Description: Season 1, Episode 26
Air Date: April 1, 1960
Plot Summary: A criminal, about to be hung, is inexplicably transported 80 years into the future.
Review: Eh...this is another meh episode for the most part. The approach is just all wrong, and there doesn't really appear to be a message or twist to give the story that much needed oomph. Actually, the main highlight is that one of the main characters is played by Russell Johnson who you may better remember as the Professor on "Gilligan's Island." And guess what role he's playing here? Yup, a professor! Of course this episode was made long before that show was created, but it's amusing nonetheless.
The story simply involves a little bitch being executed in the old west by hanging. We don't get a lot of details on the guy except that he's murdered a bunch of people and isn't remorseful in the least. Right when the guy is dangling from the rope, to be hung, he suddenly disappears. And this is where the story completely falls apart. The guy is transported to--where else--1960s USA. It would appear a professor was experimenting with a time machine and pulled the criminal from the past by accident. For whatever strange reason, the professor wants to learn about the past firsthand, but he doesn't trust our little criminal friend. It doesn't take long for the criminal to go apeshit and kill the professor. Then the criminal runs around the city wreaking havoc all before magically finding his way back to the professor's apartment. I don't get the choice to show us the guy running around in shock of technology. I mean, this culture-shock plot device only works if you're showing the audience something they too are unfamiliar with. For example, if the criminal were taken from 1960s USA and brought to 2040...that would be interesting to see. Anyway, the criminal is then confronted by another criminal who planned to rob the professor or something. I have no clue...this was so stupid. In fact, why does the professor have a laboratory and time machine built in a random apartment? And an apartment so shitty it has seedy characters just waiting to rob you?! Come the fuck on! This dumbass thief ends up killing our criminal friend before idiotically trapping himself in the time machine. The episode ends with the thief being transported back in time to the hanging and takes the place on the rope. Uhh...poetic...I guess.
This story would have been a million times better if it were a present day person taken to the future that way the audience experiences something new. If you can't afford that route, then try to make the tale ironic. Like, maybe the criminal kills the professor, tries to escape from the police, and ends up going into the future where he takes the place of another person about to be executed. Or, tell the tale in a whole different perspective. Perhaps make the criminal disappear and the story goes over the executioners wondering what happened to him. We could get more detail on his crime and a mystery as to what happened to him. Then make the final twist be that he was transported to a time even worse. Or, the criminal is brought into a utopia-like future where he thinks he has gotten away with murder only to discover that the future needs him for some nefarious reason; using the guy for food or something. I guess my problem is I feel they were trying to tell a tale regarding justice and that was not portrayed. I'm just pulling ideas out of my ass, but I think this tale had a lot more potential than what was presented. Well, like I've said before, they can't all be gold.
I found this episode interesting. The old West outlaw Cadwell was pretty menacing and heartless. He didn't show any remorse for shooting that man's son in the back and said he'd do it again if he could do it over. Then, the menacing way he got with Russel Johnson and then knocking him out. Russell knew something wasn't right with the guy the minute he saw the rope marks on his neck, and also detecting a bad vibe, which he announced his concern for on his tape recorder. He says "I got a feeling I took a 19th century primitive outlaw and placed him into a 20th century urban jungle, and heaven help whoever gets in his way". Only a couple minutes later after showing full acknowledgement about it, he didn't realize that he got in his way. It was kinda stupid and foolish, he right away gets on the outlaw's case about right and wrong and justice. Then, Cadwell admits to killing over 20 people. Then, Russell tells him to his face not just that he must send him back, but back to the moment of his lynching. It was idiotic. Russell already realized the guy was dangerous and unstable, but then says that to him? And it's no surprise that Cadwell's rage picks up and he punches him out and smashes a lamp over his head. The episode didn't make clear if he just knocked him out cold or actually killed him. I'm guessing it's the latter since he already had murders over 20 people, and that he was still lying on the floor lifeless when coming back to his apartment/lab after a semi considerable amount of time roaming the streets all crazy and his jukebox Smashing, TV shooting in the bar. As dangerous as he was, he still freaked out scared shirtless at all the lights, noises, and carriages without horses. I agree with some of your views of the last part with the other criminal and him in the apartment/lab.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it was a random apartment, it was Russell's. He just had his lab and time machine there too. Because Cadwell was complaining about Russell's easy life in a warm room on a full stomach several feet from a soft bed. I could say that because Cadwell argued about how "another man's bread or another man's jacket stands between you and staying alive", he had to kill for survival, but since it was revealed that he shot someone in the back, that was not a survival killing. Russell also got the violent end of Cadwell, but that could've argumentatively been for survival because Russell said how he was gonna send him back straight to his hanging. But he still moved before any on the second self defense move. Cadwell was evil.