Description: Season 2, Episode 9
Air Date: December 9, 1960
Plot Summary: An aging actor reflects on the prime of his life after being intimidated by a new director.
Review: This episode is a huge letdown with all things considered. Essentially the story is comprised of themes and plot elements the show has already gone over. Yeah, this may be 45th episode, but you can't be recycling that soon. The story is nothing more than an old actor realizing he's at the end of his life. The actor thinks fondly of his first wife, who died young, and compares his feelings for her to his current, cheating trophy wife. Then we skip to the actor going to rehearsal for a new play he's starring in, but there's a new director that is a hard ass. For some reason, the actor is so overwhelmed by the raw machismo of the director that he runs away...well that's what I got from that scene at least. The actor finds himself back in time at the peak of his acting. Here, he comes across his first wife and old friends, but they see his old self rather than remembering him at his peak. The wife starts behaving irrationally, and the actor tries to explain, in the most incomprehensible manner, that he has traveled through time. Unable to properly communicate what is happening, the actor is told to go back to wherever he came from and he obliges. Back in the present, the actor finds a script in his pocket that entailed the scene we had just viewed. The actor interprets this as the dead people were simply telling him to live his life; not sure how he gathers that conclusion but okay. When the new director approaches him, the actor lays the ground rules of how this play will be and reasserts his prowess. I guess this restores his zest for life or whatever. That's it.
It's tough to explain, because this episode could have been decent if we hadn't already experienced this scenario before--and done better and more concise the first time. We get it, the past always seems better than it really was, except that wasn't entirely the message. I don't quite follow the notion that his past friends and wife were acting out a script. Are they ghosts, a dream, what the fuck? Plus, say you're time traveling, old man, yeesh! Why was the actor scared shitless by the director anyway? Ugh, this episode makes no sense. There was a silver lining, however, as the actor was portrayed well by Brian Aherne. He also delivered some great lines like how he wants to sleep then go to oblivion, how he doesn't care about his cheating wife, and when he talks shit in general; in this respect, he was an awesome character. Overall, this episode just doesn't bring much to the table and the story is confounded by nonsense.
I totally understand some of your questions. You are right, Templeton does explain to Laura and Barney in the speakeasy in a very unclear and confusing way, and he carried an ugly desperation in him, it's no wonder they dismiss him. As for your question about what the whole experience really was, I believe that Templeton never really went back in time. I think that they found actors and lookalikes of Laura, Barney, the doorman, and everyone at the speakeasy to act out the whole "what to do if Booth comes back" script. If Booth really went back to 1927, how would the real Laura, Barney, etc. have possibly known about the script, how Booth would be 30 years later, etc.? I guess they found actor extras for the crowd cheering him outside too and found a couple of classic 1920s cars to drive in the streets back and forth to really make it look like he was there.
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason Booth was so intimidated by the director was because he was obsessed with his younger, stronger days when people loved and respected him and he was a big thing in the theater. Now, he was facing someone younger and stronger than him talking very condescending and calling the shots and making Booth look smaller, weaker, and insignificant. And he had alot of trouble handling that considering the mindset he was already in, which is why he ran.
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason Booth was so intimidated by the director was because he was obsessed with his younger, stronger days when people loved and respected him and he was a big thing in the theater. Now, he was facing someone younger and stronger than him talking very condescending and calling the shots and making Booth look smaller, weaker, and insignificant. And he had alot of trouble handling that considering the mindset he was already in, which is why he ran.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand some of your questions. You are right, Templeton does explain to Laura and Barney in the speakeasy in a very unclear and confusing way, and he carried an ugly desperation in him, it's no wonder they dismiss him. As for your question about what the whole experience really was, I believe that Templeton never really went back in time. I think that they found actors and lookalikes of Laura, Barney, the doorman, and everyone at the speakeasy to act out the whole "what to do if Booth comes back" script. If Booth really went back to 1927, how would the real Laura, Barney, etc. have possibly known about the script, how Booth would be 30 years later, etc.? I guess they found actor extras for the crowd cheering him outside too and found a couple of classic 1920s cars to drive in the streets back and forth to really make it look like he was there.
ReplyDeleteI understand your point about the new director and the intimidation factor, but I don't think the past versions were just actors. I mean the trouble it would take to find lookalikes and sets just to trick him is farfetched. Besides, who was behind it all? All just to give an old actor confidence again? Alas, the simplest answer is that this just isn't a well put together episode. Wouldn't be the first time TZ had a decent premise that fell to pieces by the ending.
DeleteTempleton was quite friendly with his servant at home at the start of the episode, maybe he was behind the entire set up with the lookalikes and 1920s atmosphere and crowds. He may have done it all, as a big favor for a friend, since we saw at the start of the episode how much Templeton was bleeding his heart out to him. And since he was his servant and there everyday, we can just assume that his servant also got tired of listening to him everyday. As for finding lookalikes, it was probably not as difficult as one would think to find them, and Laura and Barney were typical looking young people. They would have had to find the trouble of finding all participants 1920s clothes though, and to find the 1920s ragtime band (those have existed in later times), and finding the 1920s cars would've been difficult to do though, so I see your point also on it all being far fetched. I don't know, you may be right. Calling all of it a not well put together episode, if that's the case, would be an understatement. If that's what it is, the whole experience panning out the way it did and it being real would've been quite a serious flaw. The plot was full of holes if Templeton really went back to the 1920s. However, some episodes in even the best shows have been extremely flawed.
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