The Jeopardy Room

Description: Season 5, Episode 29

Air Date: April 17, 1964

Plot Summary: Soviet assassins plot to kill a former military officer hiding out at a seedy hotel.

Review: This could have easily been one of the classics, but the structure of the story is off. While this is still a decent episode, the potential to go beyond the standard is hard to overlook. You have a man, named Kuchenko, who is hiding out at a random, shit hotel. Unbeknownst to Kuchenko, two assassins have tracked his location and intend to drag out his death rather than outright kill him. The dynamics between Kuchenko and the assassins are not properly explored when they allude to knowing one another. What we do get is Kuchenko being drugged and awaking to his room now rigged with an explosive. If he can find and disarm the bomb within three hours he will be allowed to leave, however, if he does not try, or attempts to flee, he will be shot.

The story wants to convey this battle of wits combined with a sadistic vendetta, but there is not enough time to cover the material. The three hours of searching are reduced to a montage quite readily as we come to learn the bomb is in the phone; a ring will arm the bomb and lifting the receiver will activate it. The planning for this assassination is piss-poor, because Kuchenko simply makes a break for it once he realizes they want him to answer the phone. In a lackluster conclusion, the assassins are tidying up the room, in a manner of speaking, as Kuchenko calls them. Idiotically, the one assassin answers the phone, thus, blowing the two of them up. Was this a "Looney Tunes" moment? Eh, they tried, I'll give them that much.

How they could have made this episode amazing would be to start the episode off with Kuchenko awaking from the drugging. He finds the tape, as before, with maybe slightly more details to help the audience get a feel for things. Also, be sure to add "I want to play a game." As Kuchenko searches the room, you can have a back and forth with the audience as the middle-man. Meaning, Kuchenko can mumble things to himself with the assassins reacting while the assassins say things that Kuchenko can appear to be answering. Hopefully that makes sense; it's a play on editing tricks. Anyway, Kuchenko should realize the bomb is in the phone at the same time the audience does--this creates way more tension and engagement. I suppose the rest of the episode can play out the same, but I would recommend the addition of Kuchenko tricking them somehow rather than blatant idiocy. Maybe he manages to deactivate the bomb and rearm it somewhere else in the room--just bring things full circle. Oh well...here I am complaining about a story change 50+ years too late!