The Twilight Zone - Probe 7, Over and Out
There is just nothing about Serling’s script produced in the
episode that you haven’t already seen. The script isn’t inspired as much as
grinding out clichés told with more panache earlier. There is about to be a
World War using nuclear weapons. On a new world there will be Adam and Eve to
start a race anew, except perhaps producing better results that what ultimately
happened on Earth. Characters opine how humankind went so wrong,
contemplate/reflect on how far mankind fell, and conversations share disappointments
in space travel’s mixed results. Basehart is the ideal actor, though, to carry
an episode almost primarily on his own. He’s an astronaut in a Probe space
vessel that crashlanded on a new world very similar to Earth. The planet is
breathable, has edible fruits, and it looks idyllic. For the first part of the
episode Basehart spends a hell of a lot of time on his damaged ship
communicating with his colleagues in their bunker back home in America.
I always smile when I see Harold Gould and his deeply defeated mug because of his connection to Golden Girls (yes, I’m a fan so sue me…) as Rose’s boyfriend, Miles. He offers nothing but bad news and high hopes to Basehart as Earth is doomed, wishing they’d sent more astronauts on the Probe so that there had been a fresh supply of bodies to occupy whatever world the ship crashed into. Gould’s manner of speech is quite wise to the facts and aware of what brought his world to such an end, offering Basehart words of encouragement, although the tone is of regret and clearly I think you can identify envy. Basehart, with broken bones in his arm (and later bum ribs after a slip down a hill), finds a pattern written in the dirt, realizing he’s not alone. Movement in the trees ahead as if someone (or thing) passing through it before he could catch him/her/it tells Basehart he might not have to brave this new planet alone.
The middle of the episode shifts from those no longer able to talk with Basehart to his search for the being noising about outside his ship. I like how this could be anything or one. That mystery keeps the episode compelling even though the results are shopworn and a bit of a letdown. Hell, Antoinette Bower even favors Montgomery in Two. The torn clothes, raccoon eyes, skittish resistance to approach Basehart (although she’s inquisitive, or else she’d have ditched upon first sight of him); Bower is a bit too close to Montgomery’s character. There’s the expected communication barrier, although it appears they’ll learn to find a language that meets somewhere in the middle. The apple emphasis is a bit forced: we get it, Adam and Eve in Eden.
Basehart’s shedding of his woe to optimism as Bower dispels her own hesitance gives the ending a pleasant close and promise of a bright future, with them walking towards the great unknown in trust and hospitality. She gradually opens up to him about how she came to the planet similarly by ship, also alone. Matter of convenience in the storytelling (Serling’s script is like a sci-fi apocalypse checklist without much in the way of surprises) aside, I typically watch it if it is on during one of Syfy’s two marathons during the year. Because I have the complete series set, I have more freedom and can see the episodes in their truest form. This episode always felt scissored a bit on television, but watching it late Wednesday night I didn’t see too much missing. Maybe I was always hoping there was more to it.
That said, I personally like the first part of the episode because of its dark tone and bleak description of a world about to die not because I’m a morbid soul (well, maybe I am a bit…) as much as how it speaks on the differences in situations for the two men talking. Basehart thinks of home and if a rescue party will be sent his way while Gould settles him in on just how dire matters are back on Earth. It resonates with me every time I watch it. Nothing about what they say necessarily hadn’t been expressed with greater depth prior to this episode, but it is the tone of the acting and Post’s method behind how it comes across that impacted me. So I can continue to watch it without quite tiring of it. But Basehart in a Twilight Zone episode is the real reason I think it maintains its appeal with me. His acceptance in the new world and letting go (with a sigh and broken heart) of his former home comes through until he is essentially jovial and chatty with his new “partner” for what might be the rest of their lives. I would have been very interested in a follow up to this. Curious as to what the world had in store for them…
I always smile when I see Harold Gould and his deeply defeated mug because of his connection to Golden Girls (yes, I’m a fan so sue me…) as Rose’s boyfriend, Miles. He offers nothing but bad news and high hopes to Basehart as Earth is doomed, wishing they’d sent more astronauts on the Probe so that there had been a fresh supply of bodies to occupy whatever world the ship crashed into. Gould’s manner of speech is quite wise to the facts and aware of what brought his world to such an end, offering Basehart words of encouragement, although the tone is of regret and clearly I think you can identify envy. Basehart, with broken bones in his arm (and later bum ribs after a slip down a hill), finds a pattern written in the dirt, realizing he’s not alone. Movement in the trees ahead as if someone (or thing) passing through it before he could catch him/her/it tells Basehart he might not have to brave this new planet alone.
The middle of the episode shifts from those no longer able to talk with Basehart to his search for the being noising about outside his ship. I like how this could be anything or one. That mystery keeps the episode compelling even though the results are shopworn and a bit of a letdown. Hell, Antoinette Bower even favors Montgomery in Two. The torn clothes, raccoon eyes, skittish resistance to approach Basehart (although she’s inquisitive, or else she’d have ditched upon first sight of him); Bower is a bit too close to Montgomery’s character. There’s the expected communication barrier, although it appears they’ll learn to find a language that meets somewhere in the middle. The apple emphasis is a bit forced: we get it, Adam and Eve in Eden.
Basehart’s shedding of his woe to optimism as Bower dispels her own hesitance gives the ending a pleasant close and promise of a bright future, with them walking towards the great unknown in trust and hospitality. She gradually opens up to him about how she came to the planet similarly by ship, also alone. Matter of convenience in the storytelling (Serling’s script is like a sci-fi apocalypse checklist without much in the way of surprises) aside, I typically watch it if it is on during one of Syfy’s two marathons during the year. Because I have the complete series set, I have more freedom and can see the episodes in their truest form. This episode always felt scissored a bit on television, but watching it late Wednesday night I didn’t see too much missing. Maybe I was always hoping there was more to it.
That said, I personally like the first part of the episode because of its dark tone and bleak description of a world about to die not because I’m a morbid soul (well, maybe I am a bit…) as much as how it speaks on the differences in situations for the two men talking. Basehart thinks of home and if a rescue party will be sent his way while Gould settles him in on just how dire matters are back on Earth. It resonates with me every time I watch it. Nothing about what they say necessarily hadn’t been expressed with greater depth prior to this episode, but it is the tone of the acting and Post’s method behind how it comes across that impacted me. So I can continue to watch it without quite tiring of it. But Basehart in a Twilight Zone episode is the real reason I think it maintains its appeal with me. His acceptance in the new world and letting go (with a sigh and broken heart) of his former home comes through until he is essentially jovial and chatty with his new “partner” for what might be the rest of their lives. I would have been very interested in a follow up to this. Curious as to what the world had in store for them…
My review from January 1, 2011 (during, I reckon, a New Years Day marathon out of New Years Eve of 2010)...
By season 5 I imagine that Rod Serling was running low on ideas and so
PROBE 7, OVER AND OUT feels like one of those cases where even a genius
was taxed with spitting out something on schedule. I do think, though,
that the casting of Richard Basehart(and, to a certain extent, the
haunted face of his commander, General Larrabee, portrayed by
television character actor Harold Gould(Rose's long-term boyfriend on
THE GOLDEN GIRLS)does adds value to the episode and he's burdened to
carry it for large portions on his own. Sure the plot(and end
result)are a bit old-fashioned and will probably induce eye-rolling
from the more contemporary among us, but I do believe Basehart well
establishes in his performance his plight, the desperate attempt to
find a friend, a companion, on some seemingly humanoid-less planet
which seems to support the fundamentals needed for survival. Gould
doesn't stretch into theatrics, his military general holding back the
horror Planet Earth is facing as war has broken out between countries
behind a defeated calmness, his supposed quiet strength delivering bad
news to Basehart as he lies unconscious outside after being hit in the
head with a stone, this letting the viewer know that Adam Cook is not
alone. When he first arrives, the planet seems to remain in a perpetual
nightfall and Cook feels condemned to a "dungeon" existence. As you can
expect, the story predictable and tired, Cook makes contact with a
humanoid woman who seems to be identical in most respects to earth's
race, except her language differs in a more primitive fashion. Sure
Serling sermonizes on mankind's inability to communicate without fear
or violence, commenting on the Cold War age they were a part of at the
time. It ends with Cook and Norda trying to break the communication
barrier, naming their new planet--you guessed it--Earth.
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