JohnHopper
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TOL S1 E29: A Feasibility Study
Writer: Joseph Stefano
Director: Byron Haskin
Assistant Director: Robert H. Justman
Director of Photography: John Nickolaus, Jr.
Composer: Dominic Frontiere (stock music)
“There’s no escape for us, not for us... (...) But we will never go back to the world we’ve been stolen from, understand that: never! It’s a lonely feeling, isn’t it? But we won’t be lonely very long. Soon the entire Earth’s population will be teleported to this place. We will live in labour camps, we will toil and sweat and die in control areas.”
—Dr. Simon Holm (Sam Wanamaker)
This episode has the same theme as “Nightmare” in which a group of people are abducted and tested by aliens in their planet. The space footages from the prologue of Act I are wonderful—actually they’re recycled from It’s a Wonderful Life and Invasion from Mars. Too bad, the badminton spaceship (one of the cheapest spaceship ever conceived without forgetting the one from “The Zanti Misfits”), which teleport the Midgard Drive’s population—a means of transport use many times in the season—ruins the poetic pace. Another classic episode with a good abduction start (“They need million of us as labors to work for them, to manufacture their dreams...”, said Dr. Holm; I wonder if it is not a metaphor of the fate of most Big Studios’ employees) with one fascinating scene (the discovery of the Luminoid society by Dr. Holm, depicted in a foggy and ethereal surroundings—the realm is also showned with fixed pictures a la “Borderland”—where the leader reminds “Moonstone” with his ‘Stop’ order) that I don’t like for many reasons: an irritating jeopardized suburbanite couple-oriented one with soap-opera dialogues (“She thinks our marriage is the beginning of our mental and spiritual deterioration. Those are her words”, said Dr. Holm or even worst: “My father used to say: ‘Ralphy, marry a dumb girl or marry a smart girl, but keep away from the intelligent ones.’ ” and the recursive: “Really Ralph” and “Come and eat” by Rhea Cashman)—Ralph Cashman begins his day with the forewarning words: “So what’s the catastrophy this morning?” and his wife Rhea deals with a possible atomic rain (“I bet it’s radio-active.”) and an “uncanny” noise (the sound, again!). Then, Cashman crawls like a snake in the mist and talks like a wounded animal (“Rhea... Rhea!”).
And later on, newspaper Andrea Holm epitomizes the episode well-enough with her private uncomplished life: “Simon, love isn’t supposed to weaken... (...) It’s slavery. It’s a kind of slavery!” In a way, the Luminoids, by putting Andrea in a sterilized glass tube, grant her wish to be independant and by not giving any children to her husband—, the existencial teenager Luminoid who encounters Dr. Holm, the incoherence of two disappearances (Ralph Cashman and the motor engine), the overall flat photography of John M. Nickolaus, Jr. (the close-up of the Luminoid’s lava hand is similare to the Ebonite one in “Nightmare”) and the preachy Twilight Zone ending with its community handshakes. Stefano’s first script violates the prime characters’ concept which is all about superior or maverick minds on the razor’s edge which reach out the Olymp of discovery/accomplishment/enlightement/perfection. This episode subverts story elements from Byron Haskin’s 1953 The War of the Worlds: the Church setting as the last hope, the bacteriological fatality (this time, the plague is inoculated by the earthlings to fight back the alien proslavers). The theme of contamination/contagion is tackled via the mass suicide outcome—speaking of self sacrifice through suicide, this is the last one from that season, after “The Man with The Power” and “Moonstone”. Oddly enough, the Luminoid leader asserts that there are “doomed and immobile”: isn’t that, after all, Stefano’s most characters line? As in “The Mutant”, the hand element is recursive, a Midas-like plague touch (“At the threat of our touch, you will obey!”, said the Luminoid Authority). Most of the sound effects (as the Church’s bell) are recycled in Leslie Stevens’ Incubus; notice that all communications are dead (see the saturated sound of the car’s radio and the telephone—in fact, Luminoids’ voices). Stefano’s wide culture is blatant in the choice of the residential blocks’ name: Midgard Drive; Midgard, in the Scandinavian mythology, is the domain of the men but surrounded by a stockade.
TV Analogy: one episode of The Twilight Zone entitled “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” has the same type of setting (see the detail of the street post) where people also undergo a test.
Notes: Ben Wright is the voice of the Luminoid Authority even though First AD Robert Justman wears the monster’s suit. Stoney Burke-wise, actress Joyce Van Patten guests in “Joby”.
Writer: Joseph Stefano
Director: Byron Haskin
Assistant Director: Robert H. Justman
Director of Photography: John Nickolaus, Jr.
Composer: Dominic Frontiere (stock music)
“There’s no escape for us, not for us... (...) But we will never go back to the world we’ve been stolen from, understand that: never! It’s a lonely feeling, isn’t it? But we won’t be lonely very long. Soon the entire Earth’s population will be teleported to this place. We will live in labour camps, we will toil and sweat and die in control areas.”
—Dr. Simon Holm (Sam Wanamaker)
This episode has the same theme as “Nightmare” in which a group of people are abducted and tested by aliens in their planet. The space footages from the prologue of Act I are wonderful—actually they’re recycled from It’s a Wonderful Life and Invasion from Mars. Too bad, the badminton spaceship (one of the cheapest spaceship ever conceived without forgetting the one from “The Zanti Misfits”), which teleport the Midgard Drive’s population—a means of transport use many times in the season—ruins the poetic pace. Another classic episode with a good abduction start (“They need million of us as labors to work for them, to manufacture their dreams...”, said Dr. Holm; I wonder if it is not a metaphor of the fate of most Big Studios’ employees) with one fascinating scene (the discovery of the Luminoid society by Dr. Holm, depicted in a foggy and ethereal surroundings—the realm is also showned with fixed pictures a la “Borderland”—where the leader reminds “Moonstone” with his ‘Stop’ order) that I don’t like for many reasons: an irritating jeopardized suburbanite couple-oriented one with soap-opera dialogues (“She thinks our marriage is the beginning of our mental and spiritual deterioration. Those are her words”, said Dr. Holm or even worst: “My father used to say: ‘Ralphy, marry a dumb girl or marry a smart girl, but keep away from the intelligent ones.’ ” and the recursive: “Really Ralph” and “Come and eat” by Rhea Cashman)—Ralph Cashman begins his day with the forewarning words: “So what’s the catastrophy this morning?” and his wife Rhea deals with a possible atomic rain (“I bet it’s radio-active.”) and an “uncanny” noise (the sound, again!). Then, Cashman crawls like a snake in the mist and talks like a wounded animal (“Rhea... Rhea!”).
And later on, newspaper Andrea Holm epitomizes the episode well-enough with her private uncomplished life: “Simon, love isn’t supposed to weaken... (...) It’s slavery. It’s a kind of slavery!” In a way, the Luminoids, by putting Andrea in a sterilized glass tube, grant her wish to be independant and by not giving any children to her husband—, the existencial teenager Luminoid who encounters Dr. Holm, the incoherence of two disappearances (Ralph Cashman and the motor engine), the overall flat photography of John M. Nickolaus, Jr. (the close-up of the Luminoid’s lava hand is similare to the Ebonite one in “Nightmare”) and the preachy Twilight Zone ending with its community handshakes. Stefano’s first script violates the prime characters’ concept which is all about superior or maverick minds on the razor’s edge which reach out the Olymp of discovery/accomplishment/enlightement/perfection. This episode subverts story elements from Byron Haskin’s 1953 The War of the Worlds: the Church setting as the last hope, the bacteriological fatality (this time, the plague is inoculated by the earthlings to fight back the alien proslavers). The theme of contamination/contagion is tackled via the mass suicide outcome—speaking of self sacrifice through suicide, this is the last one from that season, after “The Man with The Power” and “Moonstone”. Oddly enough, the Luminoid leader asserts that there are “doomed and immobile”: isn’t that, after all, Stefano’s most characters line? As in “The Mutant”, the hand element is recursive, a Midas-like plague touch (“At the threat of our touch, you will obey!”, said the Luminoid Authority). Most of the sound effects (as the Church’s bell) are recycled in Leslie Stevens’ Incubus; notice that all communications are dead (see the saturated sound of the car’s radio and the telephone—in fact, Luminoids’ voices). Stefano’s wide culture is blatant in the choice of the residential blocks’ name: Midgard Drive; Midgard, in the Scandinavian mythology, is the domain of the men but surrounded by a stockade.
TV Analogy: one episode of The Twilight Zone entitled “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” has the same type of setting (see the detail of the street post) where people also undergo a test.
Notes: Ben Wright is the voice of the Luminoid Authority even though First AD Robert Justman wears the monster’s suit. Stoney Burke-wise, actress Joyce Van Patten guests in “Joby”.
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