Description: Season 2, Episode 28
Air Date: May 26, 1961
Plot Summary: Two police officers believe an alien is hiding at a diner filled with stranded bus passengers.
Review: Think of this episode as a forerunner for "The Thing" with its attempt at paranoia and trying to figure out who's really an alien. While the episode is simply good, rather than great, it is a fun mystery that keeps you guessing. What could have made this great would have been a more dramatic finale or greater emphasis on the paranoia between the characters. Furthermore, the cops, or state troopers if you will, weren't exactly smart enough to figure out the situation on their own which sucked. Despite the faults, there were a few nuances that helped boost the overall experience and give it an added layer of charm.
So we have the two cops chasing after an apparent UFO that landed in a nearby lake. You would think they would brush this sighting off, but I guess they decided to followup considering they find a trail of footprints. Eh, I think real cops would have called bullshit fairly early on regardless, but I suppose things may have been different with Cold War fears. Curiously enough, the tracks lead to a diner where a bus and its passengers reside. There's something about a bridge being out due to a snowstorm or frozen or whatever--hell if I know--but the goofball driver claims he only had 6 passengers and now there are 7. The primary suspects are a business guy, an allegedly hot dancer, a crazy guy, an old couple, and a young couple; balancing things out a little more are the driver and the diner chef. Each character does something strange to make them suspect, but the couples were especially idiotic. I mean, if an alien can pretend to be your spouse, and you're so brainwashed to not know the difference, then you're already fucked! However, the main red herring is the crazy guy with his bug-eyes and gold miner accent. Calm down, dude!
One thing that was amusing was everyone acting like this dancer girl was hot. Uhh, are you all aliens--what the hell?! I did like the driver and one of the cops checking her ass out at the same time then looking at each other. Classic. Another funny moment was when one of the cops said they were like "kids in a closet" and no one knows what's going on. Oh man...that's great! Or maybe my sick mind is reading waaaay too much into that line? Anyway, after shenanigans and some finger pointing, the diner receives a phone call regarding the bridge being clear for the bus. Against the judgement of the driver, and any sense of reason, everyone leaves and seemingly ends up dying except the business man. Returning to the diner, the business man reveals he is a martian and a part of a scouting team. The diner chef doesn't care, because he's apparently from Venus and his people have intercepted the martian forces. A bit lackluster of an ending, and a sort of cop-out revelation, but it was interesting enough. I would have preferred if the cops figured out a way to trick the alien into revealing themselves but oh well. They even mention the notion of cat and mouse at one point but this episode was unable to pull that off effectively.
This was a pretty good episode in the wacky old fashioned style of comedy. Some of the wit and comments made by the people in the diner during the alien suspicions and that wacky goofball guy with the weird eyes really helped give this that wacky old fashioned touch. I also liked the scene with the officer and driver eying that cute woman walking onto the bus. And, the officer saying in the diner how he knew that she was on the bus all along because she's the one he really noticed from the first minute he saw her. I thought she was pretty sexy, you didn't?
ReplyDeleteThis episode had alot of similarities to "Monsters due on Maple Street" with everyone starting to trip out and suspect each other of not being one of them. That prick guy who kept bitchin about everything, I must say that he was not one of the first ones to suspect being the alien. So this episode was not too predictable, which is good. The goofy eyed guy, some people mayve thought it was him, but he looked and talked too weird for that, and usually the writers want to make the alien be the one you least suspect. I actually thought it mayve been one of the cops, you know the one leading the suspicion turns out that he was doing it to hide how it was really him. So, I was wrong on that one. The other one I suspected, which I was correct about, was the diner owner. I also liked how they were able to make the phone ring and provide the voice for the safety commissioner saying that the bridge was now safe to cross, which all turned out to be falsly created by the alien. And the driver, passengers, and cops believing it was real, and apparently every one of them (except one) falling to their deaths, I guess that bridge must've still been hanging buy a couple threads over a river I'm guessing at least 50 feet below, if the bridge collapsing and the bus and cop car falling instantly killed everybody. I wouldn't think that that kind of accident would kill everyone if the bus was only 5 or 10 feet above the water, it must've been much higher. Of course, it being winter and snowing, they could've also died from hypothermia or pneumonia, except they said that they all died instantly, so yeh, the bridge must've been higher above and the bus and car dropped a good distance.
The ending, I must say, when it was revealed who the aliens were, was also pretty interesting, and the truth about the flickering lights, the jukebox, and the contrived phone call saying the bridge was safe. I also liked how the uptight Boston guy revealed to be an alien asked "what's wet?" when the diner guy asked him how he could still be dry after falling in the river. Seeing the extra arms on the Boston alien didn't look too real though and the extra eye on the diner alien really looked fake and ridiculous. But I liked the idea about how his Venus martains had stopped the Mars Martians from landing to colonize. A good episode, and interesting.