Abnormal Fixation 2.4: "Bounce Rate"

 

25 Years Ago: The Lone Gunmen "Pilot" (March 4, 2001)

An old proverb reminds us that truth can be stranger than fiction. Where genre television is concerned, however that line is occasionally blurred. The truth…is sometime -- shall we say? -- Out There.

Case in point: the Chris Carter X-Files spin-off, The Lone Gunmen (2001). This series aired on Fox TV for a dozen or so hour-long episodes at the beginning of 2001. Cancellation came quickly, alas. Interestingly, however, one particular episode of The Lone Gunmen has not only endured...but become the stuff of legend, not to mention notorious conspiracy fodder.

The pilot episode, written by Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz (and directed by Rob Bowman), aired originally on March 4, 2001.

This was mere months after the Supreme Court called the contested presidential election of 2000 for George W. Bush. The United States of America had a new president, but the country was still very much in the Peace and Prosperity Age of Clinton. We had no idea what lay ahead in the twenty-first century.

The inaugural episode of The Lone Gunmen unfolds pretty much as you might expect and hope, given the series' premise and quirky dramatis personae. Our heroes are Fox Mulder’s old buddies: the (relatively hapless) trio of computer geeks-cum-editors at a Maryland-based conspiracy-theory newspaper called The Lone Gunman (latest headline: Teletubbies = Mind Control!). We first join these unconventional heroes in media res, during a covert op in progress.

Specifically, our triumvirate of protagonists crashes a ritzy party at E-Comm Con (remember the tech bubble of the late 1990s?). Their mission: to steal the new, ultra-fast Octium IV micro-chip, a technological advancement which the Lone Gunmen –- Byers (Bruce Harwood), Frohike (Tom Braidwood) and Langley (Dean Haglund) -- believe is actually designed to invade user privacy and collect personal information. The Lone Gunmen want to examine the chip so they can pen an expose in their newspaper; one featuring cold, hard evidence of their accusations.

But remember, these guys – once the comic relief on the X-Files – are not traditional TV heroes, either in appearance or skill set. They are closer in spirit, actually, to the original Kolchak than to the hyper-competent Mulder, Scully, or Frank Black. Their hearts are in the right place but...

...they make mistakes, bungles and foul-ups. However, after a funny riff on Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible (1996) involving the diminutive Frohike on a harness, the pilot episode unexpectedly turns serious. The E Comm Con caper fails and another thief – the enigmatic but beautiful Eve Adele Harlow (her name is an anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald) – steals the chip out from under the Gunmen’s noses.

This mission failure is followed by another bombshell. Conservative, buttoned-up Lone Gunman, John Fitzgerald Byers learns that his father, a high-ranking government official, has been assassinated because of his highly-classified work at the Department of Defense.

Much of the pilot episode involves Byers, Frohike and Langly helping another government official, Mr. Helm (code-named Overlord…) prove that Old Man Byers (George Coe) is actually still alive and in hiding…afraid the government will send a second assassin after him.

What’s Mr. Byers secret? The one that a “small faction” inside the federal government would commit murder to protect? 

Well, my friends, that’s where the controversy, notoriety and conspiracy comes in. Mr. Byers is privy to information about a Department of Defense counter-terrorism war game known as...Scenario D 12.

This particular military scenario involves a “Domestic Airline In-Flight Terrorist Act.”

Unfortunately, Scenario D 12 is no longer a game, as Byers learns directly from his father. No, it is horrifyingly real. A small faction inside the U.S. Government plans to utilize a remote control device to hijack an American airliner in-flight and crash it into a heavily populated urban area. The cover for this false flag operation will be a hijacking, a terrorist take-over of the plane.

Why would anyone want to commit such a horrible act?

Here’s what Mr. Byers tells his son. This is a direct quote from the episode:

“The Cold War is over, John, but with no clear enemy to stockpile against, the arms business is flat.

But bring down a fully-loaded 727 into the middle of New York City and you’ll find a dozen tin-pot dictators all over the world just clamoring to take responsibility, and begging to be smart bombed.”

Byers and his father board a jet bound for Boston; the very one that will be used as a flying bomb over New York City. The exact target in Manhattan: The World Trade Center.

The final act of this Lone Gunmen pilot involves Byers aboard the imperiled plane -- and Frohike and Langley on the ground -- trying to avert the collision between plane and skyscraper, and in the process rescue the 110 souls aboard the flight. At the last instant, we see the jet-liner veer up and away from the Twin Towers. Disaster -- and tragedy -- averted.

As everybody now knows all too well, a scarce seven months later, on September 11, 2001, two “fully loaded” domestic airliners did strike New York City and the Twin Towers. In the aftermath, at least one “tin-pot” terrorist claimed responsibility (Bin Laden) and another, Saddam Hussein, was – I guess – just “begging to be smart bombed.” We obliged him in 2003.

After that horrific Tuesday in September, arms sales boomed too, just as The Lone Gunmen predicted they would in the event of such a disaster. According to the Center for Defense Information, in 2006 alone, the U.S. was responsible for 16.9 billion dollars in international arms deals, over 41 percent of all arm sales globally. 

After 9/11, our government disavowed any advance knowledge of these horrible terrorist attacks. "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center" said national security advisor Condoleezza Rice at a White House Briefing on the afternoon. May 16, 2002.

Really?

The Lone Gunmen TV series predicted the exact thing. On national television (with viewers ostensibly in the tens of millions...). And it did so six months before the attack occurred.

And here I thought everyone in the Bush Administration had to keep their TV sets tuned to Fox at all times...

But isn't it strange -- not to mention creepy as hell -- that The Lone Gunmen, a series about crazy conspiracy theories, by-and-large "guessed" the precise nature of the biggest terrorist attack in U.S. history? It accurately guessed about the use of planes as weapons; plus it pointed out the target state, city and actual buildings. The episode even got the aftermath right: war against tin-pot dictators, using our expensive smart bombs as "shock and awe."

More than that, however, this Lone Gunmen episode anticipated the "conspiracy response" to 9/11 that has also arisen in the wake of the attacks.  A certain percentage (36%?) of American citizens don't believe the official story (Al Qaeda hijackers) and instead maintain that the government orchestrated the attacks. Indeed, this is Lone Gunmen's pre-event "explanation" of such an attack.

It's eerie and disturbing to contemplate all this. Yet, this isn't the first time that fact and imagination have mingled uncomfortably surrounding a global tragedy. To wit, in 1898, a writer named Morgan Robertson wrote a novel entitled Futility. The plot concerned the maiden voyage of the largest ocean liner ever built. On an April night, this fictitious vessel struck an iceberg. And -- because there were not enough lifeboats aboard -- more than one thousand passengers died in freezing waters. The name of the ship in that novel Futility is...Titan.

So, fourteen years before the Titanic disaster in 1912, author Robertson imagined a disaster at sea that would indeed come to pass. Consider some of the eerie similarities there. Titan was 70,000 tons in Futility; the Titanic 66,000 tons. Titan was 800 feet long; the Titanic 882 feet. The top sailing speed of both fictitious and real ocean liner was 25 knots. And even more bizarrely, both Futility's Titan and the real life Titanic were described with one memorable adjective: unsinkable. Both ships -- real and fictional -- struck icebergs and sank in the month of April.

The paranormal anthology One Step Beyond (1959-1961) dramatized a story based on this Titanic mystery titled "Night of April 14," in 1959, and I researched the story for my book. To my fascination, I found it authentic.

So, are writers such as Morgan Robertson and TV programs such as The Lone Gunmen just lucky (or unlucky) guessers about terrible things, or is what we have here some strange form of synchronicity: some form of intuitive "knowing" divined subconsciously or unconsciously?

Submitted for your approval, from The Twilight Zone, perhaps. 

But seriously, The Lone Gunmen pilot is worth remembering 25 years later. But prepare yourself. It's a sharp, scary, well-crafted piece of TV fiction; and one that *happens* to have a very disturbing relationship with our "real" history.

70 Years Ago: Forbidden Planet (1956)

"At times loud and frenzied, literally encircling the viewer with sight, sound, and fury, and at other times subtle and silently unnerving, Forbidden Planet is, on every conceivable level, a work of commercial art."

- Jeff Rovin. A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Films. Citadel Press, 1975, page 78.

To assess the dynamic in purely Generation X-friendly terms, Forbidden Planet is to the 1950s what Star Wars is to the 1970s. 

Or perhaps what 2001: A Space Odyssey is to the 1960s.

In other words, Forbidden Planet is a visual space odyssey so involving, so expertly presented, so beautifully designed that it endures as a landmark in the history of the cinema.  

Even 70 years after its theatrical debut, Forbidden Planet still impresses, and on some level even terrifies, in significant degree due to the eerie "electronic tonalities" of the score devised by Louis and Bebe Barron.

Today, this 1956 film from director Fred M. Wilcox and writers Cyril Hume and Irving Block remains one of the boomer generation's most important genre touchstones, and has been referenced directly and indirectly in  a wide-range of high-profile sf productions including Serenity (2005) and Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek (1966 - 1969).   

The film's mostly-invisible villain, "The Monster from the Id," is one that is still well-known by name in the pop culture lexicon.

At the movie's core, Forbidden Planet concerns an anxious fear not of technology itself, but of the human application of technology.  Or, more directly, human hubris.  The film reveals that for mankind (much like the ancient Krell), the stars can be our destination.  But our species could also lose everything it holds dear by failing to understand the greatest mystery of the universe: the human psyche.

Buttressed by "superior special effects" (Science Fiction Films. Bison Books Corp., 1984, page 39), Forbidden Planet truly  "thought big" and thus shines yet as one of the most imaginative and compelling movie visions of the future. 

As a kid of the 1970s,  I grew up frequently reading in the protean genre press about how Forbidden Planet was one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made.  Regardless of factors such as generational loyalty or nostalgia, those testimonials are absolutely, positively accurate.  This has been one of my favorite and most beloved films for a long time.

Delightfully, even if divorced from its Atomic Age original context, Forbidden Planet remains provocative.  The film remembers what so many science fiction visions of today fail to acknowledge; the fact that human beings -- and human problems -- must remain at the heart of any forward-thinking work of art.  

After all, when man reaches the stars he will still be man, and his decisions and wisdom (or lack thereof) will always spark the most invigorating of dramas.  Awe-inspiring special effects are one thing (and Forbidden Planet certainly deploys such effects brilliantly), but a story that connects to us, here and now, on an emotional level trumps such technical achievements every time.

"The secret devil of every soul set loose on the planet all at once..."

In the 23rd century, mankind endeavors to to conquer space, thanks in large-part to the invention of the hyper-drive, which makes interstellar travel possible.

As Forbidden Planet commences, space cruiser C-57D under command of stolid J.J. Adams (Leslie Nielson) approaches Altair IV, a world previously visited some two decades earlier by the Bellerophon.  

On approach to Altair IV, Adams and his ship are warned away from the planet by Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), who insists that he won't be responsible for the outcome should Adams ignore his counsel.

Adams sets down anyway on the craggy surface of the planet and soon encounters Robby the Robot, Morbius's highly-advanced mechanical servant.  Robby takes Adams, "Doc" Ostrow (Warren Stevens) and Lt. Farman (Jack Kelly) back to Morbius's home, where they meet the man.

The grave, serious Morbius is the last surviving original member of the Bellerophon expedition and reports that "some dark, terrible, incomprehensible force" killed the other humans on his crew.  However, he has been safe and secure in the intervening nineteen years, living alone on the planet with just Robby (his construct; something he "tinkered together") and his beautiful if naive daughter, Altaira (Anne Francis).

The ship's crew responds enthusiastically (*ahem*) to the lovely Altaira, even as Adams determines he must contact home base to request further instructions regarding Morbius. 

Unfortunately, the cruiser's long range communication apparatus, the "Klystron Transmitter" is sabotaged at night by an unknown, apparently invisible foe.

In the days ahead, Morbius introduces Adams and Doc to the great archaeological find of Altair IV.  Beneath the scientist's house, inside a vast subterranean complex, stands an ancient power generator belonging to an alien race called the Krell.  The colossal machine -- whose exact purpose remains unknown -- is all that remains of the once super-advanced people. 

In fact, the Krell were so advanced that they visited Earth before man even walked the Earth, and brought back samples of the planet's wildlife, including tigers and deer.  

In one impressive alien laboratory, Morbius demonstrates a Krell educational game, a "brain boost" machine that he himself has experimented on, augmenting his own natural intellect in the process.    

Alarmingly, Morbius also reports that the Krell civilization vanished in one night, on the eve of an almost divine achievement: the creation of a device that could render unnecessary all forms of physical instrumentality.

Awed and a little disturbed by Morbius's alien discoveries, Adams believes Earth  and the "United Planets" must be permitted to share in the wealth.  Morbius objects to the captain's interference, however.   

As if in response, the terrifying invisible foe returns again and again, night by night, growing ever stronger...and ever more murderous.

"We're all part monsters in our subconscious.  So we have laws and religion."

As any college level English student can dutifully attest, Forbidden Planet appears loosely based on William Shakespeare's play The Tempest (1610).  

That work by the Bard revolves around Prospero, a man who has lived on a remote island with his daughter Miranda for twelve years.  

Prospero is served by a spirit called "Ariel" and uses the auspices of Ariel's magic to create a  storm (a tempest) at sea.  The storm causes a shipwreck and draws important visitors (Alonso, Ferdinand, etc.) to Prospero's island for his unique purposes of personal and family renewal.  

Importantly, also residing on Prospero's island is Caliban (think cannibal): a monster who utilizes magic for much darker purposes. In the end, Prospero renounces magic and Ariel is set free from servitude, while Miranda and King Alonso's son, Ferdinand, are free to marry.

Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest is frequently assessed a highly-reflexive work of art because it compares Prospero's use of magic with the magic of the theater.  Prospero's renunciation of magic at play's end is thus said to represent Shakespeare's own pull-back from the stage; his professional retirement, essentially.  The Tempest is also widely considered a "post-colonial effort," drawing specific interest because of the way that Prospero treats (and mistreats?) Caliban, Ariel and the other denizens of the faraway island.  

Forbidden Planet certainly shares an abundance of common narrative and thematic points with Shakespeare's final literary endeavor.  If you substitute Altair IV for the remote island, Morbius for Prospero, and Altaira for Miranda, the comparison begins to take shape.  Captain J.J. Adams -- as love interest for Altaira/Miranda -- is at least part Ferdinand, and the extraordinary Robby the Robot fits the bill as Ariel, the servant of Morbius/Prospero.  

What seems rather unique about the transference of The Tempest's scenarios to the futuristic realm of Forbidden Planet is that the makers of this classic sci-fi film have made some very intriguing switches or substitutions.   

Here, technology -- alien technology -- replaces magic or the occult.  Robby is not a "fairy" or "spirit" like Ariel, but rather a thinking machine created from super-advanced technology; Krell technology.  Just consider  Clarke's third law, of 1961. Advanced technology -- machines beyond our understanding -- appear as baffling as magic, right?

Furthermore, the film's "thing of darkness," to turn a Shakespearean phrase (Act II, Scene II), is positioned as a psychological, interior force, rather than as an exterior personality, Caliban.   It is the scientist/wizard's "id" in Forbidden Planet that creates problems, not a fellow and less honorable practitioner of the magical arts.   

Indeed, Forbidden Planet purposefully re-contextualizes Shakespeare's line in The Tempest that "we are such stuff as dreams are made of," so as to readily incorporate the the Id, which is one third of the human psychic apparatus as delineated by Sigmund Freud.  

Id is instinct.  Id is chaos.  It is aggression and destruction, with no overriding sense of morality, and it operates on passion and desire. Often, our nocturnal dreams  and phantasms are seen as the representative outlet of the Id, and in Forbidden Planet, Morbius -- immediately before his heroic demise -- explicitly names dreams as devious originator of his unpardonable sins.  

"What man can remember his own dreams?" Morbius asks desperately, suggesting that consciously he is fully separate from the the instinctive human urges which created the Monster from the Id and committed murder.  The truth is that the Monster here is actually a reflection of his basest, most primitive self.  Something that -- even in the era of space travel -- man cannot fully expunge.

Another substantial difference to consider when comparing The Tempest to Forbidden Planet involves the manner in which Morbius uses Robby.  Though it is clear from Morbius's demonstrations involving the robot that the scientist holds a kind of spell over him --  able to render Robby immobile with a simple voice command --  Morbius does not utilize Robby to bring visitors to his world.  

On the contrary, Morbius explicitly shuns such visitors while the cruiser is still in orbit.  This act separates him rather dramatically from his literary predecessor, Prospero.  In the denouement of both works, however, the non-human servant (Ariel/Robby) is freed from his master and takes part in the navigation away from the island/planet.  In Forbidden Planet's final scene, we see Robby at the controls of C-57D, having adjusted rather nicely to his new environs.

There are major differences in tenor as well.  In no significant or meaningful way does Forbidden Planet attempt to draw parallels between the technology of the Krell, for instance and the technological art form of film.  

On the contrary, Forbidden Planet plays its story completely straight, sometimes even underplaying moments so as to more fully erect a sense of complete, overwhelming reality about the film's universe.  Again, the idea at the root of the film is not a comparison of magic to art, but a comparison, rather, of  future technology to more current events, circa the mid-1950s.

In the Atomic Age, a literal Pandora's Box was opened thanks to the creation of The Bomb, and many people feared what could happen when mankind "tampers in God's domain."    That's the explicit fear of Forbidden Planet and the lesson to draw from the unfortunate, god-like Krell.  The film is about achieving a technological awareness that our species is not yet emotionally ready, not yet wise enough, to countenance.  No one man can possess such great power, and possibly use it wisely.

In terms of the post-colonial aspects of Shakespeare's work, again, Forbidden Planet differs significantly.  It is of interest here that both Morbius and Altaira treat Robby as a servant, but this seems no more than an oblique comment on human views of artificial intelligence, hardly applicable to the idea of post-colonial paternalism or racism.

The comparison to The Tempest appears most illuminating in understanding Forbidden Planet's theme: that of man harnessing a tool (whether magic or technology) responsibly.  The brief reference to the "Bellerophon" (the name of the first ship to visit Altair IV) expertly cements this thematic strand.  In Greek myth, Bellerophon is a demi-God and son of Poseidon who commits the crime of arrogance or hubris.  He attempts to fly Pegasus to Mount Olympus to reach the Gods, until Zeus retaliates (with a gad-fly), and Bellerophon falls back to Earth, forever broken by the experience.

Quite clearly, Morbius (a Bellerophon crew member) is the one who dramatically overreaches in Forbidden Planet, attempting to gain access to divine knowledge which is not his right nor his destiny.  Morbius's tale and Bellerophon's myth are both explicitly cautionary tales about human overreach.  In the film, J.J. Adams seems to recognize this in his impromptu requiem for the good doctor, and notes that the name Morbius will one day "remind us that we are, after all, not God.."  

Even the (unseen) demise of the Bellerophon space ship in Forbidden Planet seems to harken back to the myth.  Morbius describes how, during take off, it was pulled back and "vaporized," in flight.  Were the colonists going to share the secrets of the Krell with the outside world?  Were they reaching for Mount Olympus when they were downed?

"...a new scale of physical scientific values..."

An undeniable and perennial pleasure of Forbidden Planet is the style and epic scope of visual presentation.  This is a film that occurs entirely on a distant planet, and therefore involves both futuristic human technology and alien technology with absolutely no relation to Earth and our history or design aesthetics.

Consequently, no earthbound locations are featured -- redressed or not -- in Forbidden Planet, and nor were the film's makers able to rely on our modern digital technology (CGI).  Instead, a vast sound stage is converted into the expansive landing area of the C-57D, and some of the most impressive matte paintings you've ever seen are deployed, along with exceptional miniatures and some opticals, to diagram the world and scope of the Krell technology.

Morbius's house represents a splendid vision of what homes of the future might look like, from the inclusion of a "household disintegrator beam" disposal unit, to metal shutters, to an architectural scheme that incorporates both natural rock and plant-life right into the home's hearth.  

Although the C-57D's familiar "flying saucer" design may seem antiquated to some viewers, the interior of the ship is constructed in full, and in laborious detail: a multi-level affair with a central control station, hide-away bunk beds, and a "deceleration" post for braking (after light-speed).  And the impressive scene in which this craft lands on Altair -- and ladders descend and crew disembark -- plays as absolutely real, in part because so much of the craft's exterior has also been constructed to scale.  

Late in the film, Morbius takes Adams and Doc Ostrow on that extended tour of "the Krell Wonders" and this portion of the film is nothing less-than-awe-inspiring because of the visualizations, successfully living up to Morbius's high-minded description of a "new scale of physical values."   Morbius's matter-of-fact lecture during this tour only serves once more to effectively ground the film in a very substantial form of reality.  This is literally a tour, with a sort of teacher relating to us information about energy usage, power systems and more.  It might seem dry and lifeless to some, but the technical dialogue and professorial delivery actually serve a terrific purpose.  This approach enhances the believability of the enterprise.

This tour -- which plays as educational and real -- is a powerful contrast to the film's most visceral, memorable scene: the Monster from the Id's sustained attack upon the landed cruiser by night.  This particularly riveting sequence, with blazing laser weapons, crackling force-fields, and some unique wire-work (utilized to express the visual of spacemen caught in the grasp of the invisible monster) is still awe-inspiring and terrifying.  The famous monster is visible only sporadically -- an animated energy beast -- and thus terror is rigorously maintained.  The electronic tonalities I mentioned at the outset of the review also help out in maintaining the horror.  This planet and its monstrous denizen not only appear alien, but sound alien as well.  The monster's unearthly howl is not easily forgotten.

Some of the film's vistas also nicely eschew technology human ana alien for more natural settings.  There's an almost poetic shot and matte painting of the grave yard where the Bellerophon dead are buried.  Another shot evocative of the best pulp space art involves Altair at night, with two luminous moons hanging low in the black sky.  

In terms of design creativity then, Forbidden Planet is right off the charts.  Even today, science fiction films visualize holograms, force-fields, lasers and robots in much the same fashion as those concepts are crafted here.  Certainly, robots today are a little more streamlined than the wonderful Robby, but he remains quite impressive (and oddly lovable).  The New York Times' reviewer's words about him still hold up too.

He called Robby "a phenomenal mechanical man who can do more things in his small body than a roomful of business machines. He can make dresses, brew bourbon whisky, perform feats of Herculean strength and speak 187 languages, which emerged through a neon-lighted grille. What's more, he has the cultivated manner of a gentleman's gentleman. He is the prettiest piece of mechanism on Planet Altaire."  Easy, then, to detect why this robot has been beloved for several generations now.

In fact, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the makers of Forbidden Planet should feel remarkably flattered.  Star Trek adopted the film's "United Planets" template lock, stock and barrel, the captain/doctor relationship, and the Chief Quinn character (a Scotty-like miracle-worker) as part of its core, while Star Wars' C-3PO -- another robot of many languages --  and Lost in Space's B9 certainly owe much to Robby in concept and design.  We call this homage, of course.  

In the annals of cult television history, even The Tempest-like tale of a father and daughter living alone on a distant planet together has been oft-repeated, in Star Trek's "Requiem for Methuselah" and Space:1999's "The Metamorph" to name but two.  It is also said that Dr. Who's serial "Planet of Evil" derives from Forbidden Planet in name and concept.  It's a story of a scientist's good-intentioned overreach and devolution into a monster on a faraway world.

Forbidden Planet is a product of its time, and that means, among other things, that no racial minorities are featured in the film at all, which today may likely trouble some folks. Also, Alta is defined in the film largely by her reactions and relationships with the men in her life.   She goes from being an obedient daughter, to being an obedient romantic partner. She's not the independent spirit we might expect in today's cinema.  

But of course, the film was created in 1956, not 2026 and so was a projection of the future that included the America of that era as the foundation of everything.  Despite such concerns, Forbidden Planet remains a terrific and sometimes startling example of what traditional Hollywood can achieve in the genre when equipped with a good budget, a strong and literate script, and the most imaginative effects and production design possible for the day.

Forbidden Planet isn't a movie that was just "tinkered together" and nor is it "an obsolete" thing.  Contrarily, it's a sci-fi masterpiece that both inspires and warns us about our trajectory heading out there, into the Great Unknown.   

From Prospero in the 1600s to Dr. Morbius in the 23rd century, the human condition, it seems, remains a fragile, mysterious, and magical thing.

25 Years Ago: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "The Body" (February 27, 2001)

If any episode of any TV series could be described as “too real,” Joss Whedon’s fifth season entry of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2003) called “The Body” would certainly fit the bill. This episode is heartbreaking and sad, and all too real. 

The episode came about because of Whedon’s own experience with sudden death in his family, as a young adult. The author used the truths he learned during that tragedy to craft an unforgettable episode that, in some ways, completes Buffy’s journey to adulthood.

 “The Body” involves the unexpected and not-supernatural death of a beloved character: Buffy’s mother Joyce, who had been played for four-and-a-half seasons by Kristine Sutherland.  As the episode begins, Buffy returns to her home, thinking all is well. She enters her house and shouts out “Hey Mom!” For her, everything is normal and happy But behind her, in the background of the shot, Joyce s dead on the sofa, having passed away because of a brain aneurysm. From here, the episode adheres closely to the stages of grief as diagrammed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Those stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. 

Denial is Buffy’s immediate impulse. Buffy calls 911 for help, and as they work on her bother, we slip into Buffy’s thoughts, and a dream world. Joyce wakes up, and it’s a “beautiful miracle.” Then, she and Dawn are with an awake and happy Joyce in the hospital, noting she is “good as new,” and that Buffy saved her life by coming home when she did. It’s a dream fantasy that ends back in the real world, with Joyce still unresponsive, and cold, on the living room floor as the EMTs fail to bring her back.

The opening scene in “The Body” is extraordinary not only for capturing Buffy’s immediate reaction, denial of death, but the feeling that life is somehow now unreal, as she faces her mother’s death. For instance, there is a brief close-up of Buffy’s telephone, as if the keys which she should dial (to call Giles) are indecipherable. At one point, Buffy stands outside and there is no music on the soundtrack, only the distant sounders of wind-chimes and children playing. 

It feels like an extended moment of unreal time. Even the EMT, when he first approaches Buffy to tell her that there is nothing he can do to save Buffy, is blurry, out-of-focus. These strange moments capture how strange and unreal life feels when something terrible has occurred. Buffy’s off-kilter responses (like her almost mindless comment to the EMTs, “good luck”) visually and aurally capture the notion that Buffy has slipped into another dimension, one that is catastrophically real and irreversible.

 

The stage of anger comes into the episode with Xander’s presence. Xander comes from a very unhappy family life, and Joyce is, in some ways, the mother he wished he had. When Joyce dies, Xander goes off the rails, blaming the doctors who took care of Joyce for not preventing her death. He is so angry that he punches through a wall in Willow’s dorm room. His fist literally goes through the wall, and he can’t pull it out. When he does retract his hand, it is bloodied, and he has hurt nobody but himself.  As in life, the reaction to tragedy here is to look for someone responsible, someone to blame. Anger is easy, acceptance is hard.

Bargaining is not a stage of the Kubler Ross model focused on in detail here. Buffy doesn’t attempt to seek a supernatural remedy, for instance, for her mother’s death. She does not promise to be a “better daughter” before the eyes of God, either, if only her mother can be returned to her. 

However, it might fairly be stated that Willow and Anya go through aspects of the bargaining process. Anya will be a better human being, she hopes, if only someone can explain to her what “death” is. As a vengeance demon, she did not know mortality, or death. It is something new to her, and therefore something terrifying. She keeps awkwardly seeking answers about Joyce’s death, apologizing for her lack of text and knowledge, as if to “know” will make it easier.  

And Willow considers that she can’t “even be a grown-up” because she can’t choose the right wardrobe for the family visit to the morgue. It’s as if dressing correctly will somehow make Willow grown-up, and appropriate, and able to help Buffy. And, of course, that isn’t the case.

            

The fourth stage in the model is depression, and this might best be expressed in the latter half of the episode, in moments that involve both Dawn and Buffy.  At school, Dawn is seen crying over a slight from a class-mate, and then attending an art class in which the subject of the day is “negative space,” and the use of negative space in painting. Buffy takes Dawn out of class to tell her what has happened, and director Whedon makes an interesting visual choice. Instead of following the grieving sisters out into the hallway, where Buffy reveals the truth to Dawn, the camera stays planted in the classroom. The Buffy-Dawn scene is observed only from a distance, through a window, and the audience cannot hear what is said. It can only witness the impact of the news, as Dawn collapses into tears. Perhaps this is Whedon’s way of acknowledging that no one can truly “feel” the death of another’s loved one until it happens to their own loved ones. 

           

At the hospital, Buffy is quiet and withdrawn, both qualities of depression. It is hear that Tara attempts to explain to Buffy about her own experience with the death of her mother. She tells Buffy not to feel bad about “thoughts and responses” that she might not understand. In other words, there is no wrong way to grieve, no guidebook for dealing with such a tragedy.  The sad thing here is that Buffy may not be able to hear Tara’s words, because of her own depression and grief.

           

 The final stage of grief, acceptance, comes in the episode’s final composition. Buffy has just had to slay a vampire in the morgue to save Dawn. Dawn has fallen backwards, near Joyce’s body. She pulls the white sheet off Joyce’s face, and we see, without question, that her mother is dead and gone, just as Buffy said moments earlier ago. The episode cuts to black on that recognition. There is no arguing with death. Acceptance of it isn’t a matter of degrees. On seeing the corpse, Buffy and Dawn have no choice but to accept Joyce’s death.

            

“The Body” is a harrowing episode of the classic series, in part for how it deals with the swirl of emotions (and stages of grieving) brought on by a sudden, and senseless death of a loved one. The episode features almost no background music whatsoever, and this absence of a soundtrack makes the story feel all the more real. In real life, our loved ones don’t have loved ones, and music doesn’t reveal or illuminate our emotional states.  Instead, silence is real, awkward, and ever-present in grief. The silence represents, perhaps, the absence of the deceased’s voice. No other sound will possibly do, and yet it will never be heard again.

           

Another brilliant aspect of “The Body” involves the return to a frequent series theme: Buffy’s duty and obligation to be the slayer.  Here, she cannot even grieve her mother in peace. She can’t stop being the Slayer long enough to feel what she must to continue. Instead, she still must kill a vampire; must still be “on the job.” 

And this predicament is oddly truthful too. 

Loved ones die, and yet the world does not stop spinning to account for grieving. Bills still must be paid. One must still go to work, or raise children (or siblings), and or even go to school.  Although a death in the family feels like the end of the world, the world just keeps spinning.

            

For how it handles the grieving process, for how it treads into real pain, and does not use supernatural tropes to alleviate it, “The Body” remains a one-of-a-kind episode of this series, and one of the finest episodes in the canon to boot.

 

50 Years Ago on WPIX: Space:1999 "Earthbound"

In “Earthbound,” Commissioner Simmonds (Roy Dotrice) complains in a Command Conference about the Alphans’ direction for the future.  

He wants to know why there has been no discussion -- and no concrete plans – for a return to Earth.  

Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) counters that a return to Earth is impossible and that the Alphans are, rightly, focusing on two primary goals: survival, and a new place to call home.

Simmonds is not placated.

Before long, Alpha detects a powered object -- an alien spaceship – approaching the moon.  

Rather than going into orbit, however, it crashes on the lunar surface.  Aboard an Eagle, Koenig, Professor Victor Bergman (Barry Morse) and Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) investigate the vehicle.  They force entry, and find several humanoid aliens in suspended animation in transparent sleep cubicles.

The Alphans inadvertently kill one of the aliens when they tamper with a sleep cubicle, an act which awakes the others, including Captain Zantor (Christopher Lee).  

Zantor shows no malice regarding the accident, and introduces his people, the Kaldorians.  They are the last survivors of a world that has grown sterile, and they are traveling to Earth where they hope to be welcomed as friends. 

Their journey, they report, will take seventy five years.

With one of their number dead, Zantor offers the vacant slot on his ship to an Alphan of the Commander's choosing.  Accordingly, Dr. Russell begins to study the suspended animation process while Koenig instructs Computer to pick one Alphan to return home to Earth. 

Simmonds wants Koenig to choose him, but Koenig refuses, noting that the choice must be objective. Simmonds refuses to accept that answer. He attacks Alpha’s power station and holds the base captive. 

Koenig realizes he has no choice but to let Simmonds return to Earth with the Kaldorians. 

But Simmonds has not allowed Zantor time to prepare a proper physiological matrix for him, meaning that the suspended animation process does not work correctly.  Simmonds learns this the hard way very soon into the 75 year journey.

One aspect of Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977) that I resolutely admire is the fact that many stories often re-purpose famous literary horror devices or narratives. There’s a valid thematic reason for this, too. The series’ heroes, the Alphans, are not prepared psychologically or technologically for a deep space journey.  They don’t understand the nature of the galaxy; they are not experienced. Outer space is not a place, necessarily for brotherhood among aliens.  It is a realm of mystery.

Accordingly, the Alphans often encounter beings and phenomena that we would term terrifying. 

Not always, of course. Some stories deal with wonder or awe, the other side of the equation.  

But a good number of stories, especially in Year One, contend with horror-based ideas, like the monster in “Dragon’s Domain,” a man with the Midas Touch (“Force of Life,”) ghosts (“The Troubled Spirit”), and even sadism and torture (“End of Eternity”).

“Earthbound,” a very strong early entry in the canon functions on a similar principle.

In particular, it pivots off a key element in Edgar Allen Poe’s (1809-1849) short story: The Premature Burial (1844).  In Poe’s time, a pervasive cultural fear, in fact, was being buried alive. Poe's tale involved a character obsessed -- wracked with fear, in fact -- regarding this fate. He took many steps to prevent such an outcome, and yet (it appeared, anyway...) that it was all for naught.

Intriguingly, “Earthbound,” takes that fear of being buried alive – of being trapped, unable to escape, in a casket -- and updates it for the space age. 

Here, Commissioner Simmonds fails to take the necessary precautions before entering a suspended animation chamber, and awakens only a short-time in on a seventy-five year flight.  All the other people on the ship -- Zantor and the Kaldorians -- are sound asleep and therefore oblivious to his desperate cries for help.  

And because the cubicle is transparent, we are able to watch Simmonds’ panic grow and grow, as he repeatedly throws himself against the unbreakable walls of the sleep cubicle  Finally he is left screaming, defeated, with no way to escape his premature burial.

Surrounding this climactic set-piece, “Earthbound” features some of the sharpest, and in a way, cruelest plotting in the entire series.  

Koenig orders the Computer to pick one name among the Alphans; one person who the base can reasonably spare if it is to continue to function.  Since Simmonds is not really a member of the base personnel, he is the natural choice to go. 

But Simmonds refuses to let “chance” (or, presumably, a machine) dictate his fate, and takes steps to assure that he goes home.  

Alas, the irregular manner of his methods -- blackmail, hostages, gunpoint diplomacy, etc. -- assure that he will not be adequately prepared for the voyage.  He does not trust Zantor, and doesn’t give him time to prepare a  biological matrix.  So he will go home…but he will never, in fact, see home.

At the end of the episode, the other shoe drops. 

Helena asks Koenig who Computer ultimately chose to return to Earth.  In one of the series’ greatest, most chill-inducing codas, Alpha's commander answers.  With one word.

“Simmonds.”

Landau’s delivery is great here. It is deadpan and straight-forward, imbued not with too much or too little emotion. It’s a simple declaration, and Landau's delivery allows the viewer take in the information for him or herself; to realize the full ramifications without spoon-feeding or hand-wringing.

In short, “Earthbound” represents Space: 1999 at the top of its game. 

Outside of the horror trope re-purposed for the near future, and the chilling, Twilight Zone-worthy twist or denouement, we also get examples of the Alphans at their best here. The Kaldorians are treated as friends and allies, not as monsters or enemies.  

A common criticism of the series is that the Alphans are always “menaced” by advanced aliens. Clearly, that’s not the case in “Earthbound.” If anything, the Alphans here are menaced by human nature; by Simmond’s selfishness and cut-throat determination. As Paul Morrow (Prentis Hancock) trenchantly notes at one point, the Alphans are better off without Simmonds.

And yet, as bad as Simmonds is, the Alphans clearly don’t wish for him to endure the horrible fate of being prematurely buried. Accordingly, the episode presents a three-dimensional depiction of the Alphans.  They know how flawed Simmonds is, and yet, as fellow human beings, they can still empathize with his predicament, and grim fate.

 “Earthbound” is notable, too, for the performance by the iconic Christopher Lee. Here, he is not Dracula, or even a villain with a golden gun. On Space: 1999, by contrast, he plays a regal and reasonable alien, a being who doesn’t permit the passions of the moment to alter his beliefs or actions. Lee is quite imposing as Zantor, especially in his first scenes, wherein we don’t yet know what he will do, or who he is.  

But Lee remains a fascinating presence right through his last appearance in the episode in part because he keeps the character’s motivations opaque. 

In the last scene, for example, Zantor could help Simmonds by telling him he needs to prepare a matrix. Instead, he behaves according to Simmonds demands...and keeps his mouth shut.  He makes a choice not to help a man he considers “diseased.”  

Is this murder, or merely an adherence to the logic of the moment?  

It is very likely that even if Zantor warned Simmonds about the necessity of a matrix, Simmonds wouldn’t believe him.  Hence, the same fate would result.  

But I love how ambiguous the moment is, in terms of Zantor's decision-making and feelings. He is "alien" in a true sense, I guess, and that's an intriguing touch.

The episode features some other welcome visual touches too, The Kaldorians arrive on Alpha bearing a gift: ceremonial gold eggs belonging to a life-form called a “libra bird.” Eggs, of course, represent fertility and re-birth.  And the Kaldorians are seeking their re-birth on Earth. In a way, they have already been reborn on Alpha, awaking from the deep slumber that has characterized their journey.

I should also note that I enjoy “Earthbound” because it remembers the basic premise of the series; that the Alphans are, essentially, us in space. They are men of the 21^st century, with our flaws and foibles, not romanticized figures of perfection and “evolved” natures.

Here the Alphans accidentally kill a Kaldorian while attempting to open a sleep bay. It is a mistake, of course, but a bad one. Yet when you put human nature together with the unknown, such things may happen, even if the humans -- Koenig, Bergman and Helena -- have the best of intentions. 

If Zantor represents an alien mind-set, Space:1999 again presents us a look at fallible human nature too.

Abnormal Fixation 2.3 "Help Desk"

 

Abnormal Fixation Wins Atlanta Movie Awards in Category of Best U.S. Short!

 

50 Years Ago on WPIX: Space:1999 "The Full Circle"

The reconnaissance team on Eagle 6 has not reported back from the forested planet of Retha. 

Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) orders Paul Morrow (Prentis Hancock) to retrieve the craft by remote control.  When the ship is explored at Moonbase Alpha, a primitive cave-man is discovered dead in the passenger module. He is the ship's only occupant.

Koenig orders a full-scale rescue mission to the planet, unaware that a mysterious mist found on the planet surface is actually a time warp of sorts.  

When the Alphans step through the fog, they are re-made as primitive cave-people. As a primitive man, Koenig becomes Cave Chief, while Helena Russell becomes the tribal healer, and the Chief’s consort.

Unaware of what has happened to her fellow Alphans, data analyst Sandra Benes (Zienia Merton) encounters several cave people, who capture her and bring her back to the cave.  There, a primitive hunter (Oliver Cotton) and the Cave Chief battle for ownership of the beautiful and strange female in their midst.

On Alpha, Dr. Mathias (Anton Phillips) solves the alien riddle during an autopsy.  The caveman in the Eagle has caps on his teeth.  

He is one of the Alphans, not an inhabitant of Retha…

“The Full Circle” is likely not one of the better-regarded episodes of Space: 1999’s (1975-1977) Year One.  And yet, it is an episode that I like very much, and for two key reasons.  

First, the episode is set mostly in natural, real environs, and that fact gives the story a remarkable boost in terms of visuals and excitement.  The planet Retha is a combination of Black Park and Pinewood Studios back-lot exterior locations, and the contrast between sterile, technological Moonbase Alpha and such natural, wild locales is remarkable.

You could not recreate the “primordial” look and feel of Retha on an interior sound-stage, using papier mache rocks, nor, truthfully, by using a familiar So Cal location.  

To American eyes, therefore, “The Full Circle” looks genuinely like a journey to the prehistoric era, to a wild, untamed world. Director Bob Kellett’s camera-work is also remarkable, especially during the pursuit of Sandra by the cave-man Alphans.

Secondly, the episode’s thematic framework works very successfully. Specifically, "The Full Circle" ponders the (unchanging?) nature of humanity. It compares turn-of-the-millennium, space-age Alphans to Stone Age counterparts, and finds few meaningful differences.  

To wit: Sandra Benes (Zienia Merton) nearly bludgeons Commander Koenig (as cave man) to death with a rock. And Alan Carter (Nick Tate) literally goes “cave-man,” vengeful and hungry for blood when he worries that Sandra has been injured. These are the acts of rational, modern human beings?

As the episode’s coda suggests, the narrative is really about basic human emotions, about human instincts.  Sandra still acts by fight-or-flight dictates, for example, and this means that she is not far removed, in terms of nature, from the Cave Chief who -- in a manner very unlike Commander Koenig -- desires her.

As Koenig notes “it was only us there,” and the point is made. 

In 40,000 years, according to the episode’s timeline, man has not really evolved beyond savagery, beyond jealousy, rage, and other primitive emotions.  Those things still drive us, sometimes to survival, sometimes to disaster.

One scene suggests the similarities visually.  

At around the half-way point of the episode, we meet Alan, Victor and Kano huddled around a camp-fire, getting ready to turn in for the night. 

In the very next scene, we see the interior of the tribe’s cave, where a camp-fire is also at the center of the population, at the center of civilization.  The costumes have changed -- from Rudi Gernreich 1999 chic to primitive furs -- but man has not. He still needs fire. He still huddles with his fellow humans in the dark.  And he still doesn’t understand all the mysteries of nature, and the universe.

Where “The Full Circle” vexes some critics and viewers, I suppose, is in the story mechanism that makes the comparison between primitive man and space age man possible.  Here, a swirling mist is a time warp that changes Koenig, Helena and other Alphans from civilized to primitive. Even their clothes change with them.

The time warp mist is a solid device for making the story’s point, but leaves a lot of questions unanswered.  

How do the Alphan’s change costumes in the mist?  How does the time warp achieve that end? Does all the mist on the planet act in this fashion, or only in this one spot?  Is the time warp naturally occurring, a function of “nature” on Retha, or is it something that was designed by unseen inhabitants?

Personally, it doesn’t bother me that Space: 1999 fails to address such questions. I prefer to speculate, and have always felt that the time warp is some device or entity left behind the planet’s inhabitants.  

Perhaps they created it because they foresaw the end of their race, and wanted to go back to the beginning...get a second chance. Or perhaps they left it behind on Retha to preserve the planet’s natural, unspoiled nature. Any visitors would lose the capacity to alter the planet’s climate or terrain if reverted to primitive form. 

In the end, the details don’t really matter a whole lot, and it is what “The Full Circle” states about human nature that is valuable, and memorable. When you combine that statement with the beautiful location work, the episode emerges as one that is less disposable, and far more intriguing. Barry Gray's score is also one of his most unusual contributions, and underlines the action brilliantly.

Also, as is the case in many Year One stories (and “Earthbound’s” coda is an example), “The Full Circle” gains interest and suspense from a twist in the tale.  

It is learned, late in the story, that the cave-man in Eagle 6 is actually an Alphan. Specifically, he has caps on his teeth.  This information changes the whole nature of the story on the first watch.  Before this reveal, it is a natural assumption that the Alphans have encountered a world of primitive man.  

In fact, as Mathias's discovery suggests, they have encountered only themselves at a different stage of development.  

That twist is a surprising one, and like the device of the misty time-warp, makes the final point about humanity’s unchanging nature, all the more powerful.