The Evil Touch: "Dear Beloved Monster"

In "Dear Beloved Monster," an arrogant geneticist, Jonathan Slater (Ray Walson) sees a water-skier killed in the nearby lake.  He is tortured by this murder, and other deaths in the lake as well, because of his work. 

Slater actually created a plesiosaur in the laboratory, and it escaped from captivity. Now, other scientists and government officials want him to help destroy his creation before it kills again.

Slater works another scientist to create poison that will kill the beast, but can't bring himself to destroy the monster, which he views as his child...

Well, there's an old saying: "be careful what you wish for." 

For weeks, I've been writing in this spot about The Evil Touch (1973-1974) and its obsession with telling stories about little old ladies and the men who try to kill them for their inheritance. 

Now for something completely different: "Dear Beloved Monster."  

This is an entirely different kind of narrative; one about a scientist creating a monster in a lake, and it is absolutely dreadful. Its the lousiest episode of The Evil Touch thus far.

Part of the problem is surely budgetary. This is an inexpensively produced series, and the production company clearly couldn't afford any decent special effects to depict the titular creature. Accordingly, the audience never sees the plesiosaur in this episode, only something that looks like a piece of gray tin, skimming the surface of the lake.  It's a terrible effect, and since this is our monster of the week, the episode fails to impress.  Never for a moment do we believe that a monster inhabits the placid waters.

The teleplay is no great shakes, either. Slater declares "I created it. It's not for someone else to destroy." In other words, he wants to take responsibility for what he made.  However, the rest of the episode is literally about him not taking responsibility for his jurassic fish, and in essence, protecting it because he sees it not as a dinosaur "just as an innocent child," at least according to Quayle's closing narration.

Slater's (entirely predictable) comeuppance comes at the end of the episode as he dashes into the water, and the episode ends.  We are meant to understand that his own creation kills him; that his love for the creature (and the pride/hubris involved in its creation), blinds him to the danger it presents.  Again, the episode couldn't afford to dramatize this moment, so the episode ends with Walston splashing into the surf, and a freeze frame.

So basically, we have no real narrative, with no real ending in "Dear Beloved Monster." A scientist creates a monster, loves the monster, and the episode culminates with the suggestion the monster will kill him.  This is a Frankenstein story, for sure, or a metaphor for parenting, even, but nothing really happens, beyond a free trips to the lake, and a few poorly dramatized murders.  There's a lot of talk, to fill up the running time, but very little of it is meaningful, or illuminates Slater's personality in a way that makes him anything other than a two-dimensional mad scientist.

"Dear Beloved Monster" is such an underwhelming, poorly produced half-hour of horror television that it makes one wish, unbelievably, that The Evil Touch would go back to scaring little old ladies.

Next week: "Campaign '20."

Tribute Gallery: Robert Forster

The Black Hole (1979)

Alligator (1980)

Tales from the Darkside: "The Milkman Cometh."

Delta Force (1984)

Jackie Brown (1997)

Supernova (2000)

Twin Peaks (2018)

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: "Twiki is Missing"

In "Twiki is Missing," a space iceberg moves perilously near Earth, endangering the entire planet as an ion storm approaches.  

Meanwhile,  a tyrant named Kurt Belzac (John P. Ryan) runs a mine on Tauros that is the "sole supplier of an explosive called Blazium," and is tired of his persistent labor problems. He believes he can replace his human workers with robots such as Twiki. Accordingly, Belzac orders his trio of psychic enforcers to Earth to negotiate for Twiki, or if necessary, steal him. 

When Buck (Gil Gerard) refuses to sell Twiki, arguing that he is a "friend," Stella (Eddie Benton) and her cohorts steal him and attempt to take him back to Tauros.

Buck follows Twiki back to Tauros, and learns that Belzac is holding Stella's son hostage. She must obey his commands, lest her boy be murdered.  Buck enlists Stella's help to save Twiki, and acquire enough blazium to destroy the threat from the space berg. 

With Stella on his side, Buck and Twiki return to earth to contend with the space berg.

"Twiki is Missing" is one of the lesser episodes of Buck Roger's first season. The story, at its heart, doesn't make a lot of sense. Isn't Twiki just one of many robots of the same model? Are his plans/blueprints available on the open market that Belzac could purchase so he doesn't have to resort to interstellar thievery?  Are there other robots of the galactic civilization (like the ones we've seen in episodes such as "Cosmic Whiz Kid") not available or able to work in Belzac's mines?  

The whole idea behind this story is that Belzac must "own" Twiki in particular, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I know Twiki has picked up Buck's habits and 20th century lingo, but it seems that  these factors would make him more independent, and therefore less useful as a slave to be used in the mines.

Furthermore, the episode doesn't get at the heart of this scenario.  Is Twiki sentient? Are the other robots like him sentient?  Do they have rights?  Is it wrong to use them as slaves, if they do have rights, and are sentient?  These issues are not of interest to the makers of "Twiki is Missing." 

Part of the reason that the story doesn't make tremendous sense is that we know so little about Twiki. Was he built by the computer council and other machines, such as Dr. Theopolis?  We have seen a robot like him, such as Tina ("Cruise Ship to the Stars"), but very few others on Earth. Is his model out-moded? State of the art? Does every Earth citizen get a robot companion like him?  As the audience, we simply don't have enough information to register this story on a deeper, more meaningful level. This is one example where Buck Rogers has provided so little information about a supporting character that a narrative about that character simply doesn't work.  

The other plot line, a looming space berg, is no more successful. Here a giant iceberg moves through space, and will rip apart the atmosphere of the Earth if its re-entry is altered.  At the last minute, Buck has to "eyeball" the iceberg's trajectory to get through the re-entry window.  I know Buck is a great pilot, and a heck of a guy, but really?  He's just going to eyeball a 10 billion ton iceberg with the correct amount of blazium, and "guess" the correct coordinates for the detonation? 

Of course, he does just that. 

Buck's either the most skilled and brilliant man alive, or the luckiest one. But just the fact that the episode's climax relies on him "eyeballing" this threat from space and successfully vanquishing it, speaks volumes about the level of the writing on the series at this point.  One gets the impression that the writers might still have been obsessed with Star Wars, and the moment when Luke turns off his targeting computer to fire his proton torpedoes and destroy the Death Star. But at least Luke had the Force on his side.  Buck just has his twentieth century "instincts." Once more, this is the idea of American Exceptionalism...in the future/in space, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Visually, "Twiki is Missing" is no great shakes.  The blazium looks like painted styrofoam blocks. A 20th century micro-fiche machine doubles for a high-tech 25th century computer in a New Chicago laboratory, and when Twiki is lost in space, the special effects crew uses the Mego action figure, apparently, for the long-shots.  There is a ramshackle, cobbled-together visual aspect to Buck Rogers that makes it look rather slapdash at times, and this is one of the worst episodes in terms of that unfortunate feature.

Next week: "A Dream of Jennifer."

Playset of the Week Robotech SDF-1 (Matchbox)

Coloring Book of the Week: Robotech

Comic Book of the Week: Robotech Defenders (DC)

Robotech Giant SDF Battle Fortress, (Play Make)

Model Kits of the Week: Robotech

Action Figures of the Week: Robotech (Matchbox)

Video Game of the Week: Robotech (PlayStation 2)

Halloween Costume of the Week: Robotech (Ben Cooper)