The Fear

Description: Season 5, Episode 35

Air Date: May 29, 1964

Plot Summary: A state trooper and a fashion editor are tormented by, seemingly, giant aliens at a secluded cabin.

Review: The end is just on the horizon as we come to the second to last episode. Eh, the story here is a hit and miss. In one respect, I like the notion of aliens playing on your fears, but it's not fully realized. At the same time, the ending is completely nonsensical and outright stupid. We kick things off with a state trooper, checking in on a snobby, New York fashion editor. This bitch supposedly saw lights around her cabin, and the trooper wants to...uhh...verify this statement I guess. Sure enough, shenanigans begin to ensue with flashing lights and the trooper's car moving on it's own and crashing. At one point the car is flipped over, leaving behind gigantic fingerprints.

The banter between the trooper and the bitch are somewhat amusing, but everything feels contrived. In fact, this entire episode comes off similarly to a cornball, drive-in movie from the '50s. The dialogue is over the top and the scenes are overly dramatic in the worst of ways. If this were satire I'd say it was genius, but, unfortunately, it wasn't. Anyway, the two eventually come face to face with a huge footprint and an accompanying monstrous alien. The trooper decides the best course of action is to shoot at it--because why not--and the two realize it was nothing more than a balloon. As it turns out, the aliens are quite tiny and were trying to scare the couple...in a ploy to take over the world? Yeah, sure, whatever.

The main reason why this episode fails is due to sheer idiocy. Ignoring the fact that the plot is merely the reverse of "The Invaders," the scheme of the aliens is implausibly moronic. You have super advanced technology yet you need to "scare" humans to defeat them? Just blow shit up! And why this couple? Were they somehow going to spread the word? If they were test subjects, try another test...or blow shit up. The execution was not working at all when the ingredients for a decent episode were more than present.