Month: March 2019

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 26 – Shadow Play 

photog Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F TV Show Reviews, TV Reviews, Twilight Zone , , , , , , , , , ,

Dennis Weaver plays a man named Adam Grant.  The first scene shows Adam sitting in a courtroom where he is the defendant in a murder trial.  The jury declares him guilty and the judge sentences Adam to death by electrocution.  Adam reacts by running toward the bench and telling the judge he can’t make him die again.  He is restrained by the court officers and removed from the room.

In the next scene Adam is on death row and he is interacting with his fellow prisoners.  One of them is particularly amused that Adam believes that the whole situation is actually a recurring nightmare that Adam has every night.  Adam even points out some inconsistencies that wouldn’t actually occur in real life but were playing out here.  For instance, the execution was about to occur directly following the trial and the fact that the inmate has a wristwatch which wouldn’t be allowed in a real prison.  When questioned what electrocution is like he describes the sequence in painstaking detail.

Next, we are in a suburban home where the District Attorney and his wife are about to have a steak dinner when the newspaper reporter who is covering the trial and who also happens to be their friend shows up drunk and begins trying to convince the DA to get a stay of execution.  He goes through Adam’s story and also points out some inconsistencies.  He convinces the DA to go down to the prison to at least talk to Adam.

When the DA meets with Adam, he hears the story direct from Adam and amusingly Adam is able to not only complete the DA’s sentences but also begin them.  This unnerves the DA but he is still skeptical.  And while this is going on Adam is trying to remember where in his real life all the characters of his dream came from.  He recognizes the prison chaplain as a priest in his parish who had died years ago.  He mentions to the DA how he knew him and then remembered what other parts in the drama he had played on previous nights.  Apparently, the dreams differed subtly and allowed characters to switch roles.

When the DA returns home he is very confused but at the very last minute before midnight the reporter convinces him to call the governor for a stay.  But just as he reaches him the current goes through Adam and one of the characters disappears from the room and then everything goes black.

Next, we see Adam back in the courtroom and this time one of the inmates is the judge and reporter is the DA this time.

There is a little bit of yelling at walls and it is a very down beat episode but it’s pretty well done so I’ll go for a B-.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 25 – The Silence

photog Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F TV Show Reviews, TV Reviews, Twilight Zone , , , , , , , , , ,

The episode takes place in an upper-class gentleman’s club where old money and just plain old Archie Taylor is angrily listening as younger brasher member Jamie Tennyson babbles on and on about some investment scheme or other while all the other members attempt to duck out on Tennyson before he can put the bite on them.  Finally, Taylor has the club butler walk over to Tennyson and hand him a note from Taylor.

The note is a wager.  Taylor is betting $500,000 that Tennyson can’t keep absolutely silent for one year.  The details require that Tennyson inhabit a walled fish bowl area in the club’s basement that is wired for sound and always available for observation by the membership.  When Tennyson asks him why he is making such an odd bet, Taylor says that Tennyson’s speech is so distasteful to him that he’ll do anything to give himself peace.  In addition, Taylor tells Tennyson that he knows he won’t lose the bet because Tennyson is congenitally incapable of shutting up for that long.

Taylor knows that Tennyson is desperate for money.  He has a spend-thrift wife who buys jewelry like it was going out of style.  Because of this Taylor believes that Tennyson will accept the bet and also lose and therefore be forced to resign from the club in disgrace.

Tennyson agrees but demands that Taylor put the money in escrow pending the outcome.  Taylor declines saying that his name and credit are all that’s needed to assure the wager.  Tennyson reluctantly agrees and the year is set to begin the next night.

In the next scene it’s nine weeks later, Tennyson is residing in the clear plastic walled enclosure and Taylor is amazed that Tennyson has been able to control himself so long.  But Taylor is merrily assuring his friends and associates that Tennyson won’t last much longer.

In the following scene it’s nine months into the year and Taylor seems to be getting worried.  He tells Tennyson that he feels sorry for him and offers him a thousand dollars to call the bet off and release him from his prison.  Tennyson refuses and writes on a pad “three months to go.”

Now Taylor starts using psychological warfare on Tennyson.  He hints to Tennyson that people have begun to see Tennyson’s wife going about town with other men.  He mentions over and over that Tennyson could lose his wife if he doesn’t leave right away and get her back.  This tactic is shown several times in the following scenes.  But although obviously tortured by the by the warnings he resists the temptation to quit.

Finally, it’s the last hour of the bet and Taylor’s friend and attorney George Alfred confronts Taylor with the knowledge that not only will Tennyson win the bet but Taylor will be exposed as a fraud and bankrupt.

The year is complete and Tennyson emerges from his isolation booth.  He walks over to Taylor and extends his hand to him palm up waiting for his check.  Taylor admits to the fact that he has no money, that Tennyson is the better man and that Taylor will resign from the club in disgrace.  But instead of verbally abusing Taylor and crowing over his victory Tennyson says nothing.

The other members are astounded and ask Tennyson to speak and tell them his side of the story.  But instead he takes a pad of paper and writes something and hands it to the members.  What it says is that before the contest Tennyson realized that he could not stay silent for a year so before he entered the room, he had the nerves to his vocal cords surgically severed.  Tennyson then removes the scarf that he has been wearing throughout the contest and we see the scars from the surgery.

I remember as a kid this one creeped me out.  The horror of a man maiming himself to win money still bothers me viscerally.  But I will admit the story is rather well done.  Liam Sullivan who plays Tennyson is actually quite a sympathetic character.  Taylor is played by Franchot Tone who was a pretty big star back in the day and is convincingly venal.  And Jonathan Harris (of “Lost in Space” fame) is an able voice of conscience as George Alfred.  I’m not speechless with amazement but let’s say B+.

Michael Anton Introduces Us to John Marini

photog Current Events, On-Line Article Reviews, Reviews ,

Back in 2016 when Michael Anton was Publius Decius Mus on the Journal of American Greatness, John Marini’s pseudonym was Cato the Elder.  Anton admits that Marini’s posts were the most unpopular possibly because they were the most intellectually challenging.  Marini’s field of expertise is the metastatic cancer that is the Administrative State, also known as the “Swamp.”  Anton here tells us that Marini has a book called, “Unmasking the Administrative State.”  Marini is a big brain so without a doubt this will be a heavy slog for the man on the street.  Rather than recommending reading this book, which I’m not even sure I’ll read, read Anton’s article about it.  He is always a worthwhile read and is a good way to see the bigger picture that’s behind the latest outrage that the Swamp is perpetrating on us on any particular day.

https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/draining-the-swamp1/

 

 

Mafia Rubouts Aren’t Showing Proper Respect

photog Current Events, On-Line Article Reviews, Reviews ,

Back when I was a kid in Brooklyn the Mafia was a much more pervasive phenomenon.  But since the FBI put John Gotti away it seems NY Mafia activity has been in a coma.  But now news arrives that the head of the moribund Gambino crime family has been rubbed out in front of his Staten Island home.  He was run over and shot six or seven times.  But, at least in the NYC papers the most important aspect of the rubout was the disrespect shown by doing it in front of his house where his family had to see it.

We have fallen on hard times indeed.  Apparently, a crime boss’s home is no longer a safe space.  Perhaps the Left can work on that.  After all hurt feelings are real.

https://nypost.com/2019/03/13/gambino-crime-boss-frank-cali-shot-dead-outside-staten-island-home/

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 24 – The Rip Van Winkle Caper

photog Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F TV Show Reviews, TV Reviews, Twilight Zone , , , , , , , , , ,

The scene opens with four men and an eighteen-wheeler out in the desert near some hills.  We are told it’s Death Valley California and they’ve just robbed a train that was carrying gold bullion from Fort Knox.  The leader is a scientist named Farwell who used gas to render the train crew unconscious.  His assistant Erbie is an engineer who helped build the equipment and Brooks and DeCruz are criminals who provide the muscle and the nerve for the crime.

The men unload the gold into a hidden cave and get rid of the big truck and stash a smaller truck in the cave.  Now we learn the reason why this is a Twilight Zone story.  Falwell has perfected a gas that renders its users asleep in a state of suspended animation.  Erbie has built four glass boxes that will retain the gas for one hundred years while the gang outlive the arrest warrants for them and makes the gold, they stole much more valuable.

DeCruz is unwilling to be treated with the gas but Brooks, who doesn’t like him at all, threatens him at knife point.  Farwell has the boxes (or as they appear coffins) wired for sound and he walks the others through the steps to accomplish the plan.  The boxes fill with gas and the scene fades out.

In the next scene they wake up and seem a little dazed.  DeCruz complains that they look exactly alike, their hair and fingernails haven’t grown at all.  So, he concludes that it must be just a few hours later.  But then they find that Erbie’s box contains a skeleton.  A rock had shattered the glass top after falling from the roof of the cave.  The condition of Erbie’s body proves that an enormous amount of time has passed.  The plan worked and it’s a hundred years in the future.

Their plan is to take the truck to the nearest town and figure out the best way to cash in their gold.  Immediately Brooks and DeCruz start arguing about who will drive and who will sit in the back with the gold.  Once again Brooks uses his knife to win the argument.  But when Brooks goes down the road a little to look at a barrel of water, they will take with them, DeCruz runs him over with the truck.  But as DeCruz attempts to brake the truck after the killing he finds that the brakes won’t work.  He jumps out of the truck just as it hurtles down a cliff.

Now the gang is down to Farwell and DeCruz and they will have to walk thirty miles to the nearest town through the searing heat of Death Valley lugging as much of the valuable but incredibly heavy gold bars as they can carry.  Farwell is old and very out of shape.  After a while they stop to rest and Farwell discovers he has dropped his canteen somewhere.  He begs DeCruz for water and laughingly DeCruz agrees.  But the deal is one drink of water for one bar of gold.  As the day progresses much of Farwell’s gold ends up with DeCruz.  Finally, DeCruz ups the ante and changes the equation to two bars per swallow.  While DeCruz is stowing his new gold, Farwell takes one of his last bars and knocks DeCruz down and kills him with the heavy weight.

Now Farwell takes as much gold as he can carry and walks on.  Eventually he collapses from heat stroke.  A futuristic car with a man and a woman inside finds Farwell and the man goes over to try and help.  Farwell is on the point of death but he tries to use the gold as a means of getting the man to give him some water and take him to a hospital.  But before anything can be done Farwell expires.

The man goes back to the car and tells his wife what happened.  He is confused how the man ended up in the desert but he wonders why the man would think gold would be a convincing incentive to get help.  She asks, “Wasn’t it used as money back a hundred years ago?“  He replies, “Yes, but then we figured out how to manufacture it.”  And he throws the bar over by Farwell.

To my way of thinking, this is a terrible episode.  None of the characters are likable, not even the couple who find them at the end.  The surprise ending is not that surprising.  And who except for a complete psychopath would be willing to give up everything he values for some money?  Meh.  D