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[December 19, 1963] Veiled Secrets (The Outer Limits, Season 1, Episodes 9-12)

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by Natalie Devitt

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It seems that during this past month of The Outer Limits almost everyone has a secret. Whether it’s aliens plotting to take over the world, prisoners of war resisting their interrogators, a research facility with a monster hidden away in the back of a laboratory, or phony mediums pretending to make contact with the dead; everyone is going to great lengths to hide something…

Corpus Earthling, by Orin Borsten

Robert Culp returns to The Outer Limits. This time for Corpus Earthling, which is adapted from Louis Charbonneau’s novel by the same name. Corpus Earthling is not quite as strong of a story as Culp’s last outing on the series, The Architects of Fear, but it is not without its charm. Corpus Earthling is the story of Doctor Cameron, portrayed by Culp, who while working in the lab one day, overhears two aliens plotting to take over the world. According to the show’s narrator, these extraterrestrials are posing as "two black crystalline rocks: unclassifiable. Objects on the border between the living and the nonliving."

If this sounds silly, bear with me. Despite rocks not actually being able to speak, there is reason to believe that Cameron’s ability to hear the rocks communicating may be the result of a plate that was implanted in his head. Or could it just simply be him imagining things because of the injury that led him to get the plate in the first place? Worried that he may be losing his grip on reality, Cameron and his wife, wonderfully played by Angel Baby actress Salome Jens, decide to take the honeymoon that they had been postponing. The couple take off to Tijuana, unaware that the rocks have already possessed the body of Cameron’s colleague, Doctor Temple, played by television actor Barry Atwater. Temple follows Cameron and his wife all the way to Mexico, vowing to catch Cameron at any cost.

The last time rocks from outer space seemed this threatening was the 1957 film, The Monolith Monsters. Like The Monolith Monsters, Corpus Earthling is probably not for everyone, but that’s okay. Both are perfectly enjoyable to me. The rocks at the center of this story resemble two Jell-O molds that jiggle every time they communicate with one another. They also morph into other shapes that at times are no more scary than the title creature from William Castle’s The Tingler before eventually controlling Doctor Temple’s body. Once the alien rocks take over Doctor Temple‘s body, the episode improves dramatically. Temple becomes cold and emotionless. He speaks with a strange echo. Additionally, Temple ages rapidly and looks like a ghoul from Carnival of Souls.

Cinematographer Conrad Hall did a terrific job with this episode. Corpus Earthling uses shadows to create a dark atmosphere, and as a result the episode feels like a horror movie. The viewer knows Doctor Temple is stalking them and could be lurking in the shadows at any moment, and whatever the viewer does not see, they can fill in with their imagination. I am sure some may find the whole alien possession thing a little too much like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but I personally think Corpus Earthling is just creepy good fun. It may even be the show’s spookiest episode yet. All of this is reason enough for me to give it three and a half stars.

Nightmare, by Joseph Stefano

The aptly titled Nightmare follows a group of soldiers who board a rocket from Earth to the planet of Ebon. Ebon is according to the show’s narrator a " black question mark at the end of a dark foreboding journey.” When the men reach Ebon, they are taken as prisoners of war. The soldiers are told that they have no hope to escape and they are forced to undergo interrogations, which the inhabitants of Ebon or the Ebonites as they are called, refer to as "exploratory interviews.” In addition to the interrogations, the Ebonites can control any one of a person’s five senses. The Ebonites use this ability, along with a mind altering substance, in order to get information from the soldiers. Not surprisingly, that information comes at a pretty steep price.

The set design for Nightmare could not be more minimal. The cold and sterile appearance of the set is a perfect fit for the story. Instead of filling up the space visually, the episode focuses on outstanding acting from a terrific group of actors, a well-written script, and a musical score that could not be more appropriate. While the entire cast for Nightmare is top-notch, it is Jim Shigeta’s performance that really stands out. A pretty intense episode is made even more terrifying by the makeup and costumes worn by the actors playing the Ebonites, with their wings and very pronounced brow ridges.

Overall, this is a great episode that captures what happens to men when they are put under extreme stress. Recent events delayed this episode’s airing, but it was definitely worth the wait. It receives five stars.

It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, by Joseph Stefano

In It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, an accident at a center for energy research called NORCO results in the creation of a large cloud of energy. According to the law of the conservation of energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Since the researchers cannot destroy the cloud, and also so they can study it, it is kept hidden in a room in the back of a lab that is often referred to as "the pit.” Unaware of NORCO’s secret, Michael Forest stars as Stuart Peters, who relocates to California with his younger brother Jory, played by Scott Marlowe, intending to join NORCO’s team of researchers. Before his first day on the job, Peters and his brother decide to sneak a peek at NORCO, so they get in the car and drive by the property. When the men pull their car up to the gate, they are told by a guard to "look fast, but nobody is allowed to hang around here.” Unbeknownst to them at the time, the guard scribbles a note on the inside of a book of matches which he hands to one of the brothers, saying "Don’t come back. NORCO doomed.”

The next day after reading the note, Stuart mentions it to his boss at NORCO. Behind his back, Stuart’s boss gives instructions for Stuart to be lured into the pit, where Stuart is drained by the creature of his energy and passes away on the spot. Jory is never notified of his brother‘s death. Days later, a reanimated Stuart shows up at the apartment, but this time he is wearing what appears to be a pacemaker, even though he never had a history of heart problems. He and Jory get into an altercation, which results in Stuart falling into a bathtub filled with water. The water destroys the pacemaker and kills Stuart once and for all. A gentleman by the name of Sergeant Siroleo, portrayed by Edward Asner, is assigned to investigate Stuart’s death, and what he uncovers has to be seen to be believed.

We are only on the eleventh episode of The Outer Limits and we already have another being that relies on energy. You may recall a similar monster in The Man with the Power. The creature in It Crawled Out of the Woodwork is unique in the fact that it is not the usual man in a costume with special effects makeup and prosthetics on his face. Aside from its somewhat disappointing first appearance, the monster is created using mostly special effects, which is a welcome change of pace (though I have grown so fond of the usual man in a suit).

Like most previous episodes, It Crawled Out of the Woodwork benefits from having a great cast of actors that feed off of each other and help to make an otherwise decent story good. I give It Crawled Out of the Woodwork three stars.

The Borderland, by Leslie Stevens

British actor Barry Jones stars in The Borderland as Dwight Hartley, a man desperate to make contact with his dead son, Dion. Mr. Hartley enlists the help of a medium by the name of Mrs. Palmer, played by theatre and film actress Gladys Cooper. Those not familiar with the character actress would probably recognize her from The Twilight Zone’s Nothing in the Dark and Passage on the Lady Anne. Mrs. Palmer arranges a séance and claims to have success communicating Mr. Hartley’s son, until two scientists who happen to be at the séance, Ian and Eva, expose Mrs. Palmer as the scam artist that she is.

Later, Ian explains to Mr. Hartley that he and Eva are working on an experiment that they hypothesize will help them to go beyond The Borderland to cross over to the fourth dimension. Also, that all they need is access to a larger magnetic field and a more powerful power source. Eager to repay Ian and Eva for helping him with Mrs. Palmer, Mr. Hartley offers to fund their project under the condition that it can be used to try to make contact with Dion. The only problem is Mrs. Palmer has secretly devised a plan to ruin the experiment.

Despite a somewhat interesting premise, great actors and being incredibly well-shot, The Borderland failed to really entertain or move me. A story about a man wanting to reconnect with his dead son has the potential to bring tears to a person’s eyes, but none of the characters were really developed enough for me to care about them. The scenes involving Mrs. Palmer trying to sabotage the experiment were pretty silly and seemed very out of place with the rest of the story. I have no choice but to give two stars for what was easily the least enjoyable episode this past month.

The mysteries of The Outer Limits continue to keep me under the show’s spell. The Borderland was the only real letdown in an otherwise almost consistently good month.



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[November 29, 1963] An old doll's new tricks (Twilight Zone, Season 5, Episodes 5-8)

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by Natalie Devitt

The latest season of The Twilight Zone is back in full swing, complete with great storytelling and acting that still outshines most other shows on the air. For those of you who may not be staying up every Friday night to catch The Twlilight Zone, allow me to bring you up to speed.

The Last Night of a Jockey, by Rod Serling

In The Last Night of a Jockey, Mickey Rooney plays Michael Grady, a man who has based his self worth on his success as a jockey. When he is suspended from racing after being accused of race fixing, he isolates himself in his tiny apartment. All alone, he dwells on his fears that his career is over. After having devoted to his life to the race track, he worries that he will be left with few career opportunities, except perhaps as a driver to a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park.

Grady is small in stature, and this experience leaves Grady feeling even smaller, so he wishes one night to be taller. The next morning, he wakes up to find his feet hanging over his bed. He looks in the mirror and sees how he towers over everything in his studio apartment. Initially pleased with his sudden growth spurt, he declares, “I’m big, honey, you understand that? I’m b-i-g.” As the story progresses, he begins to realize that everything in life is a trade-off.

The Last Night of a Jockey feels like a bit like a chamber play. It all takes place in one room. Rooney is the only actor who is ever shown on screen, so Grady reveals information about himself and his feelings by either speaking to himself or through phone conversations, where the other characters are never present. The episode is only a half an hour, but even that felt a little too long because The Last Night of a Jockey does not have much going on visually. It could have used a little more emphasis on the lighting or maybe different camera angles to make it look less flat. The script relies almost too much on dialogue, which I hate to say because I like dialogue driven stories, but it can be difficult to do effectively when the other person’s reactions are never shown. In addition, The Last Night of a Jockey suffers from being one of the less effective The Twilight Zone entries with the message “be careful what you wish for.”

Having said that, Rooney really shows his dramatic range as Grady. His role in The Last Night of a Jockey stands in stark contrast to his breakout performance as Andy Hardy in all of MGM’s Hardy films. The Last Night of a Jockey receives two and a half stars from me, which is entirely for Mickey Rooney’s performance.

Living Doll, by Charles Beaumont

Living Doll tells the story of Talky Tina, a doll that, you guessed it, talks. Tina has recently found a new home with a little girl named Christie. Christie lives with her mother, played by Bye Bye Birdie’s Mary Laroche and stepfather, portrayed by Birdman of Alcatraz’s Telly Savalas. She and her stepfather, Erich, have struggled to build a relationship with one another. When Christie, played by little Tracy Stratford, first receives Tina, the doll seems like any wind-up toy, telling her, “I love you very much.” However, when Christie’s stepfather is alone with the doll, he soon realizes through a series of not so subtle hints that Tina is no ordinary doll. The first of which is her telling him, “My name is Talky Tina and I don’t think I like you.” Shortly after that, the doll winks at him. Testing the doll, he lights a match in its face and threatens to hurt to hurt her, only for Tina to react with, “Not really, but I could hurt you.”

Erich grows more and more suspicious each time he sees the doll. At one point, he theorizes that his wife has installed a walkie-talkie in the doll as some sort of prank, but he soon finds holes in that theory. Things continue to escalate. Fed up, Erich throws the doll in the trash. Thinking he is finally free from Tina, he receives a phone call with what sounds like Tina on the other end, now threatening, “My name is Talky Tina and I am going to kill you.” Startled by this, Erich checks on his stepdaughter in her bedroom, where he finds Tina next to Christie in bed. Things erupt into an all out war as he confronts Tina, but can he defeat a seemingly indestructible doll?

Living Doll is interesting because it can be looked from different angles. Is the doll’s behavior a reflection of Christie’s feelings towards her stepfather or rather or a reflection of Erich’s own insecurities? The story never really answers all of my questions, which I think makes the episode all the more frightening. Dolls, especially porcelain ones, can be scary, perhaps due to their incredibly life-like appearance. The episode certainly brings to mind Michael Redgrave’s living dummy in Dead of Night, and I would imagine that The Twilight Zone fans would probably be reminded of The Dummy.

The already strong story is topped off by very believable performances by all of the actors involved. Living Doll is easily one of the strongest episodes of the season, which is why I rate it at four stars.

The Old Man in the Cave, by Rod Serling

It is the year 1974, ten years since a nuclear war. One group of people who have survived it have had difficulty finding a reliable food source. When they finally do find some canned goods, conflict arises. Is it worth the risk to eat food that could have been exposed to radiation? To settle things, they look to the title character: the old man in the cave, a mysterious entity. The men and women in the group never see him, but he always gives reliable advice. His track record is so good that when word returns that the food is not safe, the people decide not to take a gamble on the possibly contaminated food.

Not long after, some soldiers, led by The Magnificent Seven’s James Coburn, arrive in town. Coburn plays the role of Major French. French and his men claim to know of other survivors, but he may not be completely trustworthy and could just be after the cans of food. Nevertheless, this sows the seeds of doubt and leads some folks in the town to question the old man’s words.

The Old Man in the Cave seems like it could be about anything — from religion to politics to technology. In addition, it could easily be about hardwired human behavior. In fact, the episode lends itself to so many different interpretations, which is what I think makes it an interesting watch. The work of actors like James Coburn and John Anderson do not hurt, either. While The Old Man in the Cave is not as strong as other The Twilight Zone tales that have taken place in a post-apocalyptic world, such as Time Enough at Last, it certainly is a worthy entry to the series. I happily give it three stars.

Uncle Simon, by Rod Serling

How much can a person take? This question never left my mind while watching Uncle Simon, an episode directed by Don Siegel, director of 1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Television actress Constance Ford stars as Barbara, a woman who has devoted her life to caring for her cruel elderly uncle Simon, perfectly cast as theater and film actor Cedric Hardwicke. Each day Barbara endures insult after insult from her uncle. It may one day pay off when Simon passes away and she inherits his fortune, but is it worth the days she spends dutifully by his side at every beck and call until that day comes? When Simon is not busy looking for any reason to put Barbara down, he spends his time in the basement, working on an invention that he goes to great lengths to keep secret from Barbara.

One day Barbara decides that she is going to find out exactly her uncle is working on down in the basement, but he catches her breaking into his lab, which results in an altercation. Simon falls and Barbara allows him to die as a result of his injuries. After he passes away, Barbara is not really free from her uncle after all. In fact, the terms of his will state that she must care for his secret invention, which Barbara comes to find out is a robot, in order to inherit his estate. Simon has figured out a way to keep her trapped, even in death.

Uncle Simon is pretty depressing and difficult to watch. It’s easy to say Barbara should leave, but I am willing to bet most of us have had situations in life that where we tolerate things for much longer than we should, which is part of what makes this story so depressing. Simon certainly has a lot of memorable one-liners, some of which are quite good while others are a tad silly.

On the bright side, Uncle Simon does have Robby the Robot. I must add that while I sometimes complain that The Twilight Zone reuses too many things from Forbidden Planet and I know I sometimes fail to take into account the budget for television, the robot designed by Robert Kinoshita was very welcome, and certainly made a dark episode a little brighter. While not bad, Uncle Simon is a bit draining emotionally. Maybe that shows its effectiveness. I could just be the tone of this entry that I find so off-putting. In any case, I am going to have to I give it two stars.

All in all, The Twilight Zone continues to move along, with stories that still intrigue and challenge its audience. Living Doll and The Old Man in the Cave are certainly great examples. I must say that I look forward to the episodes that are still forthcoming.




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[November 15, 1963] A Sign of Things to Come? (The Outer Limits, Episodes 5-8)

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by Natalie Devitt

Last month I questioned whether it was worth the average person’s time to watch The Outer Limits. Sure, The Architects of Fear was a great episode, but all of the other episodes during the show’s first month on the air were not nearly as strong. After continuing to watch the program for yet another month, I finally have reached a verdict, and the answer yes. The Outer Limits really seems to come into its own this month. Allow me to explain.

The Sixth Finger, by Ellis St. Joseph

In The Sixth Finger, Edward Mulhare stars as a scientist named Professor Mathers, who has developed a process that he hopes will improve the fate of mankind. The scientist hypothesizes that by speeding up man’s evolution that man will somehow become so intelligent that he will become more peaceful. Of course, the plan goes haywire when Mathers actually tests his hypothesis out on a real human subject. David McCallum, who you may have recently seen in The Great Escape, plays Gwyllm Griffiths, a miner who volunteers to be a test subject for Mathers. Shortly after the process begins, Mathers realizes that Griffiths is not only becoming smarter at a speed much faster than he ever could have predicted, but also that Griffiths has begun undergoing a number of physical transformations, including growing a sixth finger. Also, as time passes, Griffiths becomes more and more difficult to control.

This is the first very satisfying episode of The Outer Limits since The Architects of Fear. Part of what made both episodes so effective was the special effects makeup. Similar to The Architects of Fear, an actor in The Sixth Finger undergoes a pretty impressive transformation over the course of the episode. In this case, Griffiths’ hair thins while his skull increases in size. His ears take on more of a pointed shape, and let’s not forget the finger referenced in the episode’s title.

While I am sure the novelty may wear off at some point, I am finding myself a little excited to see what kind of alien or monster is going to be at the center of each week’s story. The creations made for The Outer Limits may not be quite level of some of Jack Pierce’s makeup for Universal’s movie monsters, like Frankenstein or the Wolfman, but they certainly are unique and ambitious for a weekly show. This is a case where great makeup really helps an already strong story reach its true potential. The Sixth Finger easily earns three and a half stars.

The Man Who Was Never Born, by Anthony Lawrence

The Man Who Was Never Born is about Joseph Reardon, an astronaut who accidentally drives his spacecraft thorough a time portal into the future. In the year 2148, he lands and realizes that much of Earth’s population has been almost entirely wiped out. The one survivor he does meet is a disfigured man named Andro. Andro is played by none other than North by Northwest actor Martin Landau, an actor who I am sure viewers of The Twilight Zone are very familiar with, having starred in Mr. Denton on Doomsday. He and Joseph decide to go back in time to stop the scientist responsible for creating Andro’s disfiguring disease, which left him looking a bit like Lon Chaney Sr. or Charles Laughton in the 1923 and 1939 versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I know, the premise sounds similar to just about any plot on The Twilight Zone. A recent story such as No Time Like the Past could come to mind. So, if you are thinking this is yet another run-of-the mill time travel tale, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. An episode with a familiar beginning suddenly turns into a surprisingly good retelling of Beauty and the Beast, which I must admit I never saw coming.

What really sets this episode apart is its impressive cinematography, which was clearly inspired by Jean Cocteau’s 1946 adaptation of the story. The Outer Limits’ take on the classic fairy tale also utilizes a lot of point-of-view shots. Each shot is very expressionist, so how Andro is shot differs greatly; depending on who is looking at him and their feelings towards him. The classic Hollywood high-key lighting, shots with Vaseline on the lens and the use of images superimposed on top of one another make the viewer feel like they are actually inside a fairy tale. The whole thing concludes with a very striking shot. The Man Who Was Never Born is a feast for the eyes, which is why I give this entry in the series four stars.

O.B.I.T., by Meyer Dolinsky

Senator Orville, played by Maverick actor Peter Breck, is investigating a murder that took place at a military base. While conducting his investigation, Orville begins to uncover what seems to be a poor work environment. Behind the work-place drama, he finds a machine called O.B.I.T., which stands for Outer Band Individuated Teletracer. O.B.I.T. not only tracks employees on the base, but also records anyone within a five hundred mile radius without their consent or knowledge. As troubling as that is, that is not the worst of it. Those who use it, cannot stop using it. One user describes the machine by saying, “No one can joke or laugh. It watches. Worst of all, I watch it. I can’t stop. It’s like a drug, a horrible drug. I can’t resist it. It’s an addiction.”

Initially, O.B.I.T. seemed more like something you would find on Perry Mason rather than on The Outer Limits. Not being a big fan of courtroom dramas myself, I was not terribly interested, but when the plot started to feel more like a George Orwell novel, I suddenly felt more engaged as a viewer.O.B.I.T. is not very visually stimulating; it is an episode that really is carried by the strength of its script and the ideas contained in the script. This is an episode that stayed with me, and it became more disturbing, the more I thought about it. For me, the total erosion of privacy is terrifying because it is something that could actually happen, but O.B.I.T. is interesting whether or not you subscribe to the belief that people with nothing to hide have nothing to fear. I give O.B.I.T. three and half stars.

The Human Factor, by David Duncan

The Human Factor takes place on a remote outpost in Greenland. One of the people at the outpost is Major Brothers, played by Houseboat actor Harry Guardino, a man who feels responsible for the death of one of his soldiers. A soldier who Brothers thinks may have returned to haunt him as a ghost. Major Brothers’ goes through great lengths to rid himself of hallucinations, and ends up paying a visit to Doctor Hamilton. Doctor Hamilton, played by All About Eve actor Gary Merrill, has recently created a device to help him read other people’s thoughts. Doctor Hamilton tries to use the machine on Brothers, only for things to not go as planned. The two men end up accidentally switching minds. Brothers is now in Hamilton’s body and poses a threat to those around him. Unfortunately, nobody will believe Doctor Hamilton, who is stuck in Brothers’ body.

The Human Factor is only fair. The acting is more than good enough, but without a strong story, the episode goes nowhere. On the surface, the episode has a little bit of something for everyone, including action and romance, but the whole thing really struggled to maintain suspense and my attention for the full hour. Sadly, the brief glimpses of the ghost haunting Major Brothers were the only moments of excitement for me. As a result, I can only give it two stars.

If this past month is any indication of where the show is headed, I am very excited. So, if you have not turned into The Outer Limits yet, I highly recommend you start. As the opening monologue says, “Experience the awe and the mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – The Outer Limits.”



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[October 10, 1963] The Outer Limits of television — a first look

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by Natalie Devitt

Does television really need another science fiction anthology series? This is a question I wrestled with not too long ago, back when I heard that ABC had announced their plans to air a new anthology titled The Outer Limits on Monday nights. Sure, I will happily watch just about anything. But does the average person have the time to devote to the show, especially after having watched anything from Science Fiction Theatre to The Twilight Zone? Would The Outer Limits offer anything new, or just simply rework the same stories that we have been watching on other programs for years? On a mission to answer these questions and to save your precious time, I went to The Outer Limits once a week for its first month. Here is what I found:

The Galaxy Being, by Leslie Stevens

The show began with a pretty strong introduction. I was immediately interested as the narrator intoned:

“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission.”

But shortly after the episode started going, I found myself somewhat disappointed. The Galaxy Being is a great example of an interesting idea that is hurt by execution. It features a radio station engineer named Allan, played by Gidget actor Cliff Robertson, who frequently conducts his own experiments at work. Allan makes contact with a being from out of this world called the Galaxy Being.

Allan is intrigued by the Galaxy Being, but is unable to communicate with the alien for too long, due to his wife urging him to attend an event with her. So he leaves the station in the care of a trusted colleague for what he plans to only be an hour with explicit instructions not to alter the controls unless it be an absolute emergency. When Allan is unable to make it back to the station in time (of course), the disc jockey manning the controls increases the transmission, accidentally teleporting the alien to Earth. Once on Earth, the alien receives a less than warm welcome by a number of very frightened humans.

Allan is portrayed as something of a mad scientist, sacrificing his marriage in the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is that the script fails to really establish a strong relationship between him and his wife. As a result, it’s hard to care about Allan’s deteriorating romantic relationship as it is being impacted by the time he spends conducting his research at the station, and it’s hard to understand how his wife could convince him to hand over the radio controls to someone else the night the Galaxy Being is unleashed on the town.

While I did not find the Galaxy Being to be very visually appealing with his fish eyes, I must admit that he is certainly unique and that the technology used to create him is unlike anything I have ever seen before. So, that is worth noting. But unfortunately, there is the sequence where the Galaxy Being is shown causing all kinds of chaos in Allan’s home town once he is teleported to Earth.

Lights flicker and the wind suddenly starts howling, while the alien wanders through the streets at night. He breaks things, sends people screaming, women faint. I must admit as things went on, I found it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief. The episode suddenly changed tone, and the whole episode started to feel like something straight out of a movie by American International Pictures.

Overall, The Galaxy Being was entertaining, but some elements made it hard to take it seriously as it went on. The whole thing made me wonder what kind of long-tern potential The Outer Limits has. In any case, I give The Galaxy Being two and a half stars.

The One Hundred Days of the Dragon, by Allan Balter and Robert Mintz

The One Hundred Days of the Dragon is a story about a government which may or may not be China's replacing a presidential candidate with a spy right before he is elected into office. The spy has all kinds of plans to take over the United States government, and while all of that sounds interesting, believe me when I write that you have to see the episode to believe it. It is like The Manchurian Candidate’s crazy distant relative.

The Hundred Days of the of the Dragon is more of a thriller, and the script a little more far-fetched, than I had anticipated. All in all, it was well-shot with decent acting, including the work of actor Sidney Blackmer. The musical score, while a little overdone, was effective, and would not be out of place on a Martin Denny record. My big gripe with the episode is that I am confused about the tone that the series is trying to strike with its audience this week. For that reason, I give the episode two and a half stars.

The Architects of Fear, by Meyer Dolinsky

In an attempt to bring together mankind, a group of overly-optimistic scientists devise a plan to create a threat so great that people from all walks of life will have no choice but to unite together — a hoaxed extraterrestrial invasion. The plan involves one of their men undergoing a number of procedures to be transformed into a hideous alien. Robert Culp plays Allen, the man selected at random for the role, who sacrifices everything in his life, including a wonderful marriage and an unborn baby, to try to make people see beyond their differences.

This was the episode that I was waiting for all month long, infinitely more compelling than anything else shown on The Outer Limits thus far. The character development in this episode is vastly superior than in the previous episodes; the relationship between Allen and his wife is one of the story’s greatest strengths. By understanding their bond, the viewer understands exactly what Allen is sacrificing by undergoing experiments and presenting himself as a serious potential threat to humans.

Everything was beautifully shot and dramatically lit with dark shadows, which only helped to accentuate the drama and create a strong sense of atmosphere. So did the point of view shot from Allen’s perspective when he transitions and things begin to look more blurry.  The expressionistic approach to the scene could not have been more effective.

Also, the alien that Allen transformed into is quite frightening and rather detailed. The special effects makeup on Allen during his transitions from human into alien are fairly realistic. All in all, the episode is a good balance of both heart and brain. I give it four and a half stars.

The Man with the Power, by Jerome Ross

The Man with the Power stars British actor Donald Pleasence as a college professor trapped in a meaningless job and a loveless marriage with an overbearing wife. Out of a desire to create some kind of purpose to  his life, he decides against his wife and his employer’s wishes to participate in a scientific study in which an object is implanted into his head, which causes him to develop telekinetic powers. The catch is that his new power seems to be affected by his emotions, and years of built up anger and resentment make his telekinetic abilities increasingly difficult to control.

Despite being fairly well-acted by Donald Pleasence, The Man with the Power failed to offer up anything new. In fact, the script seemed a little too much like Forbidden Planet with the whole emphasis on the man with an inability to control his id. And since the story provided no new material or perspectives, it was fairly predictable. I give The Man with the Power two and a half stars.

The Outer Limits may have the power to control transmission, but can the show keep viewers tuning in week after week? The verdict is still out. The show seems to be much more rooted in science fiction than most other anthology shows in recent years, which is a distinguishing point, but the batting average will probably have to improve: this month only gave me one fantastic, one somewhat entertaining and two otherwise mediocre episodes.

Guess I’ll just have to tune in next month to give you much more definitive answers to the questions that I posed at the beginning of this article. I hope you will join me next month for another a trip into The Outer Limits.




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[June 6, 1963] Bringing it home (The Twilight Zone, Season 4, Episodes 17-19)

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by Natalie Devitt

I finally finished the fourth season of The Twilight Zone. For the most part, I enjoyed the most recent episodes. The entire season has been all over the place, which unfortunately meant that I really did not know what to expect this time around. The final three episodes of the season retained this record, which meant they were not without their disappointments, but also not without selling points. This is my breakdown of the final three episodes of the season.

On Thursday We Leave for Home, by Rod Serling

The month of May got off to a great start with what is probably the most well-made episode of the month, On Thursday We Leave for Home. James Whitmore stars as Captain Benteen, the leader of a colony in space. It is the year 1991. Captain Benteen’s people fled Earth three decades ago in hopes of starting a better life in space, on a more peaceful planet. What they found was a planet with a harsh climate, where they spend their days just struggling to live to see another day.

The group contacts Earth with the intention of returning to the planet, which some members of colony hardly remember and others have never seen before. As they wait to return to their planet of origin, the people in the colony begin asking questions about Earth. At first, they listen carefully as Benteen tells them about the planet. After a while, they begin to romanticize Earth, so much so that it begins to affect the captain’s ability to control his people.

The script paints a pretty bleak picture of the future, even though I am sure that some people will argue that the episode comments accurately on the world today. Certainly one could see Captain Benteen as a man with too much power, or perhaps this is on its most basic level a tale about a man refusing to adapt to the rapid changes taking place around him. This kind of deep and allegorical story is what audiences used to expect regularly from the series.

Having said that, I must mention that I have only one small complaint about the episode, regarding the sets. I know I am probably just looking for something wrong in an otherwise very strong episode, but is there an episode that takes place in space that does not reuse something from Forbidden Planet? It took only seconds for me to recognize a spaceship from the film.

Of course, if I only have one complaint, then this must be a solid entry in the series. This one easily earns four stars.

Passage on the Lady Anne, by Charles Beaumont

Passage on the Lady Anne is the story of the Ransomes, a young couple played by Lee Philips and Joyce Van Patten, who after years of marriage, can barely keep their relationship going. In their final attempt to save what is left of their marriage, they decide to take a cruise. They visit a travel agent, who reluctantly books them a trip aboard an aging ship. Upon boarding, the young couple notices that all of passengers aboard the ship are senior citizens, and while friendly, are constantly trying to discourage them from staying on the ship. At first, the Ransomes shrug it off, but after a while, they begin to grow suspicious.

While many might argue that this episode is not quite on the same level as On Thusday We Leave for Home, it still has plenty of charm. It does not hurt that I am kind of partial to the episodes written by Charles Beaumont. As a warning to those who prefer their entertainment faster-paced, this is definitely one of the slower and more atmospheric stories on The Twilight Zone. There is also plenty of fog, which helps to create a very haunting atmosphere.

Most people will probably figure out where things are headed long before the conclusion, though it is never really completely spelled out for the audience, which just adds to the aura of mystery. All in all, it is a fun journey with some recognizable actors playing the elderly characters. I rate it at three and a half stars.

The Bard, by Rod Serling

The Bard is the story of a struggling screenwriter named Julius. While in a bookstore one day, Julius, played by Jack Weston, finds a book on black magic and takes it home. He decides to try out some of the book’s spells, one of which helps Julius to conjure up the spirit of none other than William Shakespeare, played by John Williams, who he uses to help catch his big break as a screenwriter.

After the last two solid episodes, I knew things were going a little too well. Then I watched The Bard. The episode was yet another failed attempt at comedy for The Twilight Zone. As much as I like stories about black magic, I found very few redeeming qualities in The Bard. First, the episode is jam-packed with cheesy one liners like, "I’m conjuring, baby." Second, the constant reliance on sound effects to remind the audience to laugh wore very thin over the course of the episode. Third, the ending made a silly episode even sillier. The one thing the episode had going for it is Gunsmoke actor Bert Reynolds doing a pretty good Marlon Brando impersonation, but even that was not enough to save this trainwreck of an episode.

This story barely earns one and a half stars.

On Thursday We Leave for Home was a return to form for the series, then Passage on the Lady Anne kept things going strong. Sadly, The Bard single-handedly destroyed this month’s winning streak. I can only hope that such a disappointing episode will not cause the curtain to finally come down on the anthology series. I really would like to see the show end on a high note. I guess we will just have to wait and see if the show gets picked up for another season.



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Movies

[June 2, 1963] Too close to home (The movie, The Mind Benders)

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by Gideon Marcus

[Today's article is a true treat — a full three Journeyers caught the latest science fiction flick, an import from Britain.  We hope you enjoy this, our first review en trio…]

Think "science fiction" movie, and you might conjure up a rubber-suited monster or a giant insect or perhaps a firework-spouting bullet of a spaceship.  Once in a great while, we get a Forbidden Planet or The Time Machine — high quality films but no less fantastic in subject matter. 

Now picture a "horror" film.  Perhaps it involves the supernatural or monstrous terror.  Maybe it's one of Hitchcock's genre-creating numbers like Psycho or The Birds.  Often, the lines between SF and horror are quite blurry as in films like Wasp Woman and The Day Mars Invaded Earth.  After all, the unknown can be quite terrifying, and what is SF but an exploration of the unknown?

The Mind Benders is a new British film that straddles the line between science fiction and horror and yet bears no resemblance to any of the examples described above.  It is, in fact, a movie set in the now and portraying modern (if cutting edge) science.  And the horror depicted is all the more jarring for its common nature. 

Two nascent sciences are the basis for this movie.  One is that of brainwashing, the technique of forcibly altering someone's beliefs, generally through some kind of torture, privation, or other constant pressure.  This is the sort of thing covert agencies are good at, but you can also see it on a national level, through effective use of propaganda and fear.  The other science is sensory deprivation.  Several experiments have been done into the effects of having all of one's senses dulled.  A subject is suspended in warm water, in the dark, unable to smell, taste, or hear anything.  The results include disorientation, agitation, and hallucination. 

The film starts with aged sensory deprivation scientist Sharpey, paranoid and in a daze, taking his own life by throwing himself off a moving train.  In his satchel are thousands in pound notes.  Army Intelligence Major Hall is called in to investigate, and he quickly determines that Sharpey had recently sold secrets to the Communists.  Ready to brand the scientist a traitor and close the case, he is persuaded by Sharpey's colleague, Longman, that Sharpey was a patriot, and that any lapse in loyalty must have been a result of a recent sensory deprivation experience. 

Longman is introduced as a loving husband and a doting father, humorous and cynical, and possessed of a tremendous fear of sensory deprivation after several terrifying experiments.  Nevertheless, he offers himself up for a final test, a full eight hours in the deprivation tank, to show that it does something to a person.  Having shown that, Longman can prove that Sharpey was not responsible for his treasonous activities. 

Hall agrees, and with the assistance of a third colleague, Tate, who has not been a subject, conducts the experiment on Longman.  Floating alone and in the dark, the scientist suffers countless subjective hours of anguish (though only a third of a day passes outside), and at its end, he is reduced to a blank, malleable state.  Hall recognizes this condition — a broken man in this state is easily brainwashed.  But this is not enough.  They must compel Longman to engage in activity completely counter to his nature, to shake him of his strongest-held belief.  So, they pull Longman from the tank, dazed and vulnerable.

And with a just a few choice words, they cause him to hate his wife, Oonagh. 

Yet, due to the circumstances under which they effect their plot, it is unclear that they have succeeded.  Longman is released, the experiment seemingly a failure.  So ensues six months with Oonagh, increasingly pregnant, incessantly nagged and belittled until she is a shell of herself.  Longman is also a changed man, bitter and resentful, completely unaware of what has been done to him.  That Oonagh endures for so long is British "stiff-upper-lipism" carried to its absurd limits.  That this state of affairs goes unnoticed for half a year is because Tate, himself in love with Oonagh, cannot bring himself to check up on the ruined couple.

Blessedly, once Hall does find out, he is (with no little difficulty) able to reverse the process.  The marriage is repaired and Sharpey's name is cleared.  But, by God, at what price?

As a movie, Benders is a success, cinematographically compelling and with superb acting.  What makes this horror so effective is its utter plausibility, and as a family man, myself, the situation struck me at my core and left me shaken. 

It's not a perfect film.  I imagine 15 minutes could have been cut with no great loss.  And the overlong period of estrangement runs a bit beyond the lengths of credulity, and yet… is it not all too common for women to suffer indefinitely with men they once loved in the hopes that things might, one day, return to how they were?

I couldn't watch The Mind Benders again, and I can't recommend it to those who will find the subject matter unbearable, but I must recognize the skill with which the movie was crafted.  Four stars.


by Lorelei Marcus

I didn't have very high hopes going into The Mind Benders, thinking it was going to be another campy science fiction movie using a shaky camera for special effects. Instead, I got a rather dark film about the capacity of the human mind and its reaction to prolonged isolation. The concept was very fascinating, and the story even more haunting from being based on real experiments. The acting was excellent, even too real at times.

However, it was not all good. The movie was much too long, and I believe it could benefit a lot from having a few of the “man bicycles around the city” scenes taken out. Even with the interesting premise, it also lulled at times, and I found myself wondering when the movie was going to end. Even so, I would give this movie three stars out of five. It wasn't anything super special, but it wasn't bad either.

This is the Young Traveler signing off.


by Natalie Devitt

The tagline for The Mind Benders described the film as being “perverted… soulless! The most dangerous and different motion picture ever brought to the screen!” So, naturally that piqued my curiosity. What I ended up with was a pretty ambitious story about brainwashing.

Luckily, I’m a sucker for a story about brainwashing.

Overall, the film was well-shot with believable acting. The movie did run out of steam a little towards the end, and I’m not totally sure that I bought the ending, but it was an otherwise effective sci-fi/thriller. The film’s somewhat disturbing plot and dream-like qualities kept it on my mind long after it ended. Three and a half stars.

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TV

[May 4, 1963] The Twilight Zone, Season 4, Episodes 13-16

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by Natalie Devitt

Last month I touched on the possibility that The Twilight Zone could be running out of ideas, considering that a number of the stories seemed to rehash a number of previously done storylines. I concluded that as long as the recycled stories seemed to work, I was not going to judge the episodes too harshly. That is, until April’s episodes aired. So, which episodes fared the best?

The New Exhibit, by Charles Beaumont

If you have a taste for the macabre, you’ll surely love The New Exhibit. The episode is the story of a dedicated wax museum employee by the name of Martin, who loves his job so much that he takes it home with him. Martin, played by actor Martin Balsam, someone who you may recognize from Psycho and The Twilight Zone's The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine, is informed by his employer that the wax museum where he curates an exhibit called “Murderer’s Row” will be closing soon.

Upon hearing the news, Martin offers to watch over the figures that he has spent years meticulously caring for, until a buyer for the figures can be found. He houses the sculptures in his basement, much to his wife’s dismay. As time passes, Martin begins to care a little bit too much to the effigies of famous murders, like Jack the Ripper and Henri Désiré Landru.

The New Exhibit brilliantly captures one man’s descent into madness. There is not one scene that does not advance the plot. With each moment, the audience sees the great lengths that Martin is willing to go in order to keep the wax figures to himself.

To top things off, Martin Balsam does a great job of playing a man who has an increasingly difficult time telling the difference between fantasy and reality. A man who begins the story innocently wondering what could drive a man to commit some pretty heinous crimes, but then turns into a man who may be willing to commit a few heinous crimes of his own.

Aside from the fairly predictable ending, I really enjoyed The New Exhibit. I give it four stars.

Of Late I Think of Cliffordville, by Rod Serling (based on "Blind Alley," by Malcolm Jameson)

In Of Late I Think of Cliffordville, character actor Albert Salmi plays William, an aging business man, who after achieving great success still feels unfulfilled. One night after work, he gets drunk and confesses to the janitor at his office that his achievements mean nothing, and that he would like nothing more than to return to his hometown of Cliffordville, Indiana.

Shortly after this confession, he discovers a new travel agency in his office building. The travel agency is owned by a striking young woman named Miss Devlin, played by statuesque dancer-turned-actress, Julie Newmar. Miss Devlin, who wastes no time revealing that she is the devil, offers to send William back to his boyhood home of Cliffordville. Insisting that he can keep the knowledge that he has gained over his life, but still start over looking like a young adult, William agrees to Miss Devlin’s offer.

How long has it been since we had a story about some man who tries to change the past or makes a deal with the devil? The answer: one month. I know these have been reoccurring stories throughout the series, but I have to wonder if The Twilight Zone has gotten so desperate for stories that they don’t even bother waiting to recycle their ideas anymore.

To make matters worse, I do not really believe Albert Salmi in the scenes where he plays an older version of William. While the episode’s special effects makeup looks fine, it is not great. Additionally, Albert struggles to really disappear into his role as an old man looking back on his life. On the other hand, Julie Newmar makes a very charming villain in this episode.

This episode never really seems to hit its stride. For that reason, I give it two stars.

The Incredible World of Horace Ford, by Reginald Rose

The Incredible World of Horace Ford is about a man consumed by the past. His name is Horace and is played by Pat Hingle. He is in his late thirties, married and has a job designing toys. Wracked with stress for having to be his family’s breadwinner, he escapes by spending most of his days thinking and talking about his childhood.

One day Horace decides to visit his childhood neighborhood, and to his surprise he finds that not a single thing has changed. He returns few more times to find that it is as if the past keeps on playing again and again. If that was not strange enough, he also finds that the boys he knew as a child never grew up. Horace soon realizes through these trips down memory lane that the past is not exactly the way that he remembers it.

While I do not think an audience needs to like a character, they do need to care about them. I hate to admit that I struggled to care about Horace. Pat Hingle is a perfectly capable actor, but I think he may have been miscast as Horace. He just seemed like an annoying man-child. Also, some of the dialogue involving Horace’s overbearing mother, did not flow very well and at times was unintentionally funny.

Overall, this episode was very unsatisfying. I really hate to give it only one and half stars.

With the exception of the stellar The New Exhibit, this was easily the least enjoyable bunch of episodes I have watched this season. I really hope that things improve. We only have a few more episodes left in the season.



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TV

[April 7, 1963] The Twilight Zone, Season 4, Episodes 9-12

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by Natalie Devitt

This past month on The Twilight Zone has been quite the experience. It has included anything from deals with the devil to time travel. It has also thrown in parallel universes and wish granting genies just for fun. If any of those things sound familiar, there may be good reason. The show does seem to be rehashing some old ideas. So, has The Twilight Zone finally run out of steam, or is it just offering new interpretations of some old classics? After four seasons one thing is for sure: anything is possible in The Twilight Zone.

Printer’s Devil, by Charles Beaumont

What is the price you would pay for one last chance at achieving a dream? That is the question that Douglas Winter, played by Robert Sterling, has to wrestle with in Printer’s Devil. Douglas is the editor of a failing newspaper called The Courier. Faced with the possibility of the paper, to which he has dedicated his life, folding, Douglas contemplates suicide. He drives himself out to a local bridge in the middle of the night, hoping to end it all there.

At the bridge, he meets a mysterious stranger named Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith is played by Twilight Zone favorite Burgess Meredith. Mr. Smith offers Douglas everything he needs in order to keep The Courier in business. In no time, the paper is beating its competition to the latest scoop. In this surprisingly strong update of Faust, Douglas begins to question if his paper’s success is worth the price he will have to pay Mr. Smith, who is really the devil in disguise.

A story about someone selling their soul to the devil is hardly a new one. The episode’s writer, Charles Beaumont, knows that and has fun with the cliché in his script. Mr. Smith even makes jokes about the rumors that violinist Niccolò Paganini sold his soul to the devil to become a virtuoso. In addition, the script does not waste time revealing that Mr. Smith is the devil. In fact, during his first scene on screen, Mr. Smith is shown lighting his crooked cigar with his fingertip, so the viewer is aware of Mr. Smith's diabolic nature from the get-go. The story spends most of the time focusing on the characters and their motivations, which I feel helps to make this version of a classic bargain work surprisingly well.

The story’s script is made even better by Burgess Meredith’s mischievous performance as Mr. Smith. He really seems to relish his role without being hammy as he tells Douglas that no modern man could possibly believe that he could sell his soul to the devil, and that the contract he drew up for Douglas’ soul was just him being an eccentric old man.

This episode offers a new twist on an old tale. I give it three and a half stars.

No Time Like the Past, by Rod Serling

Dana Andrews stars as Paul Driscoll, a man who thinks he has the solution for the problems that plague the world today. He uses a time machine in hopes of altering the past and preventing the world’s current problems. He tries going back to Hiroshima in 1945, just in time to warn people about the atomic bomb. There, he is dismissed as being crazy, so he then tries going back to Berlin in 1939 to assassinate Hitler. His plans are foiled, so he travels back to 1915 to stop the RMS Lusitania from being torpedoed by a German U-boat. Once again, things do not go as planned.

Douglas’ failed attempts to alter the past cause him to conclude that the past cannot be changed. He decides to time travel one last time, this time to Homeville, Indiana in the year 1881, where he says he plans to go, “to live, not to change anything.“ It is a place where he could be free of the all the problems in the present day. Only, once again, things do not go quite as well as he hopes.

It turns out that the good old days are not quite as good as he imagined they would be. Bad things continue to happen all around him, and he still is powerless to do anything. Even if he could change things, he considers the possibility that his actions cause a chain reaction for things to change for the worse. One thing is certain, though. Having come from the future, he can predict every historical event or disaster before it actually happens, which has its disadvantages.

This is another story with a familiar theme — the episode Back There tread similar ground. That said, this episode is not bad, but it takes a while to get going. At first, it jumps from time to time, with transitions not as smooth as they could have been. Once the story does stay for a while in a single time period, as it does in 1881, the episode improves dramatically.

This episode was a perfectly fine way to spend a Thursday night. It deserves three stars.

The Parallel, by Rod Serling

Robert Gaines, played by Steve Forrest, is an astronaut who has returned to Earth from space. He blacks out shortly before landing, but he somehow manages to get land and everything seems fine at first. As he tries to transition back into everyday life, he finds that life back on Earth is not quite the way he remembers it. His house is a little different, his wife seems uncomfortable when he shows her affection, his colleagues cannot remember his proper ranking at work, nobody knows that John F. Kennedy is president, and one day, his daughter tells him that she does not know who he is. Robert comes to the conclusion that he must have landed in a parallel universe, but not everyone agrees with him.

This is an episode that really uses the hour long length to its advantage. It uses the extra time to build suspense as the people closest to Robert begin to question his sanity due to all of his theories about parallel time. Additionally, a number of sequences, including one in a hospital and some at the space station, use a lot things like low key lighting and lots of shadows to intensify the atmosphere of fear and suspicion in a manner similar to that used in film noir and horror films.

Unfortunately, the ending was not quite as strong as the rest of the episode, but overall this episode was pretty good. It earns three stars from me.

I Dream of Genie, by John Furia, Jr.

I Dream of Genie tells the story of a perpetually unlucky nebbish named George Hanley, played by Howard Morris, who purchases an oil lamp. While trying to clean the lamp, he accidentally rubs it and releases its genie. Out of his lamp, the genie reveals himself to be a cranky old man, who does not look or act like your traditional genie. For example, he wears modern western clothing. The genie tells George that he will grant him only one wish. George works through his options in fantasy first, so as to make the best decision. He imagines himself married to a beautiful secretary from work, then being rich, and finally, becoming the President. Sadly, even in his dreams, he cannot seem to catch a break.

When I realized that this episode would be a comedy, I was excited about the possible change of pace. Perhaps it would provide some much needed relief from the darker and more serious tones of the previous episodes. I could not have been more wrong. The generally good acting can save even the worst episodes of this series, but that is not the case this time around. The acting was so over the top, and not in an entertaining way. This was especially the case in scenes where George is trying to win the love of his coworker, Ann. The fact that this episode was an hour long made it even harder to watch. To make matters worse, George’s final wish does not reward the viewer for not changing the station.

The Twilight Zone has made better episodes about lonely and down on their luck men who finally seem to get a chance to turn their lives around. Incorporating comedy into this series has been a risk that often does not seem to pay off. This episodes was sadly not an exception to that rule.

All I can give this episode is one star, which I hate to admit is probably being generous.

The Twilight Zone revisited some familiar stories and themes this time around, which actually seemed to work most of the time. It remains to be seen if this will continue to be the case. I will just have to keeping on watching to find out. I hope you'll join me — both misery and joy love company.



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TV

[March 10, 1963] The Twilight Zone, Season 4, Episodes 5-8

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[We have a special treat for you, today. One of the Journey's long-time followers has prepared a review of the latest episodes of The Twilight Zone. Natalie describes herself as having "devoted her life to finding the best and the worst popular culture has to offer. Areas of expertise include music, movies and television." I hope you enjoy her words as much as I did…and perhaps we can convince her to return?]


by Natalie Devitt

As you know by now, The Twilight Zone is no longer the most consistently good show. Episodes have been varying dramatically in terms of quality. The longer episodes this season have not helped matters. Some episodes seem padded to add time to stretch to the full hour, while others would probably work better as feature length films. That was certainly the case with some of the episodes this past month, but the episodes were not without moments of brilliance.

Mute, by Richard Matheson

Mute is the story of a young girl named Ilse, who is used as a test subject by her parents. Her parents are members of an organization that studies telepathy. Even though Ilse is perfectly capable of learning how to speak, as part of a deal with other members of the organization, her parents raise her to communicate using only telepathy and document the results for other members of their organization.

Sadly, her parents never seem to consider what would happen to Ilse if they were no longer able to care for her. So, when the family’s home suddenly burns down one night, killing both of her mother and her father, Ilse is left without the means to communicate with those around her. Luckily, the local sheriff and his wife offer her a place to stay, while they try to contact her next of kin. In the meantime, they enroll her in school, assuming that the school would teach her everything thing she needs to know in order to assimilate.

I hate to admit that after last season’s Little Girl Lost, I expected a higher caliber of work from screenwriter Richard Matheson. This episode does not seem to work as an hour long story. What could be an interesting episode about the pressure to conform or adults not always knowing what is best for children, turns into an episode that fails to leave any lasting impression.

That said, Ann Jullian, who you may remember in Babes in Toyland and Gypsy, does a fine job as Ilse. In addition, the camera work with its frequent tilts and pans, effectively conveys Ilse’s feelings of being disoriented as she transitions from having lived in silence to being thrown into a world of filled sound. The episode deserves two and a half stars.

Death Ship, by Richard Matheson

This episode gives a glimpse into the future. In the year 1997, Earth is overpopulated, so humans are in need of a new planet to colonize. A crew aboard a spaceship set out on an expedition in hopes of finding one. Once they finally land on a planet that they think has potential, they find a spaceship that bears a striking resemblance to their own. After assessing the situation, they enter the spaceship only to find a crew that looks just like them — except for one thing, the men in the spaceship are dead. The living crew struggle to find an explanation for how the ship and their deceased doppelgangers ended up on the planet, and how they can avoid meeting a similar fate.

This episode stars Jack Klugman and Ross Martin, and is a pretty consistently good episode. It can be at times fairly predictable. My biggest complaint is that a number of the sets have clearly been reused in order to cut costs. Even though the episode did not offer anything new visually, I still give it three stars.

Jess-Bell, by Earl Hammer Jr.

There is something special about Jess-Belle, a tale of obsession that aired just in time for Valentine’s Day. This episode takes place in the not too distant past of the Appalachian Mountains. The title character in the episode is played by an unrecognizable Anne Francis, best known for her work as Altaira in Forbidden Planet. This time the usually blonde actress is sporting a black wig and playing a desperate young woman, who enlists the help of a local witch, referred to as Granny Hart, to win back a former lover by the name of Billy Ben. Billy Ben is played by Western regular James Best. Not surprisingly, trouble ensues.

Anytime a blonde actress wears a dark wig and flirts with the dark side, you know what you are watching is bound to be entertaining, even if it is not in the way originally intended. To its credit, though, Jess-Belle manages to be very effective with its strong performances and haunting atmosphere, despite most of its characters being hillbilly stereotypes. I could not get this episode out of my head for days, so for that reason I give it four stars.

Miniature, by Charles Beaumont

This episode is about a character named Charley, who is played brilliantly by Robert Duvall. He is in his thirties and still lives at home with his controlling mother. He struggles to hold down a job or find a mate.

One day on a trip to the museum he finds the excitement he craves in the most unlikely of places, inside a dollhouse. The only problem is that nobody else seems to realize that a beautiful doll in the museum dollhouse is alive. Most of the story revolves around his overbearing mother and well-meaning sister trying to help him meet all of the markers of an ordinary adult life. The more his family members try to help him out of his state of arrested development, the more Charley escapes into fantasies of a love affair with the doll.

The years Robert Duvall spent honing his acting skills in the theatre world have finally paid off, because I cannot praise him enough for his work in this episode. Sometimes when actors transition from theater to television, they can be overly dramatic, because they are used to playing to the back of the house. That is certainly not the case with Robert Duvall‘s subtle performance in Miniature.

Charley, if played by a less skilled actor could seem pathetic, because he is almost unbelievably passive at work and at home. Also, his imaginary relationship with the doll could have come across as being creepy in the wrong hands. Robert’s approach to the character, makes the episode incredibly touching, even to viewers who may not relate to Charley. The acting alone earns the episode a solid three stars.

The most recent episodes certainly had their flaws, but I still found them enjoyable to watch. I am curious to see what the rest of the season has to offer.




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