Bondars go to Dean Henry Stark’s house for tea and begging.  He implores Bondar to admit that his work is just a lot of hooey.  The Dean says, “Science explains what actually happens.  You’re trying to explain what has never happened.”  Right on, brother!

While there, the police call with an update on Mannheim.  Stark mentions that he had tried to hire Mannheim for the faculty.  But wait, why would he make an offer to a parapsychologist when he was shutting down the department and considered it nonsense?  Anyhoo, Mannheim used his credit card to buy gas about 200 miles from them, but then just vanished.  Stark has a brilliant idea — are we sure this guy is the Dean? — why doesn’t Bondar use telepathy or clairvoyance to find Mannheim?

Bondar is uncomfortable having his crazy beliefs put to the test like, you know, science.  He argues that such skills can’t be turned on and off like a water tap.  The Dean, quite appropriately, accuses him of not really believing in this stuff himself.  Bondar says that psychics usually have a possession of the victim to work with, like an article of clothing.  Whew, guess we can’t test my beliefs, nosiree!  His wife helpfully reminds him that he has a letter from Mannheim, and Bondar almost does a homina homina.

Bondar agrees to haul Mrs. Canby in at 10 am the next morning to try to locate Mannheim.  Julie is suddenly on team Bondar again and doesn’t want him to go through with it.  She fears the Dean will make a fool of him, and reminds him that Mannheim warned him he was throwing his life away.  Again, wait — this is the same Mannheim who was driving down for the parapsychology lecture, right?

In the classroom, Bondar fires up the parabolic dish pointed at Mrs. Canby’s grey noggin again.  To Stark’s delight, this time the sound waves just hurt her ears; especially the good one.  Heyyyoooo!  They fall back on a method that had also worked with her — a metronome.  Honestly, this is a great piece of business because the silence broken only by the perfectly regular clacks is indeed hypnotic; so much so, I wonder why I can’t recall ever seeing it used again on TV or in movies.  The camera slowly pushes in alternately on the metronome, then Mrs. Canby’s face in a series of shots that is — dare I say — worthy of Hitchcock.  Was SFT fooling around with the antibiotic fungus from two weeks ago?

That does not work either, so Bondar tries using light as a stimulus.  Maybe they were still using the fungus, because he shines a spot in Mrs. Canby’s eye, then shines it in Julie’s for no reason I can figure.  Trying to put Mrs. Canby under, Bondar counts slowly from 1 to 29.  Think of that — on network TV, they had a scene where absolutely nothing happened except a dude counted slowly for 30 seconds.  Maybe that earlier 10 second countdown tested well.  Mrs. Canby freaks out at the pressure they put on her and is taken away.

The camera pans over to Julie who has not moved an inch.  She seems to be in a trance as she walks to her husband. ^[1]  She is not feeling well and asks him to drive her home; and to use the Stone Mountain route so she can get some fresh air, and maybe a Pecan Log Roll.  Julie tells her husband to stop at a certain point, then tells him to go down the hill and look around.  At the bottom of a steep hill, he sees Mannheim’s car where it crashed 3 days ago.  Bondar’s paranormal beliefs are vindicated because Julie’s clairvoyant vision made her stop them at this specific place; or it might have been all the flies.

Like Tales of Tomorrow, you really have to grade this series on a curve.  Objectively, the episode is awful.  However, considering the budget, the times, and compared to the rest of the series, parts of the episode are just a masterpiece.  The metronome, the editing, the counting, the shot compositions . . . there was just a lot to like here.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] OK, it is a great idea that Julie was caught in stray light that was intended for Mrs. Canby.  But it’s not like she was right behind Canby.  Bondar really had to swing that light around to get it in Julie’s eye, and do it more than once.  It would have been so easy to just line them up so Canby caught the light on the left side of her face and Julie behind her caught it on her right side.
• Major kudos to the director Eddie Davis.  He has a ton of credits, but nothing that indicates an auteur.  Maybe I should rewatch his earlier SFT effort, The Strange People at Pecos.
• BTW, IMDb has his age at 115.  Maybe they need a — dare I say — Dead Man’s Switch.  At some point, ya just know you missed an email.

In which Truman Bradley demonstrates an explosive test tube without proper eye-wear. ^[1]

“This is the setting of our story . . . the blazing inferno of heat-drenched emptiness unfit for the meanest of God’s creatures.”  

Surprisingly, the narrator is not talking about South Florida, but of Death Valley.  Crazy desert rat Charlie is driving David Brooks out to the ol’ Dunlap place.  Charlie says that Dunlap died a week ago, so in this heat, he should be pretty easy to find.  This surprises Brooks who received a telegram from him two days ago.

When they get to the Dunlap ranch, Norman Conway drives up.  He chews Charlie out and says he intended to pick David up at the airport himself, but will make it up by helping him with those gutters.  He nastily tells Charlie to beat it, then explains that he was Dunlap’s closest neighbor and best friend.  They go inside to see Dunlap’s widow, The Widow Dunlap.

They confirm that Mr. Dunlap was killed in an explosion of one of his experiments.  Sheila admits that she sent that telegram to David, but signed John’s name to get him here as soon as possible.  He is not happy at the deception and plans to catch the next flight out. Sheila entices him to stay by offering $25,000 for two weeks work, but he declines.  C’mon, that is $230,000 in 2018 dollars!

He doesn’t care for her because John had told him months ago that she had left him.  Sheila admits she fled to New York when his grant money started running low.  In her defense, she says she came back a week later.  She pawned everything she had to get them $3,000 to further fund his research.  OK, so where is this $25,000 coming from?  What else was she pawning in New York?

To further complicate things, it is revealed that David and Sheila were a couple ten years ago.  She admits that she left David for John because he made more money.  Wait a minute, John was working on his crazy experiments and would have come close to bankruptcy without Sheila’s help.  How was he making more than David?  Al-Qaeda’s money isn’t this hard to follow.

Sheila and Norman convince David to at least stay for dinner and consider their offer.  Norman asks David what the world would be like if water could be created in all the deserts of the world.  That was John Dunlaps’s dream.  He wants David to follow John’s work all the  way to the patent office.  Sheila says she sold Norman a 50% stake for him to further fund the research.  They offer David 10% but he still isn’t interested.

As David prepares to leave, Sheila shows him John’s research.  After glancing at the notes, he agrees to stay a little while.  The next morning, David asks Norman to drive him to the sight where John exploded.  He finds no evidence of an explosion at the site.  David later tells Sheila he thinks John was murdered.

David learns from the sheriff that Norman bought some dynamite shortly before John blew up, and has the ACME receipts to prove it.  BTW, I guess in an atypical effort to give a character a little depth, they have the sheriff 1) have his shirt unbuttoned a little too far, 2) wear his holster and sagging gun-belt while sitting at his desk, 3) chase a fly around the office with a swatter, and 4) have a pre-#MeToo girly calendar in his office.

David accuses Norman of killing John in order to have the money and Sheila for himself.  Although, in my opinion, it was mostly the cash.  Norman pulls a gun on them.  Sheila does some fast thinking and throws acid in Norman’s eyes.  They escape to the desert; and by escape, I mean run to certain death. Norman wipes the acid from his eyes and pursues them.

David flees the house empty-handed, but somehow in the desert he suddenly has a canteen.  It doesn’t help much, though.  Within seconds, they are dehydrated and near death.  They see a mud-hole where apparently John had successfully performed one of his tests.  They use their last strength to run to it and . . . well, not so much drink it as splash it on their face.  Like Dr. Chomsky from last week’s Nightmare, they seem to think water can be absorbed through the cheeks.  Hearing Norman’s jeep, they run for cover.

They are not hidden for long.  Even before Norman spots them, David gives away their position by reflecting the sun off the canteen and into Norman’s eyes.  Blinded, Norman tries to shoot them anyway, but misses.  He then reloads his double-barreled shotgun, which is strange, because he only shot once.  In a fiasco of staging and editing, David rushes Norman from the front, but somehow manages to clock him on the noggin from behind with the canteen.  Wow, that canteen can do everything!  Now if they only had some means of storing water.

Even on the SFT curve, a meh episode.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] He does demonstrate the paradox that water is the only element that expands when it is either heated or cooled.  Who designed this crazy system?

The phone rings at the US Weather Bureau Hurricane Warning Center.  Jim Tyler picks it up and a few seconds later says, “US Weather Bureau . . . yes, mam.  Fair today and Thursday.  No change in temperature.  Moderate southwest winds.”  Really, people are calling the US Weather Bureau to get the weather report?

Dr. Bronson is heading out to have dinner with Dr. Fredericks.  Tyler tells him to say hello from his old student “Hurricane” Tyler.  He says Dr. Fredericks gave him the nickname “because I used to be fascinated by hurricanes.”  Used to be?  Working in the Miami branch of the US Weather Bureau, I hope he still has a passing interest.

Tyler’s wife Julie and son Bobby come by the office.  Bobby is in a scout uniform and excited about his camping trip that night.  Tyler says it is a good night for it and gives Bobby a compass and a dollar.  Just after they leave, a crazy report comes across the teletype.  A freak hurricane has appeared out of nowhere with winds of 200 MPH.  Colonel Stewart calls in from the Air Force Base to confirm this.  Tyler is astounded.  “200 MPH!  Are you sure, Colonel?  There must be some kind of mistake.  I’ve never heard of a rotary speed that high.  The record is only close to 90!”  Wait, what?  It has to be 74 MPH to even be classified as a hurricane.  Did hurricanes only get up to 90 MPH in the 1950s?  Have they gotten that much worse?  Was Al Gore right?

Tyler calls home to tell Julie to keep Bobby at home.  He is in a danger that could traumatize him for life, and that’s just from the Scoutmaster.  Bobby has already left, though, so Julie tries to call some of the kids not yet picked up.  Meanwhile, Dr. Bronson and Dr. Fredericks come back to the office.  A new teletype message from a navy ship reports that there was a huge explosion just before the hurricane formed.  Fredericks suggests that a submarine be dispatched to the hurricane to take some water samples.

After being stationary, the hurricane finally starts to move toward Miami with speeds now up to 250 MPH.  Fredericks says, “Being out in a hurricane like this can be certain death.”  Kudos for the unintentional laugh as they whip-pan over to Julie who gasps, “Certain death?”  She pleads with Jim, “We’ve got to find those boys!”

There is not a lot of story in the rest of the episode, but there is a lot of fabulous stock footage.  We get to see Air Force planes fly into the hurricane, waves crashing, warning flags going up, rainy gusts blowing down deserted streets, switchboard operators trying to keep up.  Soon it is uneventfully over.

Julie and Tyler are still worried about Bobby, but he comes bounding in and they are happily reunited.  Drs. Bronson & Fredericks smile and clink their coffee mugs together in congratulations like they had something to do with his safety.  Kind of like when the FBI was high-fiving each other and saying “We’re #1!” when they caught the Unabomber . . . after 20 years . . . when his brother turned him in.  Good job, fellas.

Bobby says, being a scout, he was prepared.  The scoutmaster took the boys into a cave to safely ride out the storm.  In a good series, he would have credited the compass for saving them; but I probably would have complained about that too.  To their credit, they did surprise me by explaining the explosion that created the hurricane.  It was a meteorite.  Does that sense?  I don’t know.

For what it was, I can imagine this being pretty entertaining to a kid 60 years ago.

Other Stuff:

• Margaret Field as Julie . . . ha-cha-cha!

We open on a cleaning woman cleaning, and the announcer announcing, ” . . . and a vacuum cleaner screamed its defiance at the usual quiet.”  The woman is pretty defiant also, screaming at the tenants over the noise, “I know it’s noisy!  Ain’t my fault the noise bothers you!  I can’t help it if you got sensitive ears!”  Then she just scream-screams as a man runs into frame and strangles her.  Thus far, he is the hero of tonight’s episode.

One of the neighbors recognizes the man as Dr. Finch, and the police haul him in.  He protests, “I am a man of science.  I have never inflicted pain on a single human being.”  C’mon, WWII was just ten years ago.  He claims he can’t even remember where he was that day.

Finch’s niece Nan takes his arrest pretty hard.  She and Finch’s associate Dr. Seward go to see the Governor rather then, say, an attorney.  The Gov has the facts, though.  He lists off the evidence: Finch was spotted at the crime-scene, the victim’s skin was under his fingernails, a hair on his coat came from the victim, particles of dust and carpet fibers were found on his clothes, and he was positively identified by an eye-witness.  The Governor’s case is undermined, however, by the ridiculous circular tuft of hair sticking out of the side of his head.

Seward argues that Finch’s record of service to medicine should get him a break.  Not only that, he implores the Gov to just think of the millions who will benefit from his future research.  However, Seward doesn’t offer up any new hard evidence or campaign contributions so the Gov leaves Finch on death row.

Seward assumes Finch’s position at the lab.  Nan is none too thrilled with this.  She barges into his office and says, “Why, your best couldn’t possibly equal the least of my uncle’s abilities!  You’re a fool if you think you can replace Albert Finch!”  She further accuses him of taking credit for her uncle’s research and storms out of his office.  Strangely, she was fine with it earlier that day.  You don’t often find such irrational behavior in fictional women.

Seward goes to check on their new scientist, Dr. Clements.  Seward tells him he doesn’t think they could have found a better person for the job. ^[1]  He also conveys Nan’s pleasure that he was carrying on her uncle’s work.  Clements seems surprised by this news.

At the end of the day, Seward offers to take Nan home.  They hear a ruckus in the lab.  Clements has gone nuts and attacked a subordinate.  When Seward intervenes, Clements threatens to kill him.  After a mild defense, Clements runs out.  Seward is baffled by this.  “What’s the meaning of this?  Resentment one minute, a cheerful greeting the next.  And now this.”  He looks at Nan and says, “What about you?”  He confronts her about her earlier hostility, but she remembers none of it.  She suggests he’s the one who been acting strangely.  Yet, the sap still drives her home.

Back at Nan’s place, her son Kenny is mad at her.  While Nan is cooking dinner for them, Seward notices a bruise on Kenny’s arm.  Nan walks in and asks, “Who did this?”  Kenny says, “You know!  You did it!  You know you did it!”

The next day, after what must have been an awkward dinner, Seward goes to see Dr. Upton, a psychiatrist.  He needs Upton’s expertise to determine the effects of a fungus they have been developing as an antibiotic.  It is supposed to be more effective than penicillin.  What is it with fungus and infections?

With just hours until Finch goes to the gas chamber, Seward decides to test the fungus on himself.  Upton ties him to a chair and injects him with it.  After an hour, his heartbeat accelerates 10 BPM, his pupils dilate, and he begins to perspire.  So either the fungus was having an effect, or he kind of digs this bondage.

An hour later, he becomes psychotic.  After another hour, he begins to have visions.  Finally after four hours, he violently thrashes about trying to escape from his restraints so he can kill Upton.

Seward and Nan visit the Governor again to explain that he had proven that Finch had acted under the influence of the fungus.  Since they have compelling new evidence and witnesses, he calls the warden to stop Finch’s execution.

The announcer assures us this was a fictional story, however . . .

“The discovery of a similar fungus derivative that can produce experimental psychoses for study in the laboratory is fact!  The drug, known as LSD, has enabled science to relate mental illness to the chemistry of the body for the first time.”

Wow, I wonder if this was the first mention of LSD on TV?  I see it actually was available by prescription starting in 1947.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1]  OK, he says man, not person.