Brief Passages - Twilight Zone (What You Need - I Shot an Arrow in the Air)

I had a first season mini-marathon starting just after midnight.

“What You Need” had a different kind of street peddler (Truex, who I really, really liked in this episode, later to have his signature TZ role in “Kick the Can”) than Bookman’s from “One for the Angels”. His is similar to that of Henry J Fate in “Mr. Denton on Doomsday”, with just the right item that provides others (sparingly) what they need when they need it. Of course, while an ex pitcher with a bum left arm and a young lady, lonely and unlucky in love, are appreciative of what they are provided as it gives them both a future quite rewarding, another lowlife, Renard (a loathsome Cochran, never content with what is offered him, including his life and money), won’t be as fortunate…because Renard never can locate what he truly needs, and that are human qualities he most definitely lacks. I reviewed this one not too long ago. This episode has a much better city set than you do often get sometimes with the cheaper Twilight Zone episodes, perhaps on a more elaborate backlot available. The comb and cleaning fluid for certain folks perhaps aren’t dazzling items that will bring wealth but the slippery shoes certainly were for Truex’s Pedott. Middle of the pack episode is still much better than the lesser-thans of other seasons. 3/5

Director John Brahm really lays on thick the neon signs and titled camera angles for “The Four of Us Are Dying”, an episode centered on a shady face-shift changing conman, Arch Hammer (Harry Townes) who assumes the identities of guys he sees in newspapers . One is a beloved jazz musician (Ross Martin, later of the excellent fourth season episode, “Death Ship”), the second a murdered mobster (Phillip Pine), and third a boxer (Don Gordon, later getting his own whole episode with The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross). Martin was involved with a jazz club singer (the stunning Beverly Garland) so Hammer sees this as an opportunity to receive some affection and romance deceptively, convincing her to later meet him at a station. Pine was shot and left in the river, so Hammer returns to the hideaway of a criminal associate who has money owed to him. Gordon left broken hearts in his wake, with a father wanting his pound of flesh for Gordon hurting his mother and girlfriend…whatever Gordon had done to them, it seems as if the mother died from it while the young woman was left emotionally scarred. Plus a police detective has finally caught up with Hammer and wants him down at the police station to answer questions. I have always felt there is a lot of history left to our imagination, especially as it concerns Hammer. No telling what damage has perhaps caused assuming facial identities and imitating them while others associated with those people are unaware of the chameleon in their midst. Basically the episode gives each identity a few minutes with Gordon and his “boxer forehead” responsible for Hammer’s undoing (the father wants his “son” to pay for his past misdeeds, pulling a gun on him with serious intent). Not my favorite episode at all. Sort of tries to squeeze in a lot and the time constraints this go-around limit what can be told within thirty minutes. 2.5/5. Not the worst, not the best. To me, visually arresting at times (a bandmate of Martin lights a match on who he thought was his friend, with Knowles face shocking him, and the presence of a city with a lot of pain and crime shot in noirish style and tone), so the direction tries hard.

After a couple of okay episodes, The Twilight Zone got back on track with the well made “Third from the Sun” about a scientist (Fritz Weaver) who works at a government/military base with divisions that function to develop all kinds of bombs and warfare-related weapons against other rival enemy countries. Weaver’s buddy (Joe Maross) was “up north” helping to build and “add the finishing touches to” a spacecraft. So Weaver and Maross set in motion plans to board that spacecraft with their wives (and Weaver’s daughter). A major bone of contention who could serve as a monkey wrench is Edward Andrews, suspecting Weaver is planning something. Andrews is always shot sinisterly, and his conversations with Weaver lay out how it does appear to be very close (48 hours) to Armageddon, with their country and another planning to attack each other, with the inevitable doom of the planet the end result. I always felt that the episode was directed with this very foreboding sense of impending catastrophe, as if there was a countdown with Weaver (who has to conduct his plans with Maross so discreetly, as Andrews seems to be a nuisance on the prowl, just looking to catch the “in the act”) and Maross up against the clock with very little time to get their affairs in order. Andrews interrupting their “card game”, even lifting up their “score card” (it had detailed plans), noticing that Weaver’s wife was having trouble pouring him lemonade she was so nervous, further provoking anxiety through cryptic comments (Andrews very much steals the episode with his nosy, insinuating, crafty, spying Carling, particularly zeroing in on Weaver’s Sturka, who can’t contain his criticism of global annihilation through country-to-country warfare, throwing up red flags), with verbal cues and digs that he knows what they are planning. So when the two families head for the spacecraft and Andrews is there with a gun at the gate, it is no surprise. Luckily Surka’s daughter uses the car door to help her father gain advantage. The “Forbidden Planet” ship (and bridge) once again is put to use (as it would time and again), a clever twist involving that “third planet from the sun” with a language and atmosphere similar to Weaver’s species (and maybe similar global situation), and the performances from the entire cast (Weaver and Maross trying to camouflage their worries and concerns that the plans will be undermined by personnel changes and orders, not to mention, Andrews potential interference) provide quite a memorable episode here. 3.5/5. This was an episode that played during the early part of the first Tuesday in April on Syfy as part of what was supposed to be special “quarantine marathons every Tuesday” I caught during my lunchbreak. I couldn’t wait to see it in full, uncut form.

“I Shot an Arrow in the Air” is more or less memorable for Dewey Martin’s despicable, selfish, and unhinged astronaut Corey (I had joked in the past when writing about this episode that I was surprised he passed his psyche exams during initial training to be an astronaut), Corey’s desperate, grasping, clawing water obsession (“It’s hot, see!”), the twist involving where exactly Colonel Donlin’s (Edward Binns) crew landed actually (Corey will have a lot of explaining to do!), and the ever-sweltering Death Valley landscape. Corey willing to do anything for water, including turning on his commanding officer and fellow astronaut, Pierson (Ted Otis), just so he alone could survive (he tries to rationalize, the sonofabitch, that one could survive ten days, two five days…). And when he shoots Donlin, he punctures the canteen, losing the very water he was hoping to retrieve! I pretty much believe almost everyone watching this will want to strangle Corey by episode’s end…he immediately repulses with his rotten,  self-absorbed attitude, going on a diatribe about saving the water as Donlin offers a dying astronaut some humanely. Serling’s narration to Corey to “keep moving” is not the norm of the series…I personally didn’t think it was all that necessary but as a dramatic device that describes a pursuit towards the twist that leaves Corey realizing the serious error in his actions, it might feel fitting. Certainly Corey had to evaluate his immorality and conclude that the dead he’s responsible for will have consequences. 3.5/5. This is a marathon mainstay I’ve seen a great many times. The first season is really hitting its stride.