60 Years Ago: Star Trek: "Charlie X" (September 15, 1966)

Stardate: 1533.6

The U.S.S. Enterprise picks up an “unusual” passenger bound for Colony 5 from the survey ship Antares: seventeen year old Charles Evans (Robert Walker).

Charlie is the sole survivor of a spaceship crash thirteen years earlier. He survived on the planet Thasus alone, learning how to talk from the ship’s memory banks. 

Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), however, is suspicious of this story, and believes that Charlie must have been assisted by a legendary race of aliens -- the Thasians -- who are said to have possessed the power to “transmute” objects.

Charlie settles down on the Enterprise, but finds navigating adolescence difficult, especially because, in truth, he has indeed been gifted with the Thasians’ god-like powers.  

When Charlie falls in love with Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), he gets a lesson in love and rejection that proves dangerous for the entirety of the Enterprise crew…

Without making too grand or sweeping a statement, “Charlie X” is absolutely one of the great Star Trek (1966-1969) episodes.  

In part this is because the episode features a simple, elegant, emotionally-affecting storyline. In broad strokes, a teenager achieves the power of a God, but lacks the temperament or experience to use that power to help him fit in. The contradictory, confusing world of adults proves too much for Charlie and he feels that “everything” he does or says is “wrong.”

Charlie is a fascinating bundle of contradictions. He is innocent, yet awkward. He is vulnerable, and yet virtually all-powerful.  He wants to be liked, and yet -- because of that desire -- often transmits as very unlikable indeed.  Robert Walker achieves much in this role, capturing every facet of a tragic character.  He inhabits this role, and makes Charlie a “real” teenager.

The most amazing thing about “Charlie X” is that it proves a very intense episode because of Charlie’s behavior, because of the aforementioned qualities.  He is unpredictable in his responses to others.  As Uhura quite aptly notes in her song about him, “we know not what he’ll do…”

For example, he gives Yeoman Rand a bottle of her favorite perfume, and the galley a supply of Thanksgiving turkeys.  But when roused to anger, Charlie goes on a reign of terror. He transforms crew people into lizards, or face-less monsters. 

The tension surrounding him is palpable because we can’t always guess how he will react next. More specifically, Captain Kirk keeps pushing Charlie, throughout the episode, and we wonder if -- or when -- Charlie will strike back.

As I’ve written before, Star Trek often operates on two levels. There’s the story, and then there’s the sub-text or underneath of that story. On the surface, “Charlie X” is about a castaway unable to go home because of his alien powers.  The sub-text, however, is about adolescence, and the forces that make it wondrous and unbearable at the same time.

Charlie expresses the yin-yang of adolescence best. Sporting a huge crush on Rand, he can be pure and sweet in his longing.  “If I had the whole universe, I’d give it to you,” he says, romantically.  Seconds later, that sweetness becomes relentless ardor and Charlie describes how he feels, physically.  He is “hungry…all over.”

“Charlie X” also happens to feature my favorite bit of James Kirk advice or wisdom in the entire series.  The good Captain informs Charlie: “There are a million things in this universe you can have and a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are.”

Truer words were never spoken. 

And the trick of being an adult, I suppose is dedicating yourself to the pursuit of those things you believe you can have, while letting go of those you can’t, reasonably, expect to have. Charlie simply can’t understand why he can’t have whatever -- or whomever -- he desires.  As Kirk also tells him, “you have to live people. You’re not alone anymore.”

It’s a great lesson for Charlie, too, because although he can apparently transform matter, he can’t change a person’s heart to be more inclined towards him. 

Charlie may be God-like in his alien abilities, but like anyone with an unrequited crush, he must learn to accept rejection.  His choice is to live alone like a God -- and be isolated from his own kind -- or learn to get along in a world he isn’t equipped to understand, where he can’t use his powers to get what he wants.

“Charlie X” works so well not only because of Charlie’s capricious unpredictability, but also because Charlie is not a two-dimensional “God-Monster.”  

Now by comparison, Gary Mitchell (in next week’s episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”) is much more of that type. That particular story is valuable not because of its exploration of Gary’s character, but because of Kirk’s dilemma, being forced to strand or possibly murder a friend who has become a monster. The focus there is (appropriately) on Kirk.

Charlie is much less a monster than is Mitchell is. He is innocent; groping. He has never seen a girl before, even.  He tells Dr. McCoy he wants people to like him.  He doesn’t like to be laughed at, and he doesn’t like to be teased.  

Who among us does not desire belonging, or fear mocking?  

The image I perpetually carry with me from this episode is of Charlie walking the corridors of the Enterprise, smiling at everybody awkwardly, unaware that he is invaded the crew’s personal space. The crew tolerates him as he stands there, gleaming at them, and he just can’t understand why he is regarded as he is. He has no awareness of himself as part of a group.

If this episode reveals is, essentially, the Tragedy of Charles Evans, it is also provides a close-up look at the inherent goodness of Captain Kirk and his crew. Charlie has sent people away (the equivalent of wishing them into the cornfield), tortured crew-members, and physically injured Spock (breaking his legs) and yet, in the end, Kirk goes to bat for him with the Thasians. He offers to let Charlie stay on the Enterprise, even knowing how impossible it would be to control the young man.  

Charlie has done such horrible things and yet when he is whisked off the bridge by the Thasians, the episode ends not with relief, but with a feeling of sadness. This is a perfect example of why people have loved Star Trek for fifty years. Those whom we disagree or even fight with, aren’t simply monsters or enemies to be killed, banished or gotten rid of. They are people, and they are to be treated with sympathy.  After everything Rand, Kirk and the others endure, they put that selfish pain aside to help a fellow human beings.

This is a view of humanity as it can be, and as it should be. We will always run into bad people, no doubt. But if we let those bad people change who we are, we have lost ourselves.

“Charlie X” also succeeds admirably on the front I described in my review last week, of “The Man Trap.” 

I called it, the “lower decks” aspect of the series.  Here, we spend a lot of time with Yeoman Rand, again, performing her duties, and spending her off-duty time in the rec room.  In fact, there’s a terrific scene here in which Lt. Uhura holds court there, singing a teasing song about Spock (comparing his looks to those of the Devil). 

She then sings a similarly-cheeky song about Charlie, and he punishes for it, stealing her voice.  It’s too bad that the inexperienced Charlie can’t read the room, or the meaning behind Uhura’s teasing.  Charlie, like Spock, is a part of the Enterprise family.  The song reinforces that idea of belonging. But Charlie just feels exposed, embarrassed. He can’t see that Uhura has actually made him…a brother.

In the same scene, we see Spock playing his Vulcan harp -- in the presence of other crewmen -- suggesting that he is not an outcast despite his alien nature. Other episodes (notably “Balance of Terror” and “The Galileo Seven”) suggest bigotry towards Spock among some crew-members, by contrast.  

We also see for the first and only time, the ship’s gymnasium, and Rand’s quarters.  These early episodes, by dividing attention between the people on the bridge and the rest of the crew, really make the Enterprise feel like a real ship, with a real group of people aboard her.  The crew-members we spend time with (like poor Tina Lawton) aren’t just extras to fill up the background of shots.  Indeed, we learn here that the crew still celebrates Thanksgiving, and that turkey remains the traditional meal of that holiday.

Some aspects of the episode could use some more clarification, for certain. The Antares is described as a survey vessel, a transport, and a cargo vessel across the span of the episode, for example. Those terms are not synonymous.  Similarly, the idea that you can press all the controls/buttons on the bridge and therefore give Charlie more to “control” seems a little silly.  Charlie, I’m certain, would simply not bother to control the systems that don’t require attention.  

Terminology is also still being ironed out here. UESPA is mentioned, instead of the later Starfleet, for example.

These are small matters, however, in an episode as elegant and as heart-wrenching as this one.  “Charlie X” would definitely make my top ten list for the series.

Behind the Scenes with Bubble Wrap: Abnormal Fixation Season Three

 

70 Years Ago: The Bad Seed (1956)

One of the most chilling horror films of the 1950s is Mervyn Le Roy's elegantly-directed The Bad Seed, an adaptation of the novel by William March (a best-seller) and the popular Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson. The Bad Seed not only forecasts such landmark films as Hitchcock's Psycho in its depiction of "evil" arising in an unexpected (family) setting, but such popular movies as The Exorcist for its use of a child as the fulcrum of terror.

The Bad Seed dramatizes the tale of young Rhoda Penmark (played with chilling cheeriness by Patty McCormack). This perfectly-dressed, pig-tailed little cherub, along with her doting parents, rents a nice apartment, attends a good school, and apparently comes from good stock...and yet this pre-adolescent girl is a sociopath.

In the course of the film (while her absentee military father is away), Rhoda's mother, Christine (Nancy Kelly) must come to terms with the fact that Rhoda has murdered a little classmate named Claude because he beat her out for the school's coveted penmanship medal. Rhoda lies and twists the truth, even when confronted with it by the apartment's not-so-bright handyman, Leroy, and Claude's grieving mother, the drunk "lower class" lady, Mrs. Daigle (Eileen Heckart).

When Leroy dies in a mysterious fire (set by Rhoda) and Christine discovers the penmanship award hidden away in Rhoda's treasure drawer, Mom is forced to confront the notion that even in a so-called good family, evil can still grow. And the reason for this evil shocks her. For it concerns Nancy's own special heritage, and sparks a heated debate about nature vs. nurture. Is evil encoded in the genes? Or does it arise out of environment? These are the questions The Bad Seed tackles in frightening and memorable fashion.

Today, we still discuss The Bad Seed in regards to children who we think of as really, really "bad;" it's a kind of pop-culture shorthand. There was a 1985 TV remake of the material, and also a 1990s film called The Good Son which made the evil child a boy (played by Macaulay Culkin). The reason for the story's longevity? Well, children always represent our tomorrows in horror films, and when children are corrupted, so is our future. Furthermore, on a much more basic level, the idea that something so innocent-appearing could actually be so evil is, I believe, a genuine and universal human fear. Especially if you're a parent.

One of the most illuminating aspects of the film is the manner in which it covers the "nature versus nurture" debate. The movie-going public in the 1950s was becoming more and more cognizant of psychology and the writings of Sigmund Freud, and the prevailing attitude of the era came from a fellow named John Watson. His approach was called "behavioralist," and it emphasized the importance of environmental determinants in shaping human behavior. B.F. Skinner was also a (later) advocate of this notion that external events - environment - dictate the occurrence of certain behaviors. So that's the "nurture" theory.

In the film, Rhoda's grandfather, an erudite crime reporter played by Paul Fix, advocates this theory. To him (and to Skinner and Watson), there's no such thing as a bad seed, or being bad by nature (or what we would say is bad by genetics/heritage.) It's easy to understand why Fix's character might believe this; why he might prefer "the nurture" theory. He is rich, white and privileged, after all. It is convenient and easy for the "upper class" of WASP-y aristocracy to believe that criminals are made, not born. That they come out of poverty; that they come out of lack-of-education; that they come out of poor upbringing. By believing this, you can blame bad acts on people who are less fortunate, and also make excuses for them at the same time. "Oh, they don't go to the right Church." Or those people don't have the "right" values. So make no mistake, The Bad Seed concerns America as a class society; just look at how the "poor" Mrs. Daigle is treated in the film.

But back to the point. The nature versus nurture debate remains one of the enduring controversies in developmental psychology. I believe it was Arthur Jensen who published an article (in the 70s?) arguing the opposite point as Skinner and Watson, that intelligence is largely inheritable. And if that's the case, as human beings we must begin to question - as Christine does in the film - what other traits or qualities are also inheritable? Conscience? Empathy? This is the terrain of The Bad Seed, and Christine comes to realize that her daughter, Rhoda, is not so much evil as she is handicapped. Christine twice makes reference to a sociopath as like a "child being born blind." In other words, a critical human sense is missing from Rhoda, if not eyesight then certainly soul. We don't kill blind children, do we? We don't mistreat the deaf, right? But a child who is a sociopath is a totally different story, because - as Rhoda proves so dramatically- she's dangerous to others.

Because psychology was gaining mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, The Bad Seed is obsessed with the public at large attempting to practice psychology...without a license. The movie seems to be saying "don't try this at home; leave it to the professionals." The landlady character, Monica, is a prime example of this public misunderstanding the core tenets of psychology. She offhandedly states that "analysis" broke up her marriage. More to the point, she's always going around diagnosing - or rather, misdiagnosing - the people around her. She performs Freud's "free association" process like it's some sort of social parlor game, and is ultimately completely clueless about the real nature of those closest to her, particularly Rhoda. It's strongly suggested in the film that Monica herself will be the next victim of the "bad seed" because she had promised Rhoda ownership of her love bird when she dies. So the democratic voice of the people and psychology in the film - Monica - is clueless, helpless, and in fact, endangered.

The critical skinny on The Bad Seed is usually that is a very good, very solid film, but that the very theatrical nature of the drama makes it stagey and even a bit campy by today's standards. It's probably true that some aspects of the film are campy, but I also find it genuinely terrifying. Because the film is based on the play (and features, in fact, the play's cast...) it does come off as a bit stagey at times. The film is very theatrical, yes, I agree. For example, we get a soliloquy from Leroy the gardener at one point, and that's a good stage technique, but an awkward film one. And we don't often leave the apartment interior for the great outdoors, giving the film the feeling of a stage-bound production. Finally, we even get a bizarre, reality-shattering curtain-call at the end of the film to introduce the cast and even make light of the preceding horrors. But like Shakespeare's MacBeth and the murder of King Duncan, notice how much of the important action of the film takes place off-camera. This is intentional. We never actually see Rhoda committing murder, and that's a crucial distinction. The film is much more concerned with how Rhoda covers up, how she appears normal, than with the abnormal and anti-social acts she commits.

What's more frightening, you may ask, than a child committing murder? How about the sight of a cute-as-a-button little girl making excuses, manipulating her parents, and having no sense of morality other than the fact that she wants what she wants? At one point, she coldly tells her Mother that she doesn't feel "any way at all" about the death of little Claude, and how it must make Mrs. Daigle feel. Sheesh. That admission is more terrifying than a girl pushing a boy into the water. Rhoda believes all along that she is "right," "justified" and "entitled" to do what is best for her, and it's all the more frightening, because the camera focuses on her dissembling and lying more than it visits the exact nature of her crimes. We are confronted with the idea that there exist human beings unable to feel remorse, pity, empathy - anything we remotely recognize as "moral" - and that they're out there; and that they sometimes hide undetected behind pig-tails and smiles. The movie would have gotten lost in psycho-killer cliches had it actually visualized Rhoda committing her "kills."

I submit that the stagey, theatrical approach of The Bad Seed actually works well with the material. It's an advantage, not a detriment. There's a palpable sense of claustrophobia to the film (and increasing hysteria, too...) since Christine is our protagonist and she feels helpless to resolve the crisis. Her husband is MIA most of the film, and let's face it, in 1950s Leave it to Beaver America our heroine has few options, and so therefore we stay and we stay and we stay in that damned apartment and our sense of discomfort grows exponentially. Had the film been opened up more, been made more conventionally cinematic, I feel the viewer would have lost the sense of Christine's entrapment with this monster. As it stands, we're right there in that apartment beside her. It would be much harder for us to accept Chrstine going mad at Rhoda's endless repetition of Claire de Lune on the piano if we could easily escape it for a corner cafe, a grocery store, a police station, a school, a church or the like.

The other critical slam against The Bad Seed involves the ending. Don't read any further if you want to be surprised. Here's the deal, the movie changed the play's original ending. In the movie, Rhoda goes to the pier where she killed Claude and tries to fish out her penmanship medal from the water (where her Mom dumped it.) A storm has rolled in, and Rhoda is carrying a big metal net on a stick. Well, she's struck by lightning and that's the end of the Bad Seed. Problem solved.

In the book and the play, things were different. Little Rhoda got away with her crimes, and society was unable to recognize her for what she clearly was, a monster. But, in America in 1956, we had the "The Motion Picture Production Code" to contend with and it stated something along the lines of "crime shall never be presented in such a way to throw sympathy with the criminal against law and order." This edict meant that The Bad Seed could not be dramatized on film as it had been on stage. Rhoda couldn't escape some form of justice.

So the ending of the film had to be altered. Critics complained because they saw the new ending (a lightning strike against Rhoda) as divine intervention, a Deus ex Machina answer. Well, I beg to differ. I would argue that the new ending of the film works well, and furthermore, that director Le Roy builds it into the film with a sense of grace.

For example, the film opens with a shot of the pier where the murder of Claude (and ultimately, Rhoda's death...) takes place. Off in the horizon, hanging low in the black-and-white sky, we see thunder clouds gathering, and even lightning flares. So we are reminded of "nature" first off in the film, rendering the climax not something out of the blue, but rather a book end: a return-to-nature (and the scene of the crime).

Then, handyman Leroy taunts little Rhoda later in the film. He says that dying in the electric chair is like being "hit by lightning," again foreshadowing Rhoda's particular fate. So when the lightning finally strikes Rhoda, it has been adequately set-up. It's consistent with the opening shot of a storm, and Leroy's foreshadowing.

Also, any critical analysis of the film must consider that the core conflict of the film is what I discussed above: the nature vs. nurture debate. Rhoda is a "bad seed," a bad person by nature (by her heritage; since her real, biological mother was a murderer...). In the end, it is only correct then that Mother Nature (i.e. the lightning strike), not Mother Nurture (Christine herself) is the one to ultimately deal with Rhoda. This is not divine intervention, this is not God. This is Nature destroying that which is corrupt, that which is wrong. It is nature taking care of its own.

The Bad Seed is a product of its time in that there is very little on-screen violence. It's also a pioneer in the way that it plumbs the depths and breadth of human psychology. In addition to presenting the nature vs. nurture debate in entertaining and provocative terms, I think it's also only fair to state that the movie gives us some of the most chilling dialogue to come out of 1950s horror cinema. You'll definitely catch a case of the chills from Rhoda's constant refrain, "What would you give me for a basket of kisses?", or Monica's unknowing comment to her father, "You still have Rhoda."

Like that is somehow comforting. 

To quote Leroy the handyman: "I've seen some mean little girls in my time...but you're the meanest."

50 Years Ago: The Monster Squad: "Queen Bee" (September 11, 1976)

Monster Squad (1976 - 1977) -- not to be confused with the late 1980's movie, The Monster Squad (1987) -- is a one-season Saturday morning series developed by Stanley Ralph Ross, one of the key writers of the Adam West Batman (1966 – 1969) series. 

Like Batman, Monster Squad’s style is high-camp, meaning that all the heroes face their various crises with melodramatic solemnity, a solemnity that plays to adults as funny but kids as serious.  

Also like Batman, Monster Squad is famous for its rogue’s gallery of celebrity villains.  Some of the actors who wore crazy get-ups and twirled their metaphorical mustaches on the program included Julie Newmar as “Ultra Witch” and Jonathan Harris as “the Astrologer.”

Briefly stated, the premise of Monster Squad is that a young and hopelessly earnest criminologist, Walter (Fred Grandy) has developed a fantastically advanced crime computer at the Chamber of Horrors exhibit in the basement of Fred’s Wax Museum. This large-scale computer can rise out of a sarcophagus platform when in operation, and features a “secret government” channel and radio transmitter.

One day however, the “oscillating vibrations” of Walter’s crime computer awaken three of the museum’s figures, Dracula (Henry Polic II), the Frankenstein Monster (Michael Lane) and The Wolfman (Buck Kartalian). These figures are apparently the real deal, resurrected, and not merely wax representations of them.  However, it is never explained why the wax museum was housing the bodies of such dangerous monsters.

Regardless of their precise nature, these three “monsters” from history wish to atone for their sins by solving crimes with Walter, and thereby making reparations to society.

With Walt operating out of the Chamber of Horrors, Dracula, The Wolfman and The Frankenstein Monster are thus frequently dispatched -- in a black 1970s van -- to combat evil-doers around the city.

The first episode of Monster Squad, “Queen Bee” -- which aired on NBC the morning of September 11, 1976 -- stars Alice Ghostley as the insect matriarch, the aforementioned Queen Bee. As the episode commences, she has ordered her bee minions around the world to attack unsuspecting humans.  This “unexplained rash of bee stings” is noticed by Walt, who captures a bee and attempts to interrogate it with the Crime Computer.

One will notice here that the Crime Computer has a slot designed and labeled for insect analysis. This makes one wonder how often evil bugs show up in town…

After a time, Walt frees the bee, and Dracula tracks it in bat-form to Queen Bee’s headquarters. There, he and his monster must stop the Queen Bee’s plans before the United Nations can surrender the world to her.

The 1970's represents the great era of “killer bee” entertainment, from the movies Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973) and The Swarm (1978) to TV series such as The Starlost (1973-1974) which featured an episode about giant bees called “The Beehive.”  

In terms of “Queen Bee,” the Monster Squad episode reports about the South American killer bee briefly, but otherwise conjures up little in terms of fact.  Instead, the installment features about a hundred bad “bee” puns for Ghostley and her buzzing minions.  

“I bee-seech you,” says one character.  “Bee-ware your fate,” says another.

After a while, we also get “bee-lieve me,” “bee-guiling,” “bee-wildering,” “bee-headed,” “bee-trothal,” “bee-tray” and other variations on the theme.  One non -“bee” joke is Queen Bee’s comment that one of her minions always “bumbles.”

As you can probably guess, this approach grows tiring after a while, though it anticipates the approach to Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin (1997).  

The episode -- like all Monster Squad episodes -- plays as particularly arched, and not overly amusing. Everyone is in on the joke, but the joke isn’t as amusing as it is on Batman, and this Saturday morning series also lacks the resources, and hence production values of that camp classic.  For instance, here Dracula is put in a vat of honey, and the vat is a tiny little barrel.

Viewers who were kids in the 1970's may be most interested here to see a Mego toy re-painted and used as a prop in “Queen Bee.”  Ghostley’s “bee” communicator is actually a Star Trek walkie-talkie from the age, but painted gold.  The prop -- with a different paint job -- recurs as Walt’s crime computer remote control in the next episode, “Mr. Mephisto.”

Although Monster Squad doesn’t hold up particularly well-today, I remember that I absolutely loved it as a seven year old, and that I wished and hoped for action figures, playsets and other toys featuring these lovable and familiar monsters. There was, as memory services, a board game available at one time.

As bad as some of these episodes are, the opening theme song and introductory montage still provide me a nice kick of nostalgia…

50 Years Ago: Land of the Lost "After Shock" (September 11, 1976)

An earthquake strikes Altrusia both conceptually and literally in the third season premiere of Land of the Lost (1974 – 1977), titled “After Shock," which aired 50 years ago.

Behind the scenes, star Spencer Milligan (Rick Marshall) departed from the series, replaced by Ron Harper as Uncle Jack Marshall. And a new team of writers, led by Sam Roeca (Valley of the Dinosaurs) and Jon Kubichan replaced outgoing writers such as Dick Morgan.

In terms of the actual storyline, “After Shock” begins with a quake that sends Rick Marshall -- working inside a pylon -- spiraling home to his home in California, leaving Will (Wesley Eure) and Holly (Kathy Coleman) to contend with a shifted reality in Altrusia. 

High Bluff is buried in rock, taking all of the Marshalls’ equipment with it, and a strange new, two-headed monster (which Holly christens “Lulu”) appears in the lagoon.  Uncle Jack also falls into the Land of the Lost, a fact which conforms to the one-person-in, one-person out balance of the strange land as viewers understand it.. 

Finally, Chaka (Philip Paley) also loses track of the other Pakuni, Ta and Sa, though his explanation for their disappearance doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Chaka claims that the other Paku were separated on the other side of a crack in the land, running far away.  But we know from Land of the Lost history that Altrusia is a small pocket universe that circles around on itself, and so there’s no way for the Paku to have disappeared or left. 

It would have been better if Chaka simply saw Ta and Sa fall into a crack in the Earth, though that explanation may have scared the kiddies, I suppose.

After Will, Holly and Chaka find Uncle Jack by the lagoon, they all go in search of a new home, and must battle the fearful Sleestak for possession of “The Old Temple” near the Lost City.  It isn’t clear if this structure is supposed to be the same old temple that was featured in second season stories such as “The Musician,” though it looks completely different here.

As for Jack, Ron Harper is a capable actor, and he did a great job as Virdon on Planet of the Apes (1974).   The writing here establishes Jack as an engineer, which helps to explain how he is able to build so many interesting and helpful devices in the Land of the Lost, like wheels for the heavy temple door.  

Gazing at “After Shock,” one can debate, certainly, the idea of change as a positive for Land of the Lost and change as a negative factor.  The episode starts out promisingly as Will reminds an upset Holly that “we aren’t alone.  We’re just on our own.”  In some sense, this is the moment the series -- and Rick Marshall -- have been preparing the kids for since the family first fell into the land of the lost.   Everyone has always known that separation was a possibility.

There’s an argument to be made that the arrival of Uncle Jack is thus truly unnecessary, and the series should have continued just with Will, Holly and Chaka living together, in no need of a father figure.  Instead, Uncle Jack’s arrival feels like the idea of change…without real change.  He’s a new Dad, essentially, and so the story line and characters don’t truly move forward in a meaningful way.

Even the idea of losing the cave at High Bluff and moving to the Old Temple is promising, but its potential largely undelivered by future episodes.  The temple set is a really good, really intriguing one, and very different from the old cave.  The set is dotted with all of these large stone doors, ostensibly leading to other unexplored chambers.  But no episode of the series ever explores what chambers or tunnels lay beyond those doors.  That’s a disappointment, because a core aspect of the series has been, in episodes like 

“Downstream” and “Follow that Dinosaur,” an exploration of new territory.  Instead, the Marshalls and Chaka move in during “After Shock” and never really look around their new digs.  Even as a seven year old kid, I wondered why the family didn’t explore its new home. I wanted to know what was behind those doors.

“After Shock” also shows some of streamlining of core, long-standing Land of the Lost concepts. Now, both Chaka and the Sleestak Leader clearly and understandably speak English, for example. It’s a shift, and again, one with ups and downs.  If one chooses, one can register Chaka’s sudden understanding/learning of English as a side-effect of his experience in “The Musician,” near the end of the second season, when his intelligence was “evolved” by the Builders of the Land of the Lost. 

I used to consider Chaka’s new Tarzan/pigeon-English a continuity error, but after watching several episodes of the second season in which he and the Marshalls waste precious minutes of story time trying to communicate with one another via the Pakuni language, I can’t argue that this streamlining is a dramatic mistake, especially considering the events of “The Musician.”

“After Shock” is a pretty strong episode of Land of the Lost, the beginning of a new era that promises some intriguing story-lines.  The problem isn’t that the new direction is bad, but rather that follow-up episodes don’t necessarily deliver on the potential promised by this installment.  The second episode, for instance -- called “Survival Kit” -- is one of the worst episodes of the entire series and entirely inconsistent with what we know of the Sleestaks, the Land of the Lost, its history, and its inhabitants. 

60 Years Ago: The Green Hornet: "The Silent Gun" (September 9, 1966)

In the fall of 1966, all the major American TV networks sought to duplicate the success of ABC’s superhero phenomenon, Batman (1966 – 1968).  So along came such campy efforts as Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific.  

But ABC-TV itself adopted a different strategy, and aired The Green Hornet, a superhero series with no camp touches whatsoever. 

William Dozier, who also produced Batman was adamant, in fact, about not imitating the tongue-in-cheek Batman style. “This is a much straighter show. It’s not a pop show,” he asserted. “The only thing about Batman we want to imitate is its success.” (Newsweek, July 18, 1966).

Van Williams was cast as publisher by day/vigilante by night Britt Reid, and a pre-stardom Bruce Lee played his loyal companion and crime-fighting partner, Kato.  

With their own distinctive car -- the magnificent Black Beauty -- these heroes evaded law enforcement and fought to a standstill the dark forces of many a criminal organization. And again, unlike Batman, the villains on The Green Hornet were all based reality. They were thugs and mobsters, not strangely-dressed clowns or buffoons.

Writing in SFTV #1 in December of 1984, TV historian and scholar James Van Hise wrote that the series featuring The Green Hornet proved itself “something very special…” and represented “one of the few times a character was transferred faithfully from one medium to another and with exciting results.”  

I would tend to agree. Alas, The Green Hornet was canceled after just one season of twenty six episodes, and most long-time fans agree that the 2011. Seth Rogen Green Hornet movie failed to live up to the promise demonstrated by the 1966 series.

The first episode of The Green Hornet, “The Silent Gun,” aired on September 9, 1966 -- just one day after the debut of Star Trek (1966 – 1969) -- and concerns a new weapon being used by criminals: A gun that makes no sound when it fires, and no light flash, either. The weapon was developed by the O.S.S. during the Second World War, but the plans have been revived by a local gunsmith.

The Green Hornet and Kato investigate the case, interfering in criminal operations. Before long, the Green Hornet is selected as the next target of the silent gun, but that’s exactly how the superhero wants it...

Today, it’s intriguing (and indeed, rewarding) to watch these nearly fifty-year old The Green Hornet episodes and note that they reflect not where the superhero trend was at that time (see: Batman), but where it stands today: with a focus on hard-action, and a kind of grim fatalism. 

The Green Hornet goes about his task here without humor, and treads into some moral gray areas. For example, in “The Silent Gun,” he pretends to be a criminal himself, and make deals with other underworld figures. He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty to bring the criminals to justice. That seems like a very modern, very 21st century concept.

Also, in a bow to reality, this costumed crusader only goes out at night, and is often cloaked by the darkness.  Adding to the sense of  ubiquitous darkness, the first scene of the episode (and of the series itself) is set at a funeral.  And then, a murder occurs at a funeral.  

You just don't get much grimmer than that.

In “The Silent Gun,” The Green Hornet goes up against a thug called Carley (Lloyd Bochner) and, again, the villain is a realistic figure, not one based in fantasy. The episode culminates with some real violence as villains tumble downstairs, or otherwise get beat up.  One thug gets a blast from a steam pipe to the face.

I wonder if the violence quotient is one reason why the show didn’t pick-up the same following as Batman did.  There’s a feeling in “The Silent Gun” of real life consequences for bad behavior, and action that isn’t candy-coated or cartoonish.  There are no ZAPP or BIFF balloons here, for certain.

Even supporting characters are treated with shades of gray in “The Silent Gun.” One woman wants two-thousand dollars to tell her story about a murder that was committed.  If she’s going to talk, she wants money...she seeks a reward. The Green Hornet disabuses her of that notion by, basically, showing up at a pre-arranged meeting and bullying her into doing the right thing, at least from a psychological perspective. 

The Green Hornet is a grounded series that was created in a time when audiences wanted something more fanciful.  

  

60 Years Ago: The Time Tunnel: "Rendezvous with Yesterday"

"Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America's greatest and most secret project...the Time Tunnel..."

-opening narration to Irwin Allen's temporal opus, The Time Tunnel (1966-1967)

Love him or hate him, it's fair to state that producer Irwin Allen boasted a unique and distinctive take on science fiction television throughout the 1960s. His genre programs are undeniably kiddie-oriented, but they also reflect (in an almost reflexive, unthinking way...) a major philosophical conflict of the epoch.

In particular, Allen's adventurous cathode ray tube fantasies straddled the line between almost hysterical "techno-phobia" -- the fear that new inventions (like nuclear weapons or computers) would annihilate us outright, or at least put us out of work -- and, oppositely, the age's burgeoning Camelot/Kennedy-style "can do" optimism. This was, after all, the dawning of the Apollo Age; a period in which America's space program would achieve what was once believed impossible: a trip to the moon.
If you gaze across the wide array of Allen's TV programming from this age, you can detect how this unusual conflict plays out in various forms and colors. In Lost in Space (1965-1968), the future man of 1997 was able to reach the stars in advanced spaceships (such as the Jupiter 2) and build robots with human personality and individuality, but the first space flight also became hopelessly and irrevocably lost in the stars.

In Land of the Giants (1968 - 1970), the same conflict between techno-phobia and techno confidence was also present. In that series, man has developed (by the far-flung year of 1983...) high-tech "sub-orbital" spaceships like The Spindrift...but it still plows through a storm and ends up marooned on a planet of giants.

And in The Time Tunnel (1966-1967) -- which has aptly been described as "Lost in Time" -- mankind has developed the technology to conduct time travel at a top-secret facility (a huge subterranean complex in the Arizona desert...). 

But the behemoth, when activated, almost immediately misplaces two scientists (Dr. Doug Phillips and Dr. Tony Newman) in the corridors of time. 

Permanently.

On one hand: technological achievement and advancement. 

On the other, technological terror plus error. 

What these Irwin Allen speculative programs seem to tell us, I suppose, is that humans boast the intellect and skill to create amazing devices; but not the wisdom, perhaps, to adequately control them.

Of all Allen's storied sci-fi series, The Time Tunnel was perhaps the least successful on its original sortie. It aired for just a single season of 30 hour-long episodes on ABC. Broadcast from September 9, 1966 to April 7, 1967, the series involved the aforementioned scientists -- Newman (James Darren) and Phillips (Robert Colbert) -- tumbling (literally...) through various historical (and future!) time periods, a circumstance which enabled the series to frequently re-use footage and costumes from such films as Titanic (1953), The Buccaneer (1958) and Khartoum (1966).

Despite this crafty, cost-saving measure, the Time Tunnel pilot was still one of the most expensive ever produced at the time, costing a then-whopping $500,000 dollars. You can readily observe where all the considerable expense went in the pilot episode: there are some amazing matte-paintings of the Time Tunnel complex. The whole facility looks like it was outsourced to Krell construction workers. 

Also, the Time Tunnel control room set is vast and impressive: a testament to 1960s-style futurism. There are banks of giant computers with lots of blinking lights, reel-to-reel tapes, and that massive, whirly-gig tunnel itself taking center stage. The visual effects are opulent too, particularly views of the lead actors somersaulting through a moving, glittering temporal vortex.

The Time Tunnel's first episode, "Rendezvous with Yesterday" (written by Harold Jack Bloom and directed by Irwin Allen), features guest star Gary Merrill as Senator Clark, a budget-obsessed politician who visits Project Tic-Toc (location of the Time Tunnel device...) in the Arizona desert. The colossal underground complex, which houses over 12,000 technicians and stretches over 800 floors, has already cost the U.S. government a whopping 7.5 billion dollars. This is simply unacceptable!

"Is time travel worth it?" Senator Clark asks pointedly.

The response from Dr. Phillips is that time travel is "potentially the most valuable treasure man will ever find."

Still, the impatient senator isn't convinced that time travel is a worthwhile endeavor, and he demands a demonstration of the not-yet-operational time tunnel. Scientist Tony Newman impulsively complies and -- without permission or preparation -- jumps through the machine.

The result? Lots of smoke and explosions. And then Tony lands on the HMS Titanic on April 13, 1912, just hours before the "unsinkable" liner is destined to strike an iceberg and go to a watery grave.

Unfortunately, the techs at Project Tic-Toc, including the lovely Dr. Ann McGregor (a woefully underutilized Lee Meriwether), can't return Tony to the present. Not even with their high-tech "location probes" or other tools. They are able, however, to visualize Tony's chronological location with a "tele screen." And, as a last resort, the technicians can also yank Tony out of one time period and into to another random one...and hope they get lucky.

It's sort of...a temporal crap shoot.

Back aboard the Titanic, Newman realizes immediately attempts to change the time line by warning the ship's captain, a regal Michael Rennie, of the impending disaster. The captain doesn't believe Newman's stories and voices a variation of a line oft-repeated on this series; something along the lines of: "you don't expect me to believe that wild story, do you?"

One might also note, at this juncture, that Tony seems to have no preparation or schooling whatsoever for the event of actual "time displacement." He's one of the key designers/inventors of the time tunnel juggernaut and yet he has no plan, no philosophy, no agenda whatsoever about dealing with the temporally-challenged natives of other time periods. Apparently on instinct, he simply warns people about the future and is immediately incarcerated or beaten-up for his trouble (another tiresome convention that is repeated throughout the series).

Now, my point here is simply this: whether or not time can actually be altered, why does Tony want to change the flow of time at all? 

Was the time tunnel constructed so that the American government can interfere in the past? 

I mean, if the captain of the Titanic had actually listened to Tony's warning and averted the nautical disaster, some several hundred additional souls would have survived the maiden voyage and thereby altered Tony's entire time-line (since he is born in 1938, after the Titanic accident).

Let me make this even more basic: what if one of those "new" Titanic survivors caused a car accident that killed Tony's Mom before she gave birth to him? See my point?

Besides wanting personally to survive the Titanic disaster (and I don't blame him for that...), what could possibly motivate Tony to reveal the details of the future to the denizens of 1912? 

When Doug returns to the past next, he mindlessly adopts the same plan. He even brings a newspaper from the day after the disaster to convince the Captain of Tony's veracity. I mean...jeez, what's the end game here? Saving the Titanic? Changing the course of 20th century history? Altering the time line? What?

Closely examined, the motives of the characters in this story make no sense. By my reckoning, Tony and Doug should be focused on one thing: keeping a low profile and escaping the disaster. They don't need to be sounding alarm bells, and they sure as hell don't need to commandeer the Titanic's radio room! One might expect more dispassion and weighing of variables here. Especially from two genius scientists, right?

It occurs to me while watching The Time Tunnel that the series would have been much more interesting if in stories like "Rendezvous with Yesterday," the heroes had to preserve the flow of time as they had already experienced it. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if Tony and Doug landed on the deck of the Titanic and realized it wasn't going to sink at all? That they had to aim it at an iceberg themselves, to ensure that their histories remained sacrosanct? I realize there would be moral questions there, but they'd still be "heroes" in the conventional TV sense, since they'd be preserving our chronology.

Oh wait, this was the premise for Voyagers! (1980)...

Anyway, I'm not trying to be dismissive of The Time Tunnel. It is what it is: a product of the time period from which it arose (the 1960s), and for a very specific audience (children). It's harmless escapist fantasy, nothing more...and if you saw it as a child, I'm sure you would get a nostalgic rush watching it. 

That established, it's not a very smart series by today's standard (and remember, Star Trek was a smart series, and it also aired in 1966). Oh, there's definitely an occasional moment of real drama here, such as the instance in "Rendezvous with Yesterday" when Doug and Tony must inform the captain of the Titanic that he is destined to die that very night. However, for the most part, time travel mysteries and human emotions are curtailed, slighted, or outright ignored in favor of James Bond-ian fisticuffs and action. It's all cowboys, Indians, soldiers, spies, aliens, and disasters. Color! Action! But not much real characterization or drama.

During the over-two-dozen episodes of The Time Tunnel, Tony and Doug visited the "Crack of Doom" (don't laugh...), the volcanic eruption at Krakatoa on August 27, 1883. They went to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941 (but didn't encounter the U.S.S. Nimitz there....) They experienced the French Revolution first hand ("Reign of Terror), averted the (first) assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln ("The Death Trap") in 1861, witnessed D-Day ("Invasion") at Normandy, met General Custer ("Massacre"), Billy the Kid ("Billy the Kid") and...Robin Hood ("The Revenge of Robin Hood.")

Yes, before watching The Time Tunnel, I too always thought Robin Hood was a mythical hero, not a historical one, but who's counting? Doctor Who played with this very idea recently, too.  Another episode "One Way to the Moon," landed our wayward heroes on a rocket ship in flight, one bound for Mars...with a saboteur aboard.

As the series wore on, The Time Tunnel increasingly lapsed into empty-headed, monotonous phantasmagoria. The final episode, "Town of Terror" was set in the future year of 1978 and involved strange aliens with tin-foil faces and black capes who, for some unfathomable reason, are referred to as "androids"(!). 

These fishy-looking invaders have taken over the idyllic town of Cliffport, Maine (population 700), where they begin sucking all the oxygen from the Earth. Tony and Doug land in the town and put a stop to the plan, but not before an alien saboteur gets to Project Tic-Toc and starts sucking the air out of the room there too. It takes an inordinate amount of time for the brilliant project scientist, Dr. Swain -- gasping for air -- to realize the oxygen is being depleted.

The last moments of the series are actually the most interesting, at least from a certain perspective. Following the landing in Cliffport, Doug and Phillip are shunted back in time again...to the Titanic. 

Now, on one hand, this return to the beginning was no doubt a lead-in to summer reruns of the first season. However, considering that there was no second season of The Time Tunnel, viewers might interpret this twist of fate to mean that our heroes were not merely stuck in time, but trapped in a loop too. 

Alas, we may never know...

Again, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here -- and all sci-fi TV has its fans and adherents -- but The Time Tunnel is sometimes difficult to take seriously. The lead characters - Doug and Tony - are about as cardboard as could be, not to mention the most physically fit and physically skilled "scientists" of all-time. Some of the technobabble on the series is inconsistent too. Sometimes the scientists in the tunnel control room can talk directly with the time travelers on a microphone, and sometimes the men can't hear them.

And you have to wonder, too, why are the time tunnel techies always rolling the dice and scrambling these unlucky guys from one time period to another? 

I'll tell you what...if I came from 1968 and ended up in 1978 (as Tony and Doug did in both "One Way to The Moon" and "Town of Terror"), you know what? I'd just call it a day. 

I'd rather live ten years in the future,than risk ending up in 1184 BC ("Revenge of the Gods"), or 1215 AD ("The Revenge of Robin Hood.")

Close enough for government work, and all.