June 26, 2023- number 90, 91

Spoilers

“The Fugitive”

Why do you have to be so mean, Ms. Hathaway?

This was a weird episode that was intended to be a sweet one, but lent itself into something less than sweet.

“It’s been said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things: science fiction, the improbable made possible; fantasy, the impossible made probable. What would you have if you put these two different things together? Well, you’d have an old man named Ben who knows a lot of tricks most people don’t know and a little girl named Jenny who loves him — and a journey into the heart of the Twilight Zone.”

Ben and Jenny are friends. Ben can do amazing things, such as shapeshift and other magical tricks. Trouble is that Ben is being pursued by two men who appear to be from the police.

Jenny is staying with her aunt Agnes, played by Nancy Kulp, most well known as Ms. Hathaway of the Beverly Hillbillies. Aunt Agnes was pretty mean, always yelling at Jenny and wanting Ben to go away forever.

The relationship between Jenny and Ben was meant to be sweet, but it really felt odd to me and was a drawback to the episode. That made this a weird installment of The Twilight Zone. Ben was revealed as an alien who was a king of his planet and the two police were actually subjects trying to bring him back. There were a lot of this episode that just did not work well for me.

“Little Lost Girl”

“Little Lost Girl” is a fascinating episode with some cool special effects creating a bizarre dimension, showing how different the they can be.

“Missing: one frightened little girl. Name: Bettina Miller. Description: six years of age, average height and build, light brown hair, quite pretty. Last seen being tucked in bed by her mother a few hours ago. Last heard: ‘ay, there’s the rub,’ as Hamlet put it. For Bettina Miller can be heard quite clearly, despite the rather curious fact that she can’t be seen at all. Present location? Let’s say for the moment… in the Twilight Zone.”

An opening between dimensions appears in the bedroom of Bettina Miller and she falls into it. Crying out for her parents, Chris and Ruth, they come to her room. They can hear her, but they cannot find her no matter where they look. When Mack the dog runs under the bed and disappears as well, they know that something weird was going on.

Fortunately, Chris has a friend named Bill who is, coincidentally, a physicist. He comes up with the alternate dimension theory and tells Chris that the dog was the key. The dog is trying to lead Bettina out from the dimension. Chris, however, winds up falling inside the portal too.

The special effects in the dimension was really cool, making everything feel unsettling and oft balance.

Chris is instructed that he must not move and that Mack had to lead Bettina to him. Chris kept calling his daughter and the dog and finally they came to him. Bill is able to pull them free of the dimension and back into their house.

Bill lets Chris know that the portal was closing and that Chris was actually just partially inside the dimension. Bill was worried that the portal would shut before Chris was out, leaving half of him in each dimension.

Bill and Mack the dog were clearly the MVPs of this episode. It just goes to show you that it is always a good idea to make friends with a physicist and have him on speed dial for those middle of the night dimensional emergencies.