The Mind and the Matter

Description: Season 2, Episode 27

Air Date: May 12, 1961

Plot Summary: A man, tired of humanity, gains omnipotence and wills all the people out of existence.

Review: Hmm...was this episode secretly based off of my desires? While this won't be the last we see of omnipotent characters, I believe this is the only one that was trying to be humorous with the material. Well, at least I'm hoping they were going for laughs as it's virtually impossible to take this scenario seriously. We simply meet a guy, named Beechcroft, who is part dork and part asshole. After we go through a typical day in Beechcroft's life, he suddenly snaps whereby we learn how annoyed he is with the crowded populous and monotony. After having lunch with another geek, who I get the feeling is subtly in love with Beachbaby, he is given a book that is titled the same as our episode. Reading the book quite hurriedly, Bitchboy suddenly gains the power to will the world in a way he sees fit.

The first order of business is to get rid of all the humans in the world. For some reason, the second order of business is going to work. Psh...are you shitting me, dude? You've instantly become a god and you waste your time with your job?! My, my, my! In typical TZ fashion, Beechy is tired of the situation almost immediately. It's been, like, what, a couple of hours? Give it a century or so--sheesh. Spicing things up, he manipulates the weather a bit, but this amusement is short lived. Beechcroft strangely has conversations with a physical representation of himself as they discuss ways to ease the boredom. Babybitch decides to recreate humanity but they will all look and act as he does. This part is especially dumb, as you might guess, and the worst part was the actor dressed up as a woman as well as the horrendous-looking masks. Realizing that he's an asshole, Beechcroft simply brings back humanity and is miraculously content with the way things are and life in general. Well, the message is pretty straightforward, and the episode does an adequate job of presenting it. It's not exactly a classic, but it's not terrible either.

Shadow Play

Description: Season 2, Episode 26

Air Date: May 5, 1961

Plot Summary: A man about to be executed claims that the entire world is nothing more than his dream.

Review: Bringing an end to the hot streak of mediocrity is a pretty decent episode. The story is like a cross between "Inception," "Groundhog Day," and a ton of other films and TV shows that have borrowed heavily from this concept. We meet a guy, named Weaver, shortly after he has been sentenced for a murder we don't get details toward. Weaver believes that the events unfolding are simply a dream he has each night; the people in this dream change positions as they are random individuals from his life that his subconscious fills in. Although Weaver is certain that the dream will eventually end, the pain of being executed is real to him, and he would rather not continue to experience it over and over. Due to the complexity of the dream, various people try to help out Weaver after he proves to them that he has imagined everything. Despite his best efforts, Weaver fails to prevent his own execution, and his dream starts anew with all the people switching their roles. And that's all she wrote.

The story is surprisingly more simplistic than you'd imagine, but I think that helps make the concepts easier to grasp. I do wish they spent more time discussing the themes and questioning reality, but I understand they wanted to focus more on the nightmarish fear a person experiences. While we have a ton of reference points to understand the episode better, this was definitely innovative for the time. I liked the notion that the nightmare could not be escaped even when the dreamer realized the situation. More so, the episode examines the age old notion of solipsism: that you, the individual, are certainly the only real person. Could the world simply be in the mind of one individual? Could our own desire to be real establish the world because the dreamer wills it so? It's some heavy shit that's for sure. All I know is that I am either the realest dream ever, or I'm someone's voice of reason or something!

The Silence

Description: Season 2, Episode 25

Air Date: April 28, 1961

Plot Summary: A loudmouth is challenged to not speak for a full year in exchange for $500,000.

Review: Does this episode count as a classic? I see it aired quite a bit so I'm assuming it's at least mid-level classic. Regardless, it's another so-so episode for me. What are we at--like 5 in a row now? You're killing me here, season 2! There are a few amusing aspects to the story but not a lot happens, and it's not really a relevant tale or timeless. We simply get a loudmouth yuppie-type who is hanging out at a boy's club in the '60s. I don't know if people are even familiar with these kinds of settings anymore, but I know they still partially exist today. Anyway, this loudmouth is having financial trouble due to his squandered inheritance and gold digger wife. Another old chap at this club has grown wary of the loudmouth and bets him $500k that he won't be able to go a whole year without talking. Needing that money, and with his reputation on the line, the loudmouth accepts the challenge.

They decide to keep the loudmouth in the club's basement and monitor his every move. Every move?! Needless to say, the loudmouth is going months and months without talking and the old chap is getting worried. To try and force the loudmouth to snap, the old chap tries to talk shit about the loudmouth's wife cheating on him--which she probably was. Yeah, I'll be gone for a year, honey, love you, miss you, bye! As the final minutes of victory tick down, the loudmouth emerges to collect his money only for the old chap to reveal he is broke and planned to resign from the club. Still not speaking, the loudmouth next reveals he knew he couldn't win conventionally so he severed his vocal cords. Dun dun DUN! And that's pretty much all there is to the episode. The final twist isn't even that shocking with all things considered. Eh, I can see why others may find an appeal to this episode, but I felt it was predictable and lackluster.

The Rip Van Winkle Caper

Description: Season 2, Episode 24

Air Date: April 21, 1961

Plot Summary: Thieves plan to sleep for a hundred years in order to safely spend the gold they've stolen.

Review: This yet another meh episode. While it has a few interesting ideas, the scheme that the thieves concoct is clearly mindless and destined to fail. In other words, I can't fully take the story line seriously when I can't suspend my disbelief enough. Essentially, four experts combine their skills to pull off a heist on a train en route to Fort Knox. After stealing a paltry $1 million (even by 1961, this is pittance when split 4 ways) in gold, the thieves retreat back to a hideout in the middle of the desert. Here, the thieves plan to use a kind of suspended animation chamber to put themselves to sleep for a 100 years. Uh, come the fuck on, man. How could they not see this would be a horrible idea? Try 25 or 50 years TOPS! This was the height of the Cold War to boot--what guarantee would there be that the world would still be there? Regardless of any kind of debate, the thieves go along with this plot, and, sure enough, awake 100 years later.

Using 1961 sci-fi logic, there are no real explanations of how this works, but the thieves wake up as if not a second has passed. Somewhat doubting the situation, they realize the truth when one of the flunkies is found decomposed in their chamber. With limited water and a car to drive them toward civilization, the remaining thieves pack up except one of them decides to fuck it all up; the one thief runs another flunky over and then destroys the car. Hmm, sounds intelligent. With only two thieves left, they begin marching through the desert while carrying their gold. One flunky loses his water bottle and the other thief demands gold in exchange for water. Instead of making this a plan to trick the guy into carrying all the gold and exhausting himself, the waterless thief simply beats the other flunky to death. You're killing me here, TZ! Finally, the last thief stumbles upon other humans and offers them gold before the thief dies of thirst. As it would turn out, the futuristic humans don't care about gold as they found a way to synthesize it artificially. Okay...well, that would have been a lot more dramatic, and fitting of the TZ tone, had the last thief realized that truth for himself but whatever.

They just dropped the ball too many times throughout the episode when there were opportunities to make this memorable. The final thief should have deceived the one guy into carrying the gold then laughed as he took all the gold without having to carry it. Then, being the most evil of the bunch, the thief is cocky with his triumph only to realize all the trouble was for naught. Hell, make it so he still ended up in prison for the crime or something too. There were a lot of options squandered.

A Hundred Yards Over the Rim

Description: Season 2, Episode 23

Air Date: April 7, 1961

Plot Summary: A lost pioneer from 1847 suddenly finds himself in 1961.

Review: We seem to be on a hot streak of mediocre episodes, and this one is no different. As I've stated before, it's not as though these are bad stories, they simply lack a certain oomph to make them memorable. The thing that bothered me about this episode, in particular, was the lack of an explanation for the time traveling; this inexplicable ability to time travel is a plot device TZ appears to abuse. The first couple of times you see this plot device it's acceptable, but after a bunch of uses I've grown wary of the setup as a cheap means to skip exposition. At least keep things interesting as a few episodes accomplished, such as "A Stop at Willoughby," where it was kept ambiguous as to whether it was even real or not.

Anyway, we meet a caravan of pioneers heading toward California in 1847. The main guy is played by Cliff Robertson, best known as Uncle Ben from the Raimi "Spider-man" franchise; a curious bit role is another pioneer played by John Astin aka Gomez Addams. The pioneers have become lost, low on food and water, and are about to give up. Uncle Ben's son is sick as well so Uncle Ben decides to scout around for water. The moment he goes over a hill, or the rim as they term it, Uncle Ben is inexplicably transported to 1961. After nearly being run over by a truck, Uncle Ben stumbles upon a diner where he curiously looks around. The couple that owns the diner helps Uncle Ben a bit as he explains to them the situation. The couple calls for a doctor as they ponder whether or not Uncle Ben is crazy or a legitimate time traveler. Uncle Ben magically finds an encyclopedia that mentions his son living an accomplished life. This leads Uncle Ben to the realization that he must get back to his time in order to bring medicine to the boy. The doctor ends up calling the police who try to arrest Uncle Ben, but he manages to climb back over that hill first. Back in 1847, Uncle Ben gives the son medicine and carries on with their traveling with the confidence that everything will work out. Ehh, it's a decent little tale. If we hadn't watched the fish out of water phenomenon a bunch of times already this would have felt entertaining. As it stands, this is an episode that hardly stands out due to its striking similarities to other episodes.

Long Distance Call

Description: Season 2, Episode 22

Air Date: March 31, 1961

Plot Summary: A boy continues to talk to his deceased grandma through a toy telephone.

Review: This is another average episode for me. It has a creepy concept, but it doesn't play it up to be as scary as it could have been. Imagine if the parents talked to the ghost and it sounded disturbing or it wasn't really the ghost of the grandma at all. I know TZ rarely wanted to freak out the audience, but I hate to see an idea like this softened for the kiddies.

The plot is that it's Billy-boy's birthday and his sick grandma has given him a toy phone. They establish that the grandma has a close relationship with Billy, and they make a point of showing the jealousy of Billy's mom. Not sugarcoating the situation, the grandma tells Billy-boy this will be her last birthday with Billy as she is dying, but Billy can always talk to her through the phone. Well, that's not a weird thing to say to a kid at all! Sure enough, grandma goes bye bye but not before speaking nonsense. Grandma says that her son, Billy's dad, was taken from her by the wife/mom and that she thinks of Billy as her son now. What is with wives and mothers in law? Silly women. "She's trying to destroy me!"

Anyway, Billy's behavior begins to change, and he puts himself in dangerous situations at the behest of grandma's ghost whom he talks to incessantly on the phone. It would seem grandma wants Billy-boy to join her in the afterlife. When that bitchy mom takes away the phone Billy decides to drown himself. Paramedics manage to save the kid, but he's comatose or something due to this. The dad, believing that things are real, speaks with the grandma on the toy phone and begs for her to leave Billy-boy alone--that Billy isn't her son. Grandma appears to listen and Billy makes a miraculous recovery. Overall, it's a good episode, but the potential to make things genuinely frightening were squandered. If they had fully utilized the setup, this could have easily been one of the best episodes without question.

The Prime Mover

Description: Season 2, Episode 21

Air Date: March 24, 1961

Plot Summary: A gambler attempts to use his friend's telekinetic powers to make money.

Review: This is a middle of the road kind of episode for me; it has its moments, but it could have been better. We don't get much in the way of back story for the characters, but the episode begins by introducing us to three people working at a diner or something: the main guy, a wannabe gambler, named Ace, the apparent owner of the diner, Jimbo, and the waitress/girlfriend of Ace, named Kitty. Ace is playing some little slot machine they have and losing consistently; ironically, the moment Ace stops playing the next person to try the slot machine wins. While mulling over the idea of marrying Kitty, Ace and Jimbo watch a car crash nearby. When the two men go to help, Jimbo reluctantly reveals he has telekinetic powers and flips the car over. It doesn't take long for Ace to realize they could use this ability to make money so they embark to Las Vegas immediately.

Of course they win huge as Jimbo can easily manipulate dice, the roulette wheel, etc. After winning hundreds of thousands of dollars, which would be the equivalent of millions now, Ace is still not content as Jimbo says he needs time to rest his powers. Little Kitty-cat does not like this level of greed, and tells Ace she is going home. For some reason Ace decides to pick up a new chickadee for luck as he challenges a local gangster to a private game of craps. Predictably so, Ace is winning until he decides to go all or nothing right when Jimbo's powers are tired again. Ace loses everything like an idiot, that chickadee runs off, and Jimbo claims he has permanently lost his powers. The two go back home where Ace asks Kitty to marry him. What? And I thought this guy was done with gambling. Kitty even flips a coin in regard to whether she'll say yes. That's funny--flip that coin again and we'll find out if you get divorced. The episode ends with Jimbo using the force on a broom--proving he did not really lose his powers after all. Overall, it's a decent tale but nothing really sticks out. The girls are cute--especially this one background extra--but the episode is straightforward without a lot of extra depth TZ is known for.

Static

Description: Season 2, Episode 20

Air Date: March 10, 1961

Plot Summary: An old man, miserable with life, reminisces about the good ol' days with the aid of a mysterious radio.

Review: I really want to like this episode, but it's hard to get past the similarities to other episodes that dealt with the same themes. I've already covered the rose-colored glasses phenomenon--and will continue to touch on it in future episodes--which is essentially all the story breaks down into. Now, I'm not saying this was a bad episode, it simply deals with familiar material that was done better. Plus, on the bright side, the food of the '60s was still great...so slide over grandpa and give me your pudding! I'm not asking...

The story begins with the main character, Ed, seemingly, angry at the sheer existence of television. That's a good one. Just be glad you never lived to see the nightmare of today's era. Arrrghh, if I could only destroy all the cell phones on the planet! Staying at a boarding home, Ed doesn't like the way people watch the TV hypnotically, and this inspires him to grab his old radio from the basement. After paying a dumbass, dancing boy (don't ask) to help him lift the radio, Ed tries to tune into those classic jams of the '40s. You know like...umm...and...uhhh...yeah, I've got nothing. The only problem is that no one can hear the songs but Ed. Rightfully so, the other people living at the boarding home think he's finally lost it.

We then get drama between Ed and a borderline gilf named Vinnie. Vinnie, huh? It would appear Ed and Vinnie were once an item decades ago, but complications stopped them from ever getting married. Whew...it was rare to dodge that bullet back then, Eddy--better thank your lucky charms. Essentially, Vinnie tells Ed that he's living in the past, and his nostalgia is probably due to the fact that their anniversary was coming up or something. Vinnie convinces Ed to admit he did really love her long ago which appears to make him quite angry. Not caring if the radio signals are in his head, Ed escapes into his perceived happiness. One day, Ed comes home to find that they threw away his radio; this doesn't matter since Ed buys it right back. However, before any serious resolution can occur, Ed suddenly finds himself transported back into the past to, seemingly, fix his mistakes. Alternatively, we could view the ending as a gloomier one where Ed has succumbed to his manifesting dementia. Take your pick.

Overall, this is nothing really new to TZ. Sure, the ending and setup are a bit different, but we get it. Actually, I think a more ballsy ending would have made this episode stand out. Like, keep the whole Ed returning to 1940 aspect, but then cut to the present with him drooling or something. The closing lines from Mr. Serling could be extra somber and really hit the message home.

Mr. Dingle, the Strong

Description: Season 2, Episode 19

Air Date: March 3, 1961

Plot Summary: A loser is suddenly given superhuman strength by invisible aliens.

Review: Oh good lord. I think it's safe to say this is a contender for the top 10 worst episodes list. I often mention the timeless nature to TZ and the universal appeal of the stories, but this is definitely not an instance of that notion. Obviously they intended this to be a comical episode, but it fails...hard! The effects look like you're watching a terrible B-movie from the drive-in era. Burgess Meredith and Don Rickles are completely wasted as well. Killing me here, son.

The story focuses on the titular character, Mr. Dingle, who is a simpleton to say the least. After getting his ass kicked in the most terrible of fashion, two-headed martians, who are conveniently invisible, show up to test out a strength enhancement on a weakling for unnamed experimental purposes. Keep in mind, Mr. Dingle keeps coming to the same bar where he gets his ass kicked by the same guy over and over. Why? Unknowingly given the strength enhancement, Mr. Dingle tests out his power which is a bit inconsistent. This catches the attention of gawkers and the media alike who want to study this marvel. Despite demonstrating his unbelievable strength, and beating up that bitch who picks on him, people quickly doubt Mr. Dingle once he loses the powers. Imagine you just saw a guy do all kinds of crazy and verifiable shit in front of you, then he loses the power, and everyone thinks he was just tricking them. Yeah, that's one fucking elaborate scam! As the cheesy as fuck martians are about to leave, even cheesier aliens from Venus show up. That's a good one. I wasn't around in '61, but I have to imagine this looked like shit even back then. Well, the Venus aliens decide they want to make Mr. Dingle a genius now. And that's how the episode ends--with Mr. Dingle having superhuman intelligence for a time being. It's not the humor that bothers me, necessarily, it's the sheer ridiculous nature to the plot coupled with the horrendous effects. Mr. Serling, what were you thinking with this one?