Who really knows the future? Well, in the Twilight Zone, it is apparently a little old man named Pedott. This is a talent that down-on-his-luck scoundrel, Mr. Fred Renard needed.
“You’re looking at Mr. Fred Renard, who carries on his shoulder a chip the size of the national debt. This is a sour man, a friendless man, a lonely man, a grasping, compulsive, nervous man. This is a man who has lived thirty-six undistinguished, meaningless, pointless, failure-laden years and who at this moment looks for an escape—any escape, any way, anything, anybody—to get out of the rut. And this little old man is just what Mr. Renard is waiting for.”
This was another main protagonist in an episode of The Twilight Zone that was really unlikable. Renard did not look to have much of a character arc either. He just wanted something to go right for him and when he realized that Pedott could tell him specifically what he needed, meaning he had a gift to see in the future, Renard was ready to cash in.
We got some nice inclusion of a story of a baseball player named Lefty whose arm was ruined. This was to show the ability of Pedott, and it looked as if the story was going to be a happy one. However, the use of Renard as a greedy creep who wanted to become Pedott’s partner guaranteed that this tale would take the typically ironic end.
This episode was fine. I was happy to see Renard get his comeuppance at the end of the episode. There is nothing here specifically deep or complex, unlike many other Twilight Zone episodes. It was a nice watch.
“Her name: X-20. Her type: an experimental interceptor. Recent history: a crash landing in the Mojave Desert after a thirty-one hour flight nine hundred miles into space. Incidental data: the ship, with the men who flew her, disappeared from the radar screen for twenty-four hours… But the shrouds that cover mysteries are not always made out of a tarpaulin, as this man will soon find out on the other side of a hospital door.”
The eleventh episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone was a great episode. Three military pilots flew an experimental spaceship called the X-20. After disappearing for a 24-hour period, they crashed in the desert.
Major William Gart had a broken leg and had to stay in the hospital. When we ick it up, we see Colonel Clegg Forbes came back to the hospital to see Gart, and he was in a panic. It seemed as if his best friend, Colonel Ed Harrington, the third man of the pilots, was missing and no one remembered him.
Forbes told Gart about the trip to the bar the night before when Harrington disappeared. The people in the bar, who had been interacting with Harrington moments before, were now confused by Forbes’ behavior.
Watching Forbes try to wrap his mind around the fact that his longtime friend had been figuratively erased from existence was fascinating and the mystery of what was going on had me glued to the screen.
As the other two pilots eventually disappeared without a trace as well, I realized that there would not be any answers forthcoming, and it did not bother me at all. I liked how the episode left us uncertain about what was happening. We, the audience, were just like the three pilots. We knew that they were there, but we did not know what happened to them.
“Her name is the S.S. Queen of Glasgow. Her registry: British. Gross tonnage: five thousand. Age: Indeterminate. At this moment she’s one day out of Liverpool, her destination New York. Duly recorded on the ship’s log is the sailing time, course to destination, weather conditions, temperature, longitude and latitude. But what is never recorded in a log is the fear that washes over a deck like fog and ocean spray. Fear like the throbbing strokes of engine pistons, each like a heartbeat, parceling out every hour into breathless minutes of watching, waiting and dreading… For the year is 1942, and this particular ship has lost its convoy. It travels alone like an aged blind thing groping through the unfriendly dark, stalked by unseen periscopes of steel killers. Yes, the Queen of Glasgow is a frightened ship, and she carries with her a premonition of death.”
This episode is a ghost story. It starts off as a mystery. How did Carl Lanser wind up on the S.S. Queen of Glasgow? Who is he? Why is he having a premonition of doom happening at 1:15 AM?
I have to say that what was happening on this episode was confusing and was not clear. However, I will admit the episode cleared up the mystery rather quickly. Everything wrapped up with a nice little bow.
I did not love this episode. It was fine, but it all felt so rushed. This felt like an episode that could have benefited from a longer run time.
It had some pretty decent ideas in it and I liked the eventual reveal, but it just did not work in the overall.
This episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone was adapted from a short story by author Lynn Venable and starred Burgess Meredith as poor Henry Bemis, a put upon man who just wanted some time to read the newspaper or some classic literature. His boss and his wife reacted negatively to his wish, going to dramatic steps to stop him from engaging in his hobby.
I related to Henry Bemis immediately. All he wanted was to be able to read and, as a reading teacher, I wish more people would be so motivated.
However, Bemis’s tale took a drastic switch as he was hidden away at the bank that he worked at inside a vault when an H-bomb exploded, destroying evrerything around him, killing all of the people of his city. I was happy that he did not have to deal with his horrible wife any longer. Henry was upset and lonely, unsure of what his life was going to be until he found the reminensce of the public library. Books, books, books everywhere and nothing but time to read them.
I was happy for him until the show pulled one of the crueler tricks that it has done as Henry’s glasses fell and broke, leaving him in a constant blurry world.
The hatred shown by several characters in this episode really relates to the current day as many books are being banned around the country. It really is sad that Henry was denied his one major love, something that had saved him from his near suicide earlier in the episode.
“The best-laid plans of mice and men…and Henry Bemis, the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis, in the Twilight Zone.“
“Perchance to Dream”
Episode nine of The Twilight Zone was the first episode of the series not written by Rod Serling. This episode, “Purchance to Dream” was written by Charles Beaumont.
Edward Hall needed help and he went to psychiatrist Dr. Eliot Rathmann looking for it. Edward had not slept for several days because of a dream that he was having. Dr. Rathmann had Edward lay down on his couch to rest, but Edward bolted up, afraid to succumb to sleep.
He told the psychiatrist that he had a bad heart condition and could not handle stressful situations or being startled. He then told the doctor that he had been having a dream of a carnival and a Cat Girl named Maya and he was sure that his heart could not handle the dream.
He told about the terrors at the carnival and the stress of the roller coaster. He said that he was sure that Maya was trying to scare him to death and that if he fell back asleep, she would succeed.
When he was leaving the office, he noticed that Rathmann’s receptionist resembled Maya. Frightened by this, Edward ran back into the office and leapt through the window, falling to his death.
However, we discover that he had not done any of this and that he was still on the psychiatrist’ couch, having never awakened. Dr. Rathmann checked Edward’s pulse, realizing that he had died in hi sleep, ironically stating that “At least he died peacefully…”
“They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die, and who’s to say which is the greater reality: the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the earth – in the Twilight Zone.“
This was a very intriguing episode and ending was extremely satisfying. When we come out of the dream where Edward had killed himself was very surreal. This felt very appropriate for The Twilight Zone.
The seventh episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone was called “The Lonely” and it dealt with a sci-fi prison for a man convicted of a crime.
Convicted but innocent, James Corry was stranded on an isolated and deserted asteroid for the duration of his long prison sentence. Supplies would be brought to him every three months, but otherwise, he is completely alone.
Feeling bad for him, Captain Allenby, the pilot of the supply vessel, brought him a special, secret surprise. It was a robot that was in the shape of a woman. The robot’s name was Alicia and she was very feminine. While Corry rejected the robot at first, he became close with her eventually as time passed.
When Corry and Alicia had become a couple, Captain Allenby returned with great news: Corry had received a pardon. Allenby and his crew were collecting other former prisoners and they were there to pick up Corry. They had space only for Corry and a few of his belongings. Corry rejected the idea, insisting that Alicia was more than robot… that she was a real woman and that she had to go with him.
Allenby ended up shooting Alicia in the face, revealing the robotic materials inside her, bringing Corry to his senses.
This was a strange story. It started out interesting as we looked at the relationship that could develop when someone is isolated. There have been plenty of examples in sci-fi of characters falling for machines/robots/androids etc.
However, the story between Corry and Alicia came to such a sudden and dramatic conclusion that it felt like there were some aspects of the tale missing. It needed another 20 minutes or so I think to be effective in telling the story. Otherwise the relationship, which needed to be at the center of this story, rang hollow and empty.
“On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man’s life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them. All of Mr. Corry’s machines, including the one made in his image, kept alive by love, but now obsolete—in The Twilight Zone.“
The sixth episode of The Twilight Zone in the first season was another episode that took the storytelling into a new direction. This was the first time where the protagonist of the tale was someone you did not want to root for.
“You’re about to meet a hypochondriac. Witness Mr. Walter Bedeker, age forty-four. Afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, draft, and everything else. He has one interest in life and that’s Walter Bedeker. One preoccupation: the life and well-being of Walter Bedeker. One abiding concern about society: that if Walter Bedeker should die, how will it survive without him?“
Bedeker was absolutely nothing more than a whining loser who was putting his wife through all kinds of troubles with his made-up symptoms and annoying complaints. When a mysterious man named Cadwallader appeared in his apartment with a shocking offer, Bedeker was intrigued. Even when he figured out that Cadwallader was, in fact, the Devil, Bedeker was not turned away.
Cadwallader offered him a long life span, something Bekeder had been worrying about. He also made him invincible, Nothing could hurt him. But he gave Bedeker an escape clause in case he wanted to get out of the forever life.
Bekeder, with his new power, became even more obnoxious. He discovered that the thrill of danger was now gone and he started doing things that were designed to hurt himself to see if any of them would interest him. He was such a jerk about it all.
His wife winds up being killed and he takes responsibility for the act, looking for the electric chair.
Bekeder was so unlikable that when he wound up getting life in prison instead of the chair, I cheered at the irony. Of course, he took Cadwallader up on the escape clause, which led to his heart attack in his prison cell.
Bekeder had everything you could possibly want but yet he was constantly unhappy. When he was normal, he was always complaining he was sick. When he could no longer be hurt or killed, he was bored. Just a rotten human being and seeing him pay the piper was extremely satisfying.
This was another solid episode in the first season of The Twilight Zone. This featured a little time travel and a nostalgic look back that becomes too real.
“Martin Sloan, age thirty-six. Occupation: vice-president, ad agency, in charge of media. This is not just a Sunday drive for Martin Sloan. He perhaps doesn’t know it at the time, but it’s an exodus. Somewhere up the road he’s looking for sanity. And somewhere up the road, he’ll find something else.”
Martin Sloan finds himself back in his hometown called Homewood and he was amazed at how nothing seemed to change. The ice cream soda was still a dime, the businesses were just as he remembered, the park was the same.
So when he spotted a young him carving his name into a bandstand, something he remembered doing as a child, the bizarre situation began to formulate before his eyes. When he found his childhood home was still being lived in my his mother and father, Martin was becoming more unstable.
This is an interesting take on the time travel as we see the older Martin trying to talk to the younger Martin, chasing him across a carousel, causing the boy to fall and badly injure his leg… something that the older Martin now felt. Some time travel shows go by the idea that the past could not be changed. What happened, happened. This was like LOST. Some time travel shows/films think you can affect the future by what you do in the past, such as Back to the Future. This feels like a combination of the two ideas since the injured leg now is a problem for the older Martin, but his mother and father find out who he is and that does not seem to affect the future at all.
We see very young Ron Howard, pre-Opie from the Andy Griffith Show, as a boy that older Martin comes across and spooks him by claiming to be someone that the boy knew he could not be.
This is the first time I have done a post for The Daily Zone for more than one individual episode. I am linking episodes 3 and 4 together on this post.
SPOILERS
“Mr. Denton on Doomsday“
This episode is a Western and my favorite episode so far. We get the drunken Al Denton, at one point the fasted draw around until he killed a teenager who was wanting to take the title of the best shooter. Al lost himself in the drink more and more to hide from the pain of his reputation.
Mr. Henry J. Fate arrived in town, bringing his magical potions with him, giving Al more belief in himself.
Dan Duryea played Al Denton and he was amazing in this role. You could feel the uncertainty, the anguish over the siren call of the gun. When he was aided magically by Henry Fate, Al set himself on the course of gunslinger once more.
This episode was filled with themes of redemption, fate as well as dealing with alcoholism and the price of fame (or being infamous). It also included a performance by Martin Landau as a bully cowboy who taunted the drunken Al Denton before his discovery of the magical firearm.
I really enjoyed this episode.
Episode 4
“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine”
“Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.”
Ida Lupino starred in the fourth episode of The Twilight Zone as an aging actress named Barbara Jean Trenton, who has become a bit of a recluse, isolating herself in a room with a movie projector, playing her old films. She was in deep denial of the change she was having because she was getting older.
This episode certainly looks at something that Hollywood has had a reputation for doing to actresses as they age. There is a scene where Barbara Jean was offered a bit part in a film as a mother and she flipped out, insulted. Hollywood was known for treating aging actresses poorly and this spoke to that very detail.
It also felt like it dealt with mental illness in a way. Barbara Jean could not accept the changes that comes with age and how it caused her to become depressed and take an extreme step.
There was a sadness to this episode, including a strong performance by Martin Balsam as Barbara Jean’s friend and confidant Danny Weiss.
“Louis J. Bookman. Age 60ish. Occupation: pitchman. Formerly a fixture of the summer. Formerly a rather minor component to a hot July, but throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore a most important man. Couldn’t happen you say? Probably not in most places, but it did happen…in the Twilight Zone.“
Episode two of the first season of The Twilight Zone featured that tag above from Rod Serling, the narrator of the series, about a pitchman who was in the business of trying to cheat death.
Mr. Bookman, played by well-known comedic actor Ed Wynn, was approached by a mysterious man, played by Murray Hamilton. That man turned out to be Mr. Death, and Mr. Bookman tried to weasel his way out of his fate. Told he was destined to die in his sleep at midnight, Mr. Bookman took advantage of a loophole to be granted a stay.
However, Mr. Death was forced into making new arrangements and, instead of Mr. Bookman, he was prepared to take young girl Maggie (Dana Dillaway) in his place.
Bookman had been friends with the children in the area and Maggie was especially close, so he was determined to prevent Mr. Death from taking the 8-year old.
“One for the Angels” was another character piece focusing in on Louis Bookman. A man who was used to getting by in his life with his voice, making pitches to everyone around him. However, he was a good man and could not stand the idea that the little girl would be a collateral victim of his avoidance of death. He set out on with his plan to sacrifice himself to save the girl the same way he lived his life… through a pitch for the angels.
This episode was sweet and enjoyable. Having the little girl’s life in the balance gave Lou Bookman a chance to show how wonderful of a man he was, and, despite his enthrallment of Mr. Death by his pitch was a tad weird (I mean, wouldn’t Death be able to already find the best ties available?), things like that happen in the Twilight Zone.
I thought at first that this would devolve into something very dark, as I had read in the graphic novel The Twilight Man, that many episodes of the show were considered dark, this one wound up in an almost heroic manner. Ed Wynn was the heartbeat of the episode and does a great job of creating a man that was ultimately likeable and full of caring.
Welcome to the first post under the new initiative of EYG for the summer, The Daily Zone, which will take a deep dive into the episodes of the EYG Hall of Fame TV series, The Twilight Zone, from the creative mind of writer Rod Serling.
I will be talking about the episodes in detail, so expect that there will be spoilers involved in these posts. If you are mad about a spoiler from a 1959 TV series, then you have been warned.
I will be watching these daily episodes on Amazon Prime where all five seasons of the original series as well as the 2019-20 remake by Jordan Peele exist.
First episode up is episode 1 from 1959, entitled “Where is Everybody.”
The episode kicks off with Earl Holliman’s character walking into a town where there are no people anywhere to be found and the man has no idea who he is. Amnesia, he assumes as he tries actively to find someone who could help him with his plight. With each passing failure at the diner, the police station, movie theater and such, the man becomes increasingly frustrated and agitated.
Eventually the man realized that he had been a part of the Air Force and that lead to the audience having the curtain pulled aside and revealed the truth of what was happening to the man. He ended up desperately pressing a button which was revealed as a ‘panic button’ signaling to the Air Force that the man, who turned out to be Sgt. Mike Ferris, who had spent 484 hours in an isolation chamber in preparation for a trip to the moon.
Ferris’s mind had created the delusion of the empty town where he seemed to be the last man alive as a way to deal with the loneliness and the isolation he was experiencing. The hallucination was brought about by sensory deprivation.
To be honest, this episode did not include much science fiction. It was more of a psychological study, dealing with the effects of loneliness and isolation on the mind of human beings. The idea of space travel was the little bit of sci-fi in the episode and that came at the very end. The end was sudden and felt almost tacked on. Watching Earl Holliman decent into anxiety over the lack of human contact and his desperation to find anyone to interact with was interesting. Admittedly, the ending was not as interesting as what preceded it.
“You’re traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call ‘The Twilight Zone’.” -ROD SERLING
Welcome to The Daily Zone. This is one of the summer’s big initiatives at EYG, along with the second annual June Swoon. This will fall under the TV G[eek] category and it will be a deep dive into the episodes of the EYG Hall of Fame member, the TV show The Twilight Zone.
This idea formed after I completed reading a graphic novel that I had recently purchased b Koren Shadmi entitled The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television. It was a fascinating read about the life and times of the creator of the classic TV series that ran from 1959-1964.
The Twilight Zone was an anthology series where every episode dealt with a new story and different characters. It was a science fiction series despite Rod Serling not being an expert in the genre. According to The Twilight Man graphic novel, Serling decided on science fiction because much of what he was trying to do was being censored because it was too current and controversial. Being able to set the story in a sci-fi world, he found he could get away with the concepts without the censorship that he fought against for much of his career.
With summer vacation approaching, I knew I had some time available for something new. Even with the June Swoon 2 already planned, I figured that there would still be plenty of time to start up what I called The Daily Zone.
Every day, starting today, I will watch at least one episode of the original Twilight Zone and do a write up on them. There may be several episodes on each post, to save writing. During the summer months, I anticipate watching several episodes in a single day. There were five seasons and 156 episodes of the series, which ran about a half hour each. All of the seasons are currently available on Amazon Prime. There is also a 2019-2020 series from producer Jordan Peele which I may include in the Daily Zone when I work my way through the original series from Rod Serling.
I am not sure if I am setting a time frame for completion of this project. I would ideally be done before school resumes in mid-August, but I have not sat down and planned that out.
I have seen a few episodes of the series but I have not seen very many. The graphic novel made me intrigued to see the work of Rod Serling.
I may yet revisit this summer the 1983 film, Twilight Zone: The Movie in the Doc Classic Movies Reviewed section of the site. I know some of the sections of that film were remakes of the series. I have seen that film, but it has been a very long time.
The Twilight Zone is a member of the EYG Hall of Fame, being inducted in the Class of 2010.
The rankings of each episode will fall into the following five categories.
As a fan of musicals, I had always wanted to watch the Apple TV + series, but I never had gotten around to it. However, recently, I found some time and I figured that I could give this a try.
After the very first episode, I was in.
I did not binge the whole series, spreading out the two season, 6-episode seasons over about a week, which worked extremely well.
I have always been a fan of Keegan-Michael Key, who stars as Dr. Josh Skinner. To be fair, Keegan-Michael Key is not the best singer of the cast, but the show keeps his songs to a minimum and, truthfully, his song in season 1 was one of the most emotional moments of the first season.
Dr. Josh Skinner’s girlfriend in season 1 and wife in season 2 is Dr. Melissa Gimble, played by Cecily Strong, who has a strong comedic presence and great timing. She makes a effective team with Key. Even when I was not sure about what the show intended, I was always rooting for this couple to be together.
Season 1 was based on musicals such as Oklahoma, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and the 1947 musical Brigadoon.
Season 2 takes several musical inspirations/parodies including obviously Chicago, Sweeny Todd, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Annie.
There is some remarkably clever writing in the series and the music is both enjoyable and extremely funny. You can hear the homage to the classic music from the different musicals that Schmigadoon parodies in the score for the show.
The ensemble cast included some heavy hitters like Alan Cumming, Fred Armisen, Martin Short, Jane Krakowski, Ariana DeBose, Tituss Burgess, Aaron Tveit, Dove Cameron, Kristin Chenoweth, Jaime Camil and Michelle Rios.
That cast played different characters in the two seasons, highlighting different styles of musicals and some great work. Alan Cumming was especially brilliant in season 2 as the Sweeney Todd-inspired butcher, Dooley Flint. His unbalanced performance was spectacular.
Season two’s inclusion of the Narrator character, played by Tituss Burgess was a stroke of genius. It kept the meta aspects of the series in place.
I hope there will be more Schmigadoon on Apple TV in the future. This was a lot of fun and entertaining as could be.
I was not anticipating the new Muppet series on Disney +. Fact was that a series with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem as the lead characters that did not include Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie or other classic Muppet characters did not appeal to me as much.
I am so glad that I watched this series, because I thought this was just epic.
The Muppet Mayhem was ten-episodes on Disney +, all dropping at once and I have spent the last few days watching a few of the episodes, completing it tonight. Through the 10 episodes, we got such amazing character development from this underutilized crew of Muppets, some great music, human characters that I cared about and some truly laugh out loud moments.
Although Animal typically is the standout of the Electric Mayhem, this series gave us an origin of Dr. Teeth, a ton more about Floyd Pepper and Janice, a cool photo gimmick for Zoot, and more about Lips, the trumpet player, than we ever knew before.
And as with any Muppet project, celebrities were lining up to cameo. Some of the best cameos included “Weird Al” Yankovic (in probably my favorite episode of the season), Kevin Smith, Morgan Freeman (attempting to get the role of ‘Zoot’ in the documentary of the band- inspired!), Paula Abdul, Rachel Bloom, Chris Stapleton, Tommy Lee, Billy Corgan, Cheech and Chong, Ziggy Marley, Ke$ha, Susana Hoffs, Peter Jackson, Charlamagne Tha God, Kristen Schaal, Ryan Seacrest, Danny Trejo, Zedd, and Ben Schwartz (to name a few).
I loved the episode that the Electric Mayhem was struck with writer’s block and they had to go into the desert to be inspired by sitting under the stars (as Floyd spoke to a Lion King inspired Weird Al), the episode that was a parody of the documentary Get Back (of the Beatles) that included director Kevin Smith, the amazing problems with the Mayhem becoming addicted to their new phones, and the reunion of the band after the nicest break up of all time.
I also fell in love with the new Muppet character, Penny Waxman, the record executive who was a one time and once again flame of Dr. Teeth. I found the design of that new character to be just amazing.
This series was so much fun that it just convinces me all the more that Disney + needs to do more with the Muppets IP. They have such an untapped potential that you could take a group of secondary Muppets and make them relevant and such a hoot.
It had been quite a while since the first season of Sweet Tooth on Netflix dropped. It was so long ago that I simply hadn’t remembered a second season was coming, and I was shocked when I saw that season two of Sweet Tooth, the show based on a comic from writer Jeff Lemire, showed up on the streamer service.
Christian Convery played Gus, aka Sweet Tooth, after appearing in the big screen movie Cocaine Bear (as one of the biggest scene stealers in the show). Convery does a fantastic job as the titular character in this series and he brings such a solid emotional feel for the character and a more mature and powerful presence.
I was a little disappointed that the show kept Gus and “Big Man” Jepp, as played by Nonso Anozie, apart for such a length of time this season. It made me think of the old days back when LOST would go out of their way to keep Jin and Sun away from each other. However, this show picked up dramatically when Gus and Jepp reunited. The interaction between the two is one of the most vital parts of Sweet Tooth.
The villains of this season were very compelling and menacing. General Abbot, played by Neil Sandilands, easily advanced this character into a horrible person with selfish plans. But even worse is Dr. Aditya Singh, played by Adeel Akhtar, whose scientific research into a potential ‘cure’ for the Sick took him to some dark places and, even if his motives are pure, his actions are much like many of the mad scientists we have seen before. He has lost plenty this season and he seems to be even more obsessed in Gus and the other hybrids.
The secondary hybrid characters were cute and had their moments during the season, but they were definitely in the background. There were some shockingly cringy special effects during the season, especially with the arrival of an alligator-hybrid child named Peter. Some of these effects were a drawback to the story and pulled me out of it.
The show effectively used flashbacks to further the story, especially the origin of Gus and what had happened to his mother Birdie (Amy Seimetz)
The finale for this season did have a cruel misdirect that I did not appreciate much. When they made it look as if Gus had been shot and killed by Abbot, only to reveal that the funeral they were having was for Aimee (Dania Ramirez), who had contracted the Sick, was a cruel trick.
Season three is clearly set up as the group is headed off to Alaska to try and find Birdie. Hopefully, it won’t be as long of a wait between seasons this time.
Harrison Ford’s name attracted me to start watching Apple TV +’s series, Shrinking. I knew practically nothing about it going in except that Ford was on it and that he had said some great things about the scripts that he had read.
It was a few episodes into the season before I started watching, but once I started, it became my Thursday night go to show. I loved how funny, heartwarming and emotional the show was.
Shrinking starred Jason Segal as Jimmy Laird, who was in the process of grieving the loss of his wife. Jimmy was a therapist in the practice run by Ford’s character, Dr. Paul Rhoades. Jimmy was a mess through most of the season, trying to deal with his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell), his patients like Sean (Luke Tennie), his neighbors Liz and Derek (Christa Miller and Ted McGinley), his best friend Brian (Michael Urie) and his co-worker and wife’s best friend Gaby (Jessica Williams).
I thought these characters were outstanding. It was brilliantly written and was always funny, outrageous and thoughtful.
Not only was the series about dealing with grief, it also focused on Harrison Ford’s character and his Parkinson’s diagnosis. This side storyline was one of the bests on the show because Harrison Ford was epic in the role. Dr. Paul Rhoades was grumpy, mean, and completely uncomfortable… meaning Harrison Ford was perfectly cast. If Harrison Ford does not receive an Emmy nomination for this series, it will be a crime.
I have seem some criticism of the show by people claiming that the therapy shown on the show is not accurate and that these characters would never be effective psychiatrists. None of that bothered me. The therapy helped us dive into characters and give us an insight into Jason Segal’s character. I have never had therapy nor have I studied anything about it, but it did not give me any problems. He was certainly unconventional about therapy and he does get called out about some of the things he does, especially with Sean.
Along with Ford, Jessica Williams played a therapist at Paul’s practice and she was absolutely awesome. She was funny and brought an attitude that helped carry several moments throughout the season. She had lost her best friend when Jimmy’s wife died and she had her own arc of grief to go through.
The show was ten episodes and the season finale aired tonight. I feel that Apple TV + has now a second excellent comedy (dramady) to go along with Ted Lasso. If you have not watched Shrinking, give it a try. It is a lot of fun.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 