The Twilight Zone - I Dream of Genie

Yawn. The worst of the TZ episodes to me in the fourth season was done quite better already in The Man in the Bottle. I like Morris, though, as the put-upon, lonely, use-to-disappointment office casualty of average looks, lack of charisma, and minuscule upward mobility. The office sexpot (Patricia Barry, she was also the object of Grizzard’s lust in the TZ episode, The Chaser) Morris considers quite a catch isn’t remotely available to him. And his greatest rival (Mark Miller) has the handsome  features, direct focus towards a higher position at the finance company, and attraction from Barry, who kisses him on the lips when he birthday gifts her a sexy gown. When lurking around for a gift for Barry, he stumbles on persuasive, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer saleseman at an antiquities shop (Millhollin, the scrawny, bug-eyed department store operations manager in one of my all-time favorites, The After Hours) who “convinces” him (more like forces it on him without Morris getting in a word edgewise) to buy a genie lamp, picked up in a shipment from Morocco. The lamp offers a New Yawker genie in the form of cantankerous Albertson, dressed as if he were a haggard vacuum salesman with little room for conversation, seemingly weary of granting wishes, informing Morris that there is only one wish given nowadays, advising him that money and love often produce less-than-desirable results. So Morris is granted time to consider what to wish for and dreams up scenarios to determine whether or not they would be options to accept, such as getting the girl (Barry, as a diva actress busy with a schedule continuously depriving Morris of her company, learning that Miller, an actor (of course) leading man she’s having an affair with), gaining wealth (he has all the money he could possibly want as an industrialist, even willing to part with a cool million charitably to a college, but with no struggle to attain anything desirable the availability of privilege leaves him empty and unfulfilled), and attaining power (he becomes President of the United States, and for a bit seems quite efficient and sturdy in the position, only buckling when aids offer opposing viewpoints on whether or not to militarily attack alien ships soon to land in America!). Morris ultimately chooses quite an “original” alternative wish…and his dog will come along for the ride. Morris clearly is a very capable comedian (and was a very established and active voice actor for cartoons), as would be the case in television, but I just didn’t think this episode gave him anything side-splitting or funnybone-tickling. He does what he can, I’ll give him that. This desperately needed to be scissored to 30 minutes. I found it a chore to get through. Barry essentially played the exact same self-indulgent, attention-seeking beauty formerly presented in The Chaser. There wasn’t much to separate the two characters, although in Morris’ third fantasy she was a grievously worried mother begging the President to pardon her son. 2/5