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TV

[February 7, 1961] TV Addiction (The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episodes 13-16)

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I've been watching a lot of television, lately.  It's embarrassing.  I should be reading more books or doing more than cursorily scanning the front page of the newspaper.  Instead, after work I flip on the set and vegetate for an hour.  I hope this doesn't become a habit!

It's certainly not as if TV has gotten significantly better.  Mr. Ed, My Sister Eileen, the umpteenth season of the Jack Benny Show, none of these are going to win any awards.  On the other hand, The Twilight Zone has already won an award (an Emmy last year), and I'm hoping that my continued watching and review of that show excuses my overindulgence in the others.

What did we see last month?  First off, there was Back There.  Corrigian, a youngish historian, departs for home from his Gentleman's Club after a rousing discussion on time travel.  One step outside the Club, and he finds himself in April 1865 on the eve of Lincoln's shooting.  Of course, he tries to avert the tragedy, but only one fellow, a sympathetic policeman believes him.  Then Corrigan is waylaid by none other than the assassin, John Wilkes Booth.  The President is slain, despite the policeman's herculean efforts to warn him, and the professor returns to a seemingly unchanged present.  Or is it?  The servant who saw Corrigan out is now a wealthy businessman.  It turns out he's the great grandson of the policeman from the past, whose attempts to save Lincoln won him acclaim.  The lesson: the river of time doesn't like to make drastic changes of course, but it can meander a little.  Not bad.  Not great.  Three stars.

Second up, we have yet another of the hard-to-watch videotape episodes, The Whole Truth.  The gimmick for this one was spoiled in the prior week's preview and in the opening of the episode: a crook of a used car salesman buys a haunted Model A, the purchase of which compels the new owner to always tell the truth.  This proves fatal to the fellow's business until he hatches a plan to sell the vehicle to none other than Nikita Khruschev.  It's an episode that relies on the charisma (or convincing lack thereof) of the main character.  Jack Carson does a pretty good job.  Three stars.

I looked forward to Invaders; Richard Matheson did the screenplay, and it was billed as a masterpiece of lines-less drama.  Something must have happened between the writer's pen and the screen because watching 22 turgid minutes of a farm woman menaced by a pair of miniature Michelin Men was excruciating.  My first instinct is to put a good portion of the blame on the actress, Agnes Morehead.  There was enough ham in her silent performance to poison a dozen shuls.  On the other hand, it might be the director's fault.  I heard through the grapevine that Matheson was not happy with the final product—he'd written in twice the action, and the alien invaders (who turn out to be human astronauts in a world of giants) had their screen time kept to a minimum in his version.  That would have been nice; they did not bear being in full view very well.  My daughter spent much of the show groaning in agonized boredom, pounding the floor.  I'm lucky the cops didn't come to take me away for bad parenting.  One star.

Thankfully, the follow-up show was a lot of fun.  Dick York plays a harried banker who gains the ability to read minds for a day.  He figures out what's going on with refreshing haste and uses the gift to great advantage, preventing a potential robbery, halting a bad loan, and getting the girl (who was too shy to verbalize her interest).  The scene where he listens in on the thoughts of a vacant-eyed bank patron who turns out not to be thinking about anything is a nice touch.  Four stars.

Not a bad run, and good enough to keep us watching on Fridays.  Are you tuning in, too?

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Science / Space Race, TV

[February 4, 1961] Sputniks and Supercars!

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A bit of a grab bag while I finish up the March 1961 Analog:

There was a rather unusual Soviet launch yesterday.  We're calling it Sputnik 7 for lack of a better term, but it is still unclear just what the seven-ton satellite is supposed to be doing.  It is bigger than the capsules it has orbited before, the ones that carried dogs and mannequins.  It is also, apparently, not designed to reenter.  At least, it hasn't, and the Russians have not indicated that they plan to retrieve it.

Per Professor Yevgeny Klinov of the International Committee for Meteoric Studies of the World Geophysical Association, the probe was designed “to study the earth as a planet and to make a study of its nearest environment, including that of meteoric dangers. 

That would suggest it is an orbital laboratory in the vein of Sputnik 3, but who needs seven tons to do that?  In any event, aside from Klinov's reported comments and a bit of muted praise from TASS (the Soviet news agency), there's been hardly a peep about the flight, which some observers are interpreting as a sign that the mission hasn't gone as planned.  Usually, Moscow Radio gives lurid details of the cities Soviet probes will fly over and the radio frequencies on which one can pick up their beep-beeps.  This time, it's zilch-ville.

Maybe we'll know more in a week or so.

In other news, an exciting scifi kids show had debuted across the pond in Jolly Old England.  Supercar came out on January 28 (if ITC stuck to the schedule I read in the trade magazine I got from overseas), and it looks like a hoot.  The eponymous vehicle, piloted by American “Mike Mercury” can drive, fly, and even submerge.  Mike and his Supercar will be involved in a number of adventures, rescuing folks in distress, fighting bad guys, and helping the progress of science.  Interestingly, the world of Supercar is populated entirely by marionettes, using a newly developed technique called “Supermarionation.” It looks a little creepy, if you ask me, but perhaps one gets used to it.


Here's hoping the show gets syndicated in the U.S.  I'm still waiting for Danger Man to come over…

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TV

[January 9, 1961] Looking up?  (The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episodes 9-12)

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What goes down sometimes comes up!  The sensational new sci-fi/surreal anthology, The Twilight Zone, started its sophomore season with a sharp decline in quality from its debut run of episodes; but, I'm happy to report that the quality of last month's batch was pretty good.

The batch started out with a subtle bang with The Trouble with Templeton, in which an aging star of the stage seeks solace in the too-brief sweet time of his young adulthood.  It is both kin and different from the other episodes that have essayed this territory: A Stop at Willoughby or Walking Distance.  Though the 1920s Templeton returns to look as he remembers, particularly the lovely form of his long-dead wife, neither his bride nor his best friend seem happy to see him.  In fact, they practically chase the old man away.  But in one poignant moment, it is revealed that it was all an act; they were pushing him back for his own good, so he could live out his life with vigor rather than remorse.  A bit long in the first act, but worthy watching.  Four stars.

A Most Unusual Camera is the clunker of the four.  A trio of none-too-bright criminals pick up a vintage camera in a heist, one that takes pictures a few minutes into the future.  They quickly hatch a plan to turn it to profit–by snapshotting of the results board at the horse racetrack and betting before the end of the match.  Their winning streak is foiled by a greedy bellboy, and they all four end up dead in one way or another.  Unsubtle and rather grating.  Two stars.

The next in what was originally a consecutively produced batch of video-taped episodes is Night of the Meek.  It's a Christmas episode, about a dipsomaniacal Santa who ends up about as down on his luck as one can imagine…until his wish is granted: to be a true Holiday gift giver, providing all the folks he knows with what they most desire for Christmas.  I was ready to dislike this episode as video-tape cripples the cinematography, and I tend to dislike Christmas-themed fare on principle.  But it was actually heart-warming and, more importantly, my daughter quite enjoyed it.  Three stars.

Day-before-yesterday, we wrapped all cozy in blankets, turned on the space heater, and tuned in for the latest episode of The Twilight Zone.  It didn't look promising, this somber piece about a squalid Old West town in which a fellow was locked up, waiting to be hanged for running over and killing a little girl.  He had been drunk, you see, filled with the sadness of a village wasting away.  The prisoner is tormented by a vulgar snake-oil salesman, who is run out of the jail by a clearly sympathetic sheriff.  When the prisoner's father pleads for his boy's life, to no avail, the peddler offers for 100 pesos a bag of "magic dust" that, he claims, will warm the hearts of the lynch mob so that they spare the penitent killer.  Of course, it's just a bag of dirt.  The young man is sent through the gallows with the rope around his neck…and yet, he is spared when the noose (ironically, also an item sold by the peddler) snaps.  The parents of the deceased decide the prisoner has suffered enough.  Was there any magic in this episode?  Or did the heartsick lawman give the rope a little fraying before use?

It's a poignant episode with some of the best writing I've seen, both in the bumper narration and in some of the dialogue.  This was another one we expected to dislike, but it was surprisingly gripping.  Four stars.

If things are looking up in the New Year for television, they are looking decidedly grim in the world picture.  On New Year's Eve, several North Vietnamese battalions charged into the neighboring Southeast Asian country of Laos.  There is concern that this could turn into a full-fledged proxy war between the Superpowers; America is actively supporting the Laotians, and Soviet planes have been spotted dropping supplies for the Communist Vietnamese troops. 

We avoided a catastrophe during the Suez crisis, when neither the USA nor the USSR was willing to intervene for their clients.  That is one of the reason the "Doomsday Clock" was turned back last year from two to seven minutes.  Perhaps the Federation of Atomic Scientists, the keepers of that macabre timepiece, were a bit hasty…

See you in a few with cheerier news, I hope.

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TV

[Dec. 5, 1960] Improved Batch (The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Eps: 5-8)

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We are now deep into the second year of Rod Serling's horror/fantasy anthology, The Twilight Zone.  I expressed my dissatisfaction with this sophomore season during my review of the first four episodes.  Has the show, justly nominated for a Hugo this year, gotten any better?

Well, you wouldn't know it from the season's fifth episode, The Howling Man.  My biggest beef with this show is the overused cliché of a man's slow descent into madness, usually punctuated by screaming in an episode's padded second act.  This episode begins with a madman, an “American” with a strong foreign accent, who narrates the encounter he had decades before with a mysterious religious order.  It seems they had imprisoned the Devil.  Of course, the narrator was tricked into freeing him.  He then spent the next twenty years recapturing him…only to lose Beezelbub again when the narrator's maid let him go.  It's an overwrought, tilt-cameraed mess of an episode.  One star.

The next one, Eye of the Beholder, fares a little better.  A hospitalized woman, head completely bandaged, awaits the results of a treatment that will make her appearance “normal.” She is, reportedly, hideous.  The twist is given away within the first few minutes as the cinematographer takes ludicrous pains never to show the faces of any of the medical staff.  What saves this episode is the unsubtle yet still resonant commentary on modern prejudice and over-conformity.  Two stars.

Nick of Time is the first episode that approaches the standard set by the premiere season.  A honeymooning pair of newlyweds break down in a rural Ohio town and lunch in a cafe.  There, a Devil-headed fortune machine dispenses eerily accurate predictions.  William Shatner, a handsome young actor, really steals the show.  Moreover, there is flow and development to the story—you find yourself caring about this couple beyond the gimmick.  The ending is a nice kicker, too.  Four stars.

But then we're back to form with episode four, The Lateness of the Hour, in which a young woman, shut in with her aging parents, rebels against the monotony of her life and the robotic, humanoid servants who enable it.  In the end, no surprise, it turns out she is a robot.  It stars Inger Stevens, who we saw last season in The Hitchhiker, and also in the great movie The World, The Flesh, and the Devil.  I like her, but this format was not kind to her.  The show has apparently switched to video-tape from film.  It may be cutting-edge and cheaper, but it looks tacky, and the whole thing runs like one-set dinner theater leaving no room for creative editing or cinematography.  Two stars.

This isn't the first time a show has fallen short second year out.  Now that its leads are joining the Army, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is disappointing, too.  Well, what's worse: a long-lived mediocre program, or a show that burns brightly for a short time before petering out?

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TV

[Oct. 25, 1960] Great Expectations (the second season of The Twilight Zone

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When does the New Year start?

Your first instinct might be to say "January 1, of course!"  But that's simply the beginning of the calendar year.  Think of all the other days that kick off the next 365-year cycle.  For Jews, New Year is in September.  If you run a company, your fiscal year has a good chance of not matching the calendar.

And if you're a student, a football fan…or a television viewer, you know viscerally that the New Year starts right after Labor Day.

Last TV year, writer/producer Rod Serling stunned his audiences with the exciting new anthology show The Twilight Zone.  Featuring half-hour episodes with science fiction/fantasy/horror themes, it was some of the best material the small screen had to offer.

It's no surprise that Twilight Zone was renewed for 1960-61, but can the new season match the expectations set by the first?

So far, the answer is… no.  Let me go through the four episodes that have come out thus far, and then I'll discuss the common elements that have been their undoing.

First up is King Nine will not Return, about a World War II bomber pilot who wakes up in the wreck of his plane stranded somewhere in North Africa.  The rest of his crew is gone, and his memory only gradually returns.  A nice hook, but it goes nowhere.  For 20 minutes, we get to watch the Captain laugh, cry, gibber, and run around.  Then he wakes up in a hospital, and it turns out it was all a battle-fatigue induced nightmare.  Except that his shoes are full of desert sand.

Then we have The Man in the Bottle, a prosaic little genie-grants-wishes story.  This episode is particularly maddening as the plot relies on the utter stupidity of the wishers (the genie, despite his rather sinister demeanor, is quite generous as genies go).  Granted four wishes, a near-bankrupt antique storekeeper and his wife wish: 1) That their display case glass be mended, 2) That they get a million dollars, 3) That they be unimpeachable rulers of a contemporary nation, 4) and (when #3 doesn't work out), that they be restored to their former state.

The catch to their windfall of cash is the Internal Revenue Service, which claims most of the income.  Since (in a nice bit) the generous storekeepers give away about $60,000 right away, after taxes they are left with just $5.  As for the gratification of wish #3, you just knew the storekeeper was going to end up as Adolf Hitler on April 30, 1945.  And after #4, the storekeeper breaks the display case repaired by wish #1.  A complete reset.

Except, of course, that his neighborhood is $60,000 richer!  This isn't touched upon, and it is a shame.  I would have liked to see the storekeepers' community, now aflush with funds and overflowing with gratitude, helping to make their shop a success. 

Or, you know, for the storekeepers to make better wishes in the first place.

Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room

A two-bit hood spends the episode in a dingy hotel room literally wrestling with himself after being given his first murder contract.  In the end, his suppressed nobler self takes control and turns away from a life of crime. 

And is subsequently gunned down by the mob.  Ah, my mistake.  That didn't happen, or at least, it was not shown in the episode.  It's a logical conclusion, however.

I actually probably enjoyed this episode the most, but that's not to say it was good; merely that it was not horrible.  Joe Mantell turned in a pretty good performance as the pathetic "Jackie."

Finally, we have A Thing about Machines, which my daughter and I were able to preview before it airs this Friday (in three days).  A martinet of a writer in a palatial estate finds fault with all of his mechanical devices: his television, his radio, his typewriter, his phone.  So they all plot their revenge.  The typewriter composes an eviction notice (somehow, the thing magically replenishes its paper store).  The television and phone harangue him.  His electric shaver slithers after him like a snake.  Ultimately, his car chases him into a swimming pool, where he dies of a heart attack.  The acting, cinematography and music are fine.  Shame about the story.

My daughter told me recently, "Last season, Twilight Zone was creepy with a twist.  Now it's just creepy."  She's right.  Each story starts with a premise and then goes nowhere, developmentally speaking.  We're back to that padded middle, crazy fellow screaming pattern that dogged the worst episodes of the first season. 

What's the common element?  Rod Serling wrote them all.

In fact, Rod Serling, who previously only showed up in the previews for next episodes now walks onto the set at the beginning of every story.  I don't mind when Hitchcock does it, but it rather breaks the flow in this show.  As for the quality of writing, the stories Serling provided last season were among the weaker entries, and he's no better this season.  I have a great deal of admiration for Serling as a producer and a raconteur, but he's got to let other folks contribute some screenplays.

Perhaps I'm being overly harsh.  It may well be that Serling is writing under strict budgetary guidelines, which limits his sets and number of actors (not to mention hiring out guest writers).  Between Serling and his restrictions, I don't know that the show will survive the year.

On the other hand, next week's episode is by Charles Beaumont.  That bodes well.

See you in two days with this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction!

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[Oct. 22, 1960] Frice said and done.  (The fourth Kennedy/Nixon debate)

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Contrary to the Bard's assertion, one can have too much of a good thing; I'm not sure that the fourth Nixon/Kennedy debate entertained anyone, except perhaps the Trumanesque moderator, ABC's Quincy Howe.

That is because the candidates had exhausted themselves of platitudes and nitpicky facts, leaving naught but tired repetitions of previous debate points. Here's a brief summary of what was addressed at last night's all-foreign policy debate.

Both candidates fairly squandered their opening statements. Communism as the main enemy of the United States was the theme of Nixon's preamble. He repeated his assertion that 600 million souls had fallen behind the Iron Curtain during Truman's administration while virtually none had during the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy preempted the speech he'd planned to give to respond to Nixon's charge, and he dredged up the same points he'd made in the last debates: that Eisenhower let Cuba fall to Communism, and that a neglected Africa is on its way, too.

The debate did have a few interesting highlights, however. Nixon was asked if he was only taking such a strong stance on the defense of Quemoy and Matsu (two insignificant islands off the coast of Red China currently claimed by Formosa) just because his opponent has not. The Vice President said that the accusation was totally false…and then said he'd drop the whole matter if Kennedy changed his position. Kennedy declined.

On the topic of Cuba, Nixon endorsed a queerly dovish policy: embargo Cuba, and the people will eventually topple Castro, he said. Kennedy strongly disagreed, and he urged active American support of anti-Castro Cubans, domestic and exiled.

On the issue of national prestige, Nixon assured his audience that American is doing just fine, and that any blows to our country's image are Kennedy's fault for being so unbalanced in his attacks. With regard to the space race, Nixon may be right–we've had, as he said, 28 successful space shots to the Soviet's 8. We just never achieve the spectacular first. I guess, 'Being #2, we try harder.' But when the Vice President talked about our high prestige in Latin America, well, color me unconvinced. The rocks and eggs which pelted Nixon when he visited Peru and Venezuela in 1958 weren't flowers.

Kennedy countered simply, "I look up and see the Soviet flag on the moon." He may be referring to Luna 2, or he may be predicting that the Communists will get there first. Either event points up a Soviet superiority in boosters (i.e. missiles), at least for the moment.

When asked which region of the world would receive stronger focus in his administration, the Senator suggested Eastern Europe. This surprised me given his calls for greater ties with Africa and Latin America, but perhaps he meant 'in addition' to those regions he'd already mentioned. Specifically, Kennedy singled out Poland as a possible candidate for pulling from the Soviet grasp. Truth to tell, I did not know that Poland was vulnerable to such endeavors given that they share a border with the Soviet Union. I was impressed by the Senator's articulation on this point.

I was not, however, impressed with Nixon's "me too" reply or his subsequent closing statement. Just appearing sincere is now too much of an effort for the Vice President, and he's given it up. I think he couldn't wait for this whole debate fiasco to be over.

And fiasco it has been. Going into the debates, Senator Kennedy was struggling with an image of immaturity. Vice President Nixon was considered the better speaker, the more experienced candidate. Now we've seen four contests between the two, and Kennedy has come out the winner in at least three (in my opinion). More importantly, Nixon began and ended the series with weak performances, whereas Kennedy has only looked more and more presidential.

I don't believe that these debates are the linchpin to the election, but they have made it much more of a horse race. What was the Vice President's election to lose is now anyone's game.

Next up: the second season of The Twilight Zone!

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TV

[July 2, 1960] Bottom of the Cup (Twilight Zone 1st Season wrap-up)

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Gabrielle and Chelsea–dig that futuristic dress the latter has on!

Greetings from Westercon San Diego!

Now, with an opening like that, I expect you're expecting a convention report.  Well, this is just day one of a four day extravaganza, so not quite yet.  Just know that I'm having a lovely time, and I've already swept up many fellow travelers.

No, instead I want to talk about the end of an era.  After a successful run of 36 episodes, The Twilight Zone has come to a finish.  Well, for this season, anyway.  I can't imagine that it won't be renewed in Fall 1960. 

This latest one will review just two for the simple reason that there ain't no more:

First up is Rod Serling's The Mighty Casey, possibly the least inspired of the season's line-up.  Here's the set-up: The Hoboken Zephyrs are deep in the cellar, easily the losingest team in the National League.  Along comes a applicant with the goofiest face imaginable.  He is accompanied by a elderly gentleman who makes no obfuscations about the fact that the rookie is, in fact, a robot.  Interestingly, this is the second Twilight Zone to star the quite talented Jack Warden, and both times, a robot co-stars.

Well, the young artificial man, 22 years old in appearance yet just three weeks in existence, proves to be an amazing pitcher, and the Zephyrs come to have a solid shot at the pennant.  Until, of course, it is learned that Casey isn't human.  Now, this is where I expected an interesting debate over what qualifies a player as a "man," and the fine line between natural and artificial sapience.  Instead, I got a dopey resolution where the stellar pitcher is given a heart (so as to gain human status) and then subsequently doesn't have it in him to strike anyone out. 

"Mediocre," was my daughter's assessment. 

A World of his Own, by Richard Matheson, fares a bit better.  Keenan Wynn is a famous but somewhat nebbishy playwright with the uncanny ability to make characters come alive–literally.  In fact, as the episode opens, he is caught by his wife (Phyllis Kirk) in the arms of a mistress of his own creation (Mary La Roche).  Well, that's what the wife sees through a window, but by the time she enters the writer's study, the mistress has vanished.

Eager to save his marriage, the writer explains his talent, but his wife remains dubious, threatening to lock him up so that she can collect all of the community property after obtaining a divorce.  Ultimately (as telegraphed from the first minutes of the show), it turns out that Kirk is also one of Wynn's creations, and Wynn is compelled to destroy her by tossing the dictation tape that contains her description into the fireplace.  He contemplates bringing her back with a fresh dictation, but instead, he resurrects the less shrewish Mary. 

Rod Serling then appears to deliver a rare on-screen coda… only to be disposed of by Wynn in the same fashion as all of the playwright's other creations.  Cute.

There is a rushed, claustrophobic element to these two stories, as if the show had run out of budget, and the Serling/Houghton production team was forced to make them on the cheap.  Here's hoping CBS funds the show more lavishly in Season Two.

Still, there's no cause for complaint.  We got more than 15 hours of some of the best television has to offer, and strong indications that we can look forward to many more in the years to come!

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TV

[June 22, 1960] Here comes Summer! (Twilight Zone wrap-up)

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Summer is here, and that means the television season is wrapping up, freeing time for a slew of blockbusters.  But the small screen hasn't quite finished with all it has to show us–between Maverick, Bonanza, and The Twilight Zone, there's still plenty to enjoy.  I must confess a guilty affection for What's My Line, too.  I like to close my eyes when they display the guests' professions so I can play along with the contestants in guessing.

Twilight Zone, in particular, continues to impress.  The latest three episodes (there was another gap in the schedule for some reason) are all interesting, and they break from the early season mold of featuring a fellow descending into madness and screaming through the second act.

In fact, it's rather hard to pick a favorite from this bunch.  Perhaps you can help:

Jack Klugman stars in A Passage for Trumpet as an alcoholic, down-on-his-luck trumpeteer with a real talent for horn.  His rendezvous with the bottle has killed his career, spiraling him into a depression for which booze is his medication.  Seeing no way out of the vicious cycle, he throws himself in front of a speeding car.  Surprisingly, he seems unscathed… except now no one can see him anymore.  Is he a ghost?  Perhaps the mysterious trumpeteer named Gabe knows the answer…  Klugman is particularly great in this role, but he is great in everything (q.v. 12 Angry Men).

Mr. Bevis is an altogether different sort of episode, though like the last, it is excellent and marked with more than a little touch of the supernatural.  The eponymous protagonist, played by Orson Bean, is eccentric in the extreme.  He wears a mismatched suit topped with an archaic bow-tie.  He drives an ancient Rickenbacker.  His apartment hasn't a square inch of free space, so crammed is it with half-built models, random toys, instruments, clocks.  He plays football in the street with urchins.  He listens to zither music.  His demeanor is uncommonly, unhealthily cheerful and engaging.  At work, he's a disaster, bouncing from job to job with seasonal frequency.  He rarely makes rent on time.

In fact, the episode begins with Mr. Bevis being fired, evicted, and losing his vehicle.  But then he's offered a second chance by his family guardian angel.  Will he trade his happy-go-lucky lifestyle for security and success?  Would you?

After Hours, starring mostly women (at last!  In this case, Ann Francis and Elizabeth Allen), throws a curve ball.  A young woman goes to a department store looking for a gold thimble to give her mother as a present.  She is taken to the all-but deserted ninth floor… of a building that has only eight floors, where she is sold the item by a most unsettling saleswoman.  When she later sees the retailer is just a mannequin, she faints, waking up after the employees have departed and the store has been locked up.  It's set up like a conventional episode with a mystery, an increasingly distraught protagonist, and a manic second act.  The ending isn't what you think it will be, however.

My contacts at the studio tell me there are only two episodes left before the season is out.  I'll cover those, and pick out my favorites for the season, in just a few weeks.

Stay tuned!

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Fashion, music, politics, sports, TV

[May 18, 1960] Good and bad news (Twilight Zone and the Summit)

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What makes quality television?  No, that's not an oxymoron, despite what anyone might tell you.  Sure, there are plenty of vapid game shows, variety shows, soap operas, situation comedies.  The techniques and technology are primitive–sometimes, it feels as if I'm watching a local junior high troupe in their multi-purpose room.

But there are those occasional gems that stand out, the shows that bridge the gap between the small and large screens.  They feature top notch storytelling, acting, cinematography, and scoring.

I'm talking, of course, about I Love Lucy.

No, I'm not.  I'm talking about The Twilight Zone, as you might have expected since I do a monthly wrap-up after four episodes have gone by.  This latest batch is another good one.  It is a show that has found its feet, that reliably entertains and provokes thought every Friday night.

First up is A Nice Place to Visit, a well-executed if unsurprising tale about an utter wretch of a criminal with no redeeming qualities.  He dies in a police shoot-out and finds himself in what can only be described as paradise.  All the best food, the best drink, the prettiest dames, neverending good fortune at gambling.  But no challenge.  No sense of accomplishment.  No element of risk.  Is it Heaven?  Or the other place? 

While the episode won't leave you guessing, it is fun to watch.  The actor playing the criminal does a fine job, as does the overly genial "butler" who caters to the dead man's every whim… until the very end.

Perhaps the best of the bunch (certainly the most cleverly titled) is Nightmare as a Child.  A young schoolteacher finds herself haunted by a menacing, yet strangely familiar little girl.  The girl seems to know all about the woman, even things the teacher seems to have forgotten, including a dark secret. 

I won't spoil this one at all.  It's nicely creepy, and it goes unexpected places.  It's also fun to watch with a daughter who happens to be the same age as the guest star, and who shares a fondness for hot cocoa.

A Stop at Willoughby is classic Twilight Zone.  A harried, ulcered ad executive has grown weary of his fast-paced world, his materialistic wife, and his hounding boss ("It's a Push Push Push business!  Push Push Push!").  While on his nightly train commute from New York to Connecticut, he drops to sleep and wakes up on a train in 1888, stopped at the idyllic town of Willoughby. 

The most thoughtful bit of this episode involves the mystery of what happens to the exec in the event he decides to get off at Willoughby.  Is it a dream?  A genuine journey? 

Finally, we have the rather unpleasant, The Chaser, in which a desperate young man endeavors to seduce an uninterested young woman with the aid of a love philter.  It's the kind of story that unfailingly disturbs me, as it involves a variety of rape.  It's also a Deal-with-the Devil tale, and one is given the impression that the whole affair was orchestrated by Lucifer-as-storekeeper: from the purchasing of the potion, to the inevitable aftermath where the woman is reduced to cloying adoration, to the ultimate end where the young man will do anything to rid himself of his beloved.

Not badly done; just not my cup of tea.  But what I wouldn't give for a house with that kind of bookshelf set-up!  Oh wait… I do have that house.

By the way, it looks like the expected has come to pass: The four-party Summit in Paris ended catastrophically on the same day it began, May 16, thanks to a grandstanding Mr. Khruschev.  He demanded that we stop overflying Soviet airspace.  Ike agreed to a temporary suspension of flights, but that wasn't good enough, and the Soviet Premier stormed out.  It is pretty clear that this was Khruschev's sole reason for attending, and one wonders just what he would have talked about had we not given him an excuse to torpedo the conference (i.e. one U2 pilot named Gary Powers).

Lest this sound hypocritical (i.e. "We'd have done the same in their shoes"), recall that Ike didn't raise a stink when the Soviets started sending beep-beep satellites over the American continent.  Espionage is part of normal foreign relations.  To sabotage world peace on such a thin thread smacks of diplomatic cynicism, not genuine outrage.

That's just my two cents.

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TV

[April 11, 1960] A Steady Flame (Twilight Zone wrap-up)

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Some shows start with a bang and quickly lose their spark; some are a slow burn, taking a while to find their stride; The Twilight Zone has remained a class act from the beginning.

As of Friday, April 8, 1960, there have been 27 episodes.  They have ranged in quality from fair to outstanding, and the current crop of four (I like to review them in monthly batches) comprises superior installments.

I think the success of the show can be attributed in large part to the high bar that creator and writer, Rod Serling, has set for its production.  This is a person who clearly knows his craft and seeks out like talents (Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, etc.) to draft screenplays.  Much of the credit must be doled out to the directors, cinematographers, and composer Jerry Goldsmith, to say nothing of the frequently excellent acting talent that CBS has managed to contract.

So much for the general praise.  On to the reviews!

Long Live Walter Jameson sets the standard for this batch.  The eponymous Professor Jameson is a brilliant history teacher with a knack for vivid anecdotes.  It's almost as if Jameson has lived through each of the periods and settings he describes, which is, of course, the case.

This is a thoughtful, fascinating piece that describes the blessing and curse that is immortality.  It's hardly the first, of course.  The one I remember most vividly is The Gnarly Man, by L. Sprague de Camp, but it is always a worthy topic.  In a piece I wrote many years ago, I once put these words into the mouth of a 5000 year old man:

"Imagine being in library with every book you ever want to read, and all the time in the world in which to do so.  And you read them… and you still have all the time in the world."

The following week, People Are Alike All Over.  Two astronauts, a rock-chinned type and a frightened intellectual, go to Mars where they find a remarkably human populace.  But why does the fine house crafted for the scientist (the hero-type having died soon after landing) have no windows or doors? 

I'll spoil it for you.  Roddy McDowell (the panicky scientist's actor) has been turned into a zoo specimen, relegated to live out the rest of his life as an exhibit in his "native habitat."  I get the message, but I still think it was a weak story idea.

Execution is another time travel fish-out-of-water story, but unlike The Last Flight, the voyager is a thoroughly unlikable chap.  Snatched from the hangman's noose in 1880, the murderous viewpoint character finds himself in 1960, the guest of a dapper chronologist (is that what you call a time travel expert?) The criminal remains true to type, killing and looting, being driven close to madness by the ever-present 20th century cacophony.  The ending comes as a surprise, for the most part. 

An interesting point—time travelers often are inordinately worried about changing the past, but no one gives a thought to changing the future.  After all, the present is really just someone else's past, and any gross modification of the present (say, sending one of its inhabitants permanently into the past) must to a resident of the future, make a severe alteration to the timeline.  Food for thought.

Finally, we have The Big Tall Wish, the first episode to date that features a black protagonist (and several black supporting actors).  An over-the-hill boxer tries to win a come-back fight with the help of the wishes of a little boy. 

The episode doesn't feature the madness or the weirdness of its predecessors.  Rather, it is a slow, wordy piece.  My daughter particularly enjoyed the heart-warming relationship between the boxer and his child friend.  That said, the twist (there's always a twist on this show) is very effective, and we are left with this conundrum: is a fight won with magic preferable to one honestly lost? 

That's the wrap-up for this month.  I'll be back in two days with this month's F&SF!

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