My log - Texas

[Texas]

"Time and again" (I think this could have had a better title, but that's just me.)

A clock maker / repairman buys a strange looking clock that will not run and becomes obsessed with getting it to work. When his hypochondriac, nagging wife tries to examine it she pricks her finger inside of it, saying ("something BIT me.") The clock starts up, and its beat is the sound of a human heart.

It also has a mysterious 13th number on it, and when the clock's strange chime rings on that number, everything freezes except for the clock maker. He becomes addicted to the 13th hour of extra time he's given and is finally crestfallen when the clock stops. (He doesn't put two and two together that the clock stopped at the very second his wife died.) Remembering how the clock started before, he sneaks into his doctor friends office, steals a vial of blood and pours it into the top of the clock (the "brain or whatever it was" he calls it), and the clock restarts. There's just one problem...people whose blood he uses mysterious die eventually...

(As I said, this episode is really an interesting study in addiction when you listen to it...)

[Texas]

"The Teddy Bear"

(Warning: this episode is a bit bothersome due to recent events of the year. It also scared the heck out of me when I first heard it, because unlike others this one was quite based in reality at the time (1979)

A newspaper reporter and his editor are very shaken when news arrives that an American space capsule in orbit has burned up upon re-entry to the earth's atmosphere. The capsule had previously had a rendezvous with a Russian counterpart. The newspapermen are suspicious not only because of that but also because of news reports of a Soviet icebreaker heading up towards the arctic, apparently transmitting some sort of high frequency radio signal. Later a military contact of the reporter's says only one object was recovered floating in the ocean from the crash - a teddy bear.

The reporter heads to the Soviet embassy and gets the predictable treatment. He then makes the contact of a Soviet doctor and breaks and enters into her apartment. She catches him, and he learns that she's involved with some kind of Soviet brain institute (which according to E.G. actually existed) that specializes in trying to find ways to implement mind control via specialized transmitters, to suddenly make potential mass murderers go on killing sprees, to induce spontaneous brain hemorrhages and heart attacks...stuff Saddam would love to have. (In the meantime, the military confirm from one of the dead astronaut's wives that the teddy bear was indeed a gift from the Soviet cosmonauts.)

He resists her attempts to read his mind and falls asleep. She lets him go...only he finds out his watch has mysteriously stopped.)

[Texas]

"The Vampire Plant"

A momma's boy whose mother owns a successful business places personal ads in a newspaper trying to find a girlfriend. He finds one, and she visits him from out of town. He falls in love with her and she claims to do the same, but becomes upset on learning that her mother, not the son, owns the business. So on meeting Mom, she gives her the gift of an ugly looking plant which she says will make the Mom's life better as long as she puts it by her bedside.

She does, and ends up dead the next day. According to the family doctor, all her blood disintegrated. The man and the woman marry, but she becomes upset that the control of the business is in the hands of another man (named "Mr. Bell") before it can be inherited by her husband. So she visits Mr. Bell, and gives him a gift of the ugly looking plant (she calls it "hema endrantis" (sic)), and also convinces him to put it by his bedside. He does, and he dies.

Then her new husband gets suspicious, and the tale REALLY gets started...

[Texas]

"Stephanie's room" - Not really ghost related, but a haunting episode for some sad reasons:

The ingredients:

- A young woman, "Stephanie", who lost her mother as a child. Her husband is an executive moving up to a more stressful job from Los Angeles to New York, near where Stephanie grew up. Stephanie seems gentle enough, but somewhat tightly wrapped in an excellent vocal portrayal by Mercedes McCambridge (the voice of the demon in "The Exorcist".)

- A middle-aged to mature woman, who with her husband now lives in the house where Stephanie grew up. She's quietly despondant over the fact that she never had a child.

- A house that, while not really haunted, seems to favor certain (former) occupants. When Stephanie is in her room she hears (and often seems to ignore) noises that sound like whispered whistles and feminine "oo-oo" cooing.

The house, in particular Stephanie's room, seems to have the power to make time and people regress in their age. This was a truly fascinating plot.


(And a sad footnote: I was living in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1987 when McCambridge's son, an economic forecaster with a worldwide bond trading firm in that city, broke under the stress of his job and illegal financial deals, put on a hallowe'en mask and shot his wife, two girls and then himself in a murder/suicide. It made listening to the episode quite poignant.)

[Texas]

"Ward Six"

Adaptation of a story written by Antonyn (sic?) Chekhov, a Russian physician (played by the always enjoyable Norman Rose) in the 19th century who takes over a hospital and does the unthinkable (for back then)...he befriends the insane patients in the facility's Ward Six. Unfortunately, lack of funding and overwork take their toll on the doctor, and he finally finds himself becoming as insane as the patients. (Though compared to the outside world the patients seem sane...the line becomes blurred to the good doctor.)

[Texas]

"The Captain of the Polestar"

(THIS IS WHAT RADIO THEATRE SHOULD BE)

Based on a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle before he started writing Sherlock Holmes books, this tale is told in a narrative by the ship's doctor of the whaling vessel [i:265a6d676f]Polestar[/i:265a6d676f].

Heading north toward the Arctic Circle on a whaling voyage, this story among other things apparently made somewhat famous the island of Spitzbergen (off Norway, I believe), which in the story was visible in the distance. The ship, led by a driven captain who saw a large school of whales, was advancing into a winter storm and was in danger of getting frozen in.

However, that wasn't the greatest of the crew's fears. The captain, a strong leader but quirky and somewhat aloof, was suspected of being out of his mind. Worse still, the crew was becoming increasingly worried due to strange crying and wailing noises that seemed to follow the ship since it left Dundee, Scotland. Crewmen claimed to see dancing lights and strange figures (especially at night, by whatever fortunate crewman was standing watch). The ship's doctor even had nightmares of his captain pleading to a moaning woman in the cabin next door to him.

My favorite line from this: "Blast you for a blind idiot". (Said by the captain to the doctor who couldn't see SOMETHING on a nearby ice floe the captain seemed to see.)

If you've not listened to this, do it tonight if possible. One of the best, IMHO, the RMT ever produced.

[Texas]

760310 - "I thought I saw a shadow"

I don't know why, but I really like programs where a scientist tries to discover something and ends up battling unintended consequences of his/her research. (I'm not a big "X-files" fan, but I've always wanted to see the episode "Soft Light" where a former research scientist has a shadow that, if it touches someone, disintegrates them.)

In this one, two scientists doing research for the U.S. Department of Defense are on the verge, they think, of a formula which has the ability to make people who drink it invisible. It's worked on laboratory animals...now it's time to test it on a human subject. A subplot involves the lead researcher, who has gotten too involved with his work at the sake of his marriage. At the same time his wife breaks news to him that she wants to divorce him for another man, he tells her that she may never see him again, and explains that he intends to be the first human subject on which this formula is tested and that there's the possibility for error. (It's clear that he doesn't truly want to see the marriage dissolve, but that he loves his wife and wants only the best for her.)

The two researchers sit down in a laboratory. The assistant, obviously uneasy, asks whether the lead scientist truly wants to go through with the experiment...he does, and the experiment goes ahead. They wait for several minutes past the time when their calculations say the scientist should have grown invisible. Nothing happens. Frustrated, they know they'll have to go (as the "Green Goblin" said in last year's "Spiderman" movie) "back to formula". They decide to go out for a meal that afternoon.

Walking along the sidewalk as the evening sun sets, suddenly the assistant researcher freezes and says "Look at the sidewalk". He has a shadow, but the lead researcher who drank the formula does not. They run back to the laboratory to try to understand what happened.

That evening, a cranky researcher feels something has entered her office. She can't see or hear it, but sees a black shadowy figure moving along the wall, moving toward her...

[Texas]

780113 - "The Laughing Maiden"

Set (apparently) in the Florida Keys, this story features Norman Rose as "Jason Hainsworth", a man who met up with some former partners in a charter boat company in a bar.

After exchanging small talk, the former partner invites Jason to his boat ostensibly to renew old acquaintances. The men seem to be hiding something, then finally open up and say they believe they've found treasure buried by Captain Kidd himself on one of the Caicos Islands south of the Bahamas.

Hainsworth, initially a skeptic, becomes convinced that there is something there. (He's unaware that each time the men have gone out a mysterious boat has appeared on the horizon, watching them. His former partners are convinced the boat belongs to a member of "the syndicate" - organized crime.) However, before finding this out he asks "Hey, this isn't one of those treasures that's guarded by some pirate's ghost, is it?"

<Big grin of an RMT fan>Well, what do you think?"</grin> :D

[Texas]

750605 - "The Plastic Man"

We open up with George Hartford callously dumping (and dumping on) his former fiancee. He's an owner of a southern California auto dealership, doesn't think much of old fashioned values like marriage and fidelity...he's a swinger who says if it feels natural to you, it's right, and all sorts of similar platitudes. Both the woman George is dumping and his psychiatrist about-to-be-married brother warn him separately that his lifestyle and (lack of) values are going to catch up with him, and that someday he's going to run into a "buzzsaw" because of it.

That "buzzsaw" is in the form of Laura Prentiss, whom he meets at a resort on the pacific coast. She's beautiful, mysterious and strangely alternates between being seductive and remorseful. She also has a vintage Mercedes in "british racing green"...George can't decide whether he's more captivated by her or the car. The car is a gift from her rich husband, who's also a parapsychologist who's into some heavy, er, doo doo...clairvoyance, mental telepathy, ESP. She seems nervous thinking about him, but gives into her (and George's) lustful intentions.

Later, when George returns to his own (locked) cabin, he finds a mysterious, small man who identifies himself as Mr. Prentiss, and warns George to stay away from his wife.

George obliges, and is somewhat uneasy. Returning to his auto dealership in Los Angeles, one week later who should stop by but Laura Prentiss. And who should foolishly decide to join her for another fling but George.

And while they're driving off, who should happen to ring chimes in their heads and say "Now you'll both suffer the consequences" but the voice of Mr. Prentiss, even though he's overseas in India meditating....

[Texas]

810318 - "Pretty Polly"

Stars Tony Roberts (I always enjoyed his character opposite Marlo Thomas as "That girl") and Paul Hecht.

Starts out with Roberts character as a market analyst who seems captivated by the voice of one of his clients secretaries - or does he? He's in a daydream world and talks about "Polly", whom he's never met. His pushy, somewhat amoral manager (played by Hecht) wonders whats gotten into his employee, then deduces its a love interest. The market analyst says it couldn't be as he's never met the girl. Then the boss attempts to set his employee up into a relationship, but what are his real interests? And Roberts does enter into a relationship with Polly, but what kind of a relationship is it?

Memorable line #1 - "Polly" says to Roberts' character on the phone: "I think people wear too many clothes today."

Memorable line #2 - can't remember the exact words, but E.G. says "You veteran Mystery Theatre listeners are wondering by now (the end of act 1) when someone's going to get killed. You'll be rewarded in Act 2.") :?

[Texas]

74612 - "The Rat"

Another "scientist in a weird experiment awaiting a divorce" story again.

However, this one involves a researcher on [i:407548a210]rattus norvegicus[/i:407548a210] and their intelligence, who's having an affair with the wife of another researcher who's cunning and sadistic (played by Ralph Bell). The two scientists are in competition for the directorship of a laboratory...the good guy wins.

Later, the man who made the decision is attacked and killed by a large rat named "Attila". (Remember the movie "Willard"?) Bell's character is upset, not only because he lost out to the other researcher for the directorship, but because he's about to lose his wife to the good guy. (Though it's a bit disturbing because even given the circumstances I'd not heard another RMT that painted divorce in a positive light.)

Someone let the rat out who killed the director. Or did the rat let itself out...? (

Where's that CBS RMT cat when you really need him...?)

[Texas]

740819 - "The hands of Mrs. Mallory"

(Interesting, strangely relevant to today story twist)

Mrs. Mallory is a wealthy New Yorker with a pair of paralyzed hands. She's sometimes abrupt and curt (i.e. at one point in the story to a bicyclist who runs into an acquaintance of hers) but not heartless (talking to a child who is fascinated by her hands. The RMT always used grown women to play children on their episodes, didn't they?).

The "acquaintance" I refer to is a woman who says she's living with her brother from Ohio, and is paralyzed from an auto accident. She says she's found a "Dr. Griff" who has a special treatment...essentially, he's a faith healer. Her brother is constantly berating her for even thinking about going with his treatment, but finally acquiesces. Unsure about Dr. Griff's validity (especially after consulting with her own trusted physician) Mrs. Mallory visits his office to speak with him and admits she's somewhat unsure of his methods. Then, who should walk in but her acquaintance...she's cured. (?)

Mrs. Mallory has a whole new outlook on Dr. Griff's methods and wants him to treat her now but there's one problem...he's being paid a lot of money by a "Muslim leader" in Africa to take his services there for the next year...

[Texas]

And now...a different kind of hand.

740424 - "The Hand"

(Like "Captain of the Polestar" (adaptation) and "Time and again" or "The Vampire Plant" (original), this IMO is what mystery radio should be. And while the original version I've read of this tale didn't have the "wife" aspect, the CBSRMT scriptwriter did a fine job of incorporating it into the play. This is based upon a short story by the French writer Guy de Maupassant.)

Monsieur Donet, a police magistrate on the French island of Corsica has a mysterious new neighbor.

The man constantly is involved in target practice and hunting. He's a rich englishman, Sir John Rowell, and he's relocated to the island for a private retreat. He guards his privacy ferociously...immigration records the police magistrate has seen say Sir John has a wife there too, but no one has seen her.

Then, Msr. Donet decides to make friends with Sir John. He visits the man at his mansion and is invited in for a glass of ale and english cheeses. While Sir John is a gracious host, the magistrate is somewhat unnerved by the vast collection of mounted animal heads on his wall, and is even more perplexed by what Sir John says is a spot for his greatest trophy - it's a large, velvet lined picture frame. Sir John hints that THAT trophy would be reserved for a man, the most dangerous creature, and that he may never fill it.

Shortly thereafter, Sir John is alerted by his servant that his dogs (which have been trained to kill on his command) have cornered someone. While he hurries to see what's happened, the magistrate twists his ankle in pursuit and has to stay by the house. At that moment, a mysterious, shaken woman appears at the doorway and begs Msr. Donet to mail a letter for her. The magistrate pockets the letter and she disappears...when Sir John returns the magistrate notices the englishman wears "an American style gun belt" with two matched pistols and that his hand is right above the right gun. The disturbance is quickly forgotten, the two men become friends, but the magistrate finally mails the letter, which he notices has a U.S. address.

Months later, Msr. Donet pays a friendly visit to Sir John bearing a mail package. Sir John is convinced he knows what it is and confronts the magistrate, who apologetically says that he was just trying to help. Even though Sir John seems to understand the magistrate meant no harm he says the magistrate may have signed the englishman's death warrant. Sir John asks Msr. Donet to watch as he unwraps the package. It contains a huge, dessicated but not skeletal hand.

Later, Sir John asks Msr. Donet to be a witness to his will and testament. The latter man is stunned to see the hand in the "frame" trophy case, but instead of being mounted, it is "imprisoned" with a huge chain bolted into a link that would hold "an elephant"...

(This one is a little more cerebral than "Polestar" but worth a listen if you've not heard it yet....)

[Texas]

Brian, my apologies.

I'd read your log but didn't see you'd made a post on "The hands of Mrs. Mallory". My apologies...I don't know how to delete the message or else I would. I'll be more careful next time.

[Texas]

780130 - "Yesterday's Giant"

Norman Rose plays an archaeologist, Ralph Bell plays another one, albeit with a few less scruples.

Bell's character comes to his old friend and fellow researcher with some startling news. They believed in their earlier days they had evidence that a huge species of prehistoric man existed whose scientific name was gigantopithecus[/i:5f7d9eb071] (sic). Bell's character has just [u:5f7d9eb071]seen[/u:5f7d9eb071] one, in fact, a whole family of them in the remote mountains of Nevada...they wandered through his camp.

He entices his fellow researcher to come and see them for himself. He believes they'll be flushed out of the caves they're living in due to vibrations from an upcoming detonation of a test nuclear device by the military in the desert some miles away. So the two men go...Rose's character motivated by the quest for scientific knowledge, Bell's by the quest for lots of $$$$$...

[Texas]

770916- "Death on Project X"

A government inspector is sent to a mysterious top-secret project where researchers live on site. He is beset with strange messages left outside his sleeping quarters door that "the end is near", and meets several very intelligent people who either are going cuckoo or have already done so.

The Ph.D. in charge of the project is determined to see it through, even though the inspector becomes, like many of the others there, convinced that indeed this project spells certain doom for their civilization.

(HINT: The question here is: "Where does all this take place?")

[Texas]

780131 - "The Ice Palace"

This one starts out quite interesting. Tony Roberts plays a Canadian naval officer on an ice breaker clearing a channel near the arctic. When the men on his ship finish their duty and head for home, they're astounded to see that the ice has completely melted in an area that's normally frozen over. Other airborne observations confirm that other parts of the area are experiencing similar warming.

Returning to his base to discuss the matters with a superior officer, the men are interrupted by an eskimo leader who, along with his fellow villagers, aren't happy. They're standing by a pile of seals who normally might be food if they'd been hunted, but who have died mysteriously..they're convinced the military had something to do with this. In the meantime, one of the naval officers, a pilot, is trying to locate a certain ice floe and succeeds in finally doing so, but sees something else apparently quite extraordinary...they lose radio contact with him immediately thereafter.

Convinced he's gone, the officers later get autopsy results on one of the seals. The officers suspect radiation poisoning or burns, but the autopsy indicates the seals died of exposure to intense heat. Based on that and the other information they've learned, Roberts' character and his superior believe they are faced with an ultrafast and deadly melting of the polar ice cap, and that some type of incredible, unknown force is involved...

[Texas]

810310 - "The Raft" (ahhh...what the heck, one more before I sign off for the night.)

This one starts out as a flat out mystery, then the back half adds a "whodunit" alongside.

Norman Rose plays a Mr. Ordway, a multimillionaire industrialist who lives on a James River plantation in Virginia, has a Mississippi accent, is secretly quite afraid of water and doesn't like to admit he ever gets cold. ("Who's cold? AH'M not cold...") His closest friends are his employees, a lady housekeeper and his longtime personal assistant.

Ordway starts getting mysterious notes, in his bank statement, in the mail, by Western Union or by telephone, which simply say "One million dollars". He's quite unnerved by them. He's also secretly unnerved by flashbacks of being stranded on a raft on the Atlantic Ocean in early winter some time ago, a situation which apparently did not end pleasantly.

Ordway finally confronts the mysterious caller over the phone and invites him to his plantation. Just as the visitor is about to come calling, Mr. Ordway sends his personal assistant away, who notices the older man has a loaded pistol at the ready...

[Texas]

790124 - "The burning bough"

Norman Rose plays a friend of a pregnant woman who's lost her husband. He's with her shortly after she gives birth to a sickly, ill baby boy. At her house, the boy seems to be dying within a few days on earth...but something strange happens. His mom remembers a greek story about a woman in a similar situation. Logs are burning in the fireplace, and the woman, almost mechanically or as if in a hypnotic trance, says "I...must...remove...the...log...from...the...fire." (There could have been some interesting plot twists due to this, but as always this was only a one hour show.) After she does so, the baby suddenly gets better, and Mom tells Rose's character: "I don't know why I remembered that." She puts the "rescued" log in a very safe spot in her house.

She also remembers, somewhat uneasily, the rest of the greek myth. In this story, it parallels the boy's story. He grows up to be a self-centered, pot-smoking, uncaring ne'er-do-well. (Fortunately at least he wasn't an anti-christ, either.) He doesn't kill people, but people die because of his foolishness. He doesn't die, though...he's invulnerable.

(My favorite line from this show. A girl who made the mistake of falling in love with this kid ends up dying, and "Jerry", her former suitor, knows what a bad guy this fellow is and attempts to confront him at an airport and shoot him but ends up getting accidentally shot to death."

[quote:c35fc54391]WITNESS: "But Jerry shot him at point blank range."

(ROSE'S CHARACTER): "He could have thrown an atomic bomb and it wouldn't have killed him."

[/quote:c35fc54391]

)

[Texas]

750523 - "Markheim: man or monster?"

This one opens up in a different fashion than the other CBSRMTs. Remember how at the beginning there would be an audio excerpt from somewhere within the show before E.G. would say: "Our mystery drama..." In this case the excerpt serves to start out the show.

Karl Markheim is an evil man, so evil he's pretty much an over-the-top caricature. In this excerpt, he's celebrating the death of his great uncle "The bishop", who stands between him and a fortune he thinks he'll inherit. He vows to break every one of the ten commandments and indulge in every one of the seven deadly sins.

He proceeds in this show to do just that, fueled by the anger that his uncle left the bulk of his fortune to his church. He descends into depravity, and whenever he passes a mirror becomes accustomed to the image of Satan behind his shoulder (that only he can see) who constantly and silently taunts him.

This one has a somewhat interesting ending, much like "The hands of Mrs. Mallory".

[Texas]

770405 - "The sensitive"

I would like to ask someone to open their archives, listen to this and tell me exactly what happened here, when possible.

I KNOW this is the story of four foolish people (two husband-wife couples) who attend a carefully planned seance at the home of one of the couples. By "planned" I mean the temperature is set to a certain level, seating among the couples is carefully arranged (man/woman/man/woman), music is played, etc. The host couple say the seance will be a success if a "sensitive" is among them...a person who can feel and transmit the presence of a spirit from the afterlife. The host husband warns that everyone should be in good health, and that one who is a sensitive might actually lose weight if "successful".

The other husband is "sensitive" to a french soldier named "Pierre". "Pierre" makes a prediction which turns out to be true, but his presence stuns his host into unconsciousness for a day. After recovering the man who was the "sensitive" makes an appointment with his physician, who says he's in fine health except for having lost 10 pounds since his last checkup (a few months ago) and his blood pressure is elevated.

I THINK "Pierre" was interested in the "sensitive's" wife, but maybe ya'll can tell me differently...

[Charlie]

[quote:8a01a5fe3e="Texas"]770405 - "The sensitive"

I would like to ask someone to open their archives, listen to this and tell me exactly what happened here, when possible.[/quote:8a01a5fe3e]

I will try to listen this coming week. I'm often in the same boat. I have had to go back and listen again in some programs to try and figure out what happened. In some cases, I'm still not sure. :?: :oops: :?

Charlie

[Charlie]

[quote:dad1778e0e="Texas"]Brian, my apologies.

I'd read your log but didn't see you'd made a post on "The hands of Mrs. Mallory". My apologies...I don't know how to delete the message or else I would. I'll be more careful next time.[/quote:dad1778e0e]

Actually, it's nice to get everyone's perspective on a particular program so the more reviews of a program we have, the better. smile.gif

Charlie

[Texas]

Thanks, Charlie.

780313 - "The wheel of life"

Anyone out there who read the original "X-men" comics, before they came to the big screen? Remember "The juggernaut", the big bad guy who was "Professor Charles Xavier's" half brother. The juggernaut was a bully, not a mutant, but while in combat in Viet Nam he stumbled into a secret temple and found a jewel that turned him into that big creature he became?

There's sort of a similar plot here. Two friends are in combat (Viet Nam?) and one, right in the middle of a jungle battle, stumbles into some secret underground chamber where a group of weird monks are all playing with abacuses (abaci? :? ) and there's a big wheel turning.

One of the monks tells him (telepathically?) that he's in the presence of the "wheel of life" that we all live on, and that those monks are essentially controlling all things that go on in the world. The "head monk" asks the soldier what he wishes and the soldier tells him...the leader says "How better it would have been if you would have asked to get off of the wheel" but sends him off to his destiny...

[Texas]

791234 - "The one thousand pound gorilla"

Franklin G. Wilkinson is a man "in the prime of his life"...a 40 year old sales manager in the best of health, married to a woman named Wendy he loves very much and who very much seems to love him.

That's why he's floored when George Haskins, an engineer for one of his company's partners, tells him at a sales meeting that he was once married to Wendy...Wilkinson was unaware that his wife had ever been married. In fact, Haskins warns Wilkinson that Wendy will try to kill him, because when Haskins was married to her she tried to kill HIM.

Wilkinson is unnerved, and maybe a bit uneasy when he mentions Haskins name to his wife and she ignores him and goes to sleep. Haskins keeps trying to contact Wilkinson and does, then finally links up with him. He warns Wilkinson that he's going to get weaker and weaker, and that his wife will drain all the strength from Wilkinson's body until he's dead...he says Wendy may not even fully understand that she's killing him. Haskins says Wilkinson will start to feel weak, and later he'll see Wendy and hear here telling him she loves him in the middle of the night and not know if he's awake or asleep. Haskins says he's trying to help "a fellow human being"...that maybe Wendy has some "force" that lives within her.

In the meantime, Wilkinson is indeed getting weaker. While he sleeps, Wendy tells him everything will be all right, that she needs his strength...

[Charlie]

[quote:b5ef12a87f="Texas"]770405 - "The sensitive"

I would like to ask someone to open their archives, listen to this and tell me exactly what happened here, when possible.[/quote:b5ef12a87f]

I've posted my review of this program in my log. smile.gif

Charlie

[brian1984_2001]

No need to apologize for Mrs. Mallory's hands. I agree that it is good to have a couple different perspectives on each episode.

Besides, it's your log. You may want to access this information someday, and your own words will cue your memory much better than mine.[/quote]

[Texas]

Charlie,

remember that thread I started entitled something like "The parables of E.G. Marshall"? I posted this today on regenerator.com...they discuss contemporary Christian issues (and are probably a bit left-of-center for me) and I thought I'd share the "reviews here:

http://www.regenerator.com/conversations/showthread.php?s=&threadid=993

[quote:393007ebd6]

[b:393007ebd6]Strange Passenger[/b:393007ebd6] (originally aired April 15, 1976) - An attorney, talented but down in his career, is recruited by aliens from a hostile planet. He agrees to go with them to their planet, is brainwashed of his previous identity and is programmed to go and do certain tasks back on earth in advance of a takeover by the alien race. He's assigned to Fargo, N.D., but upon being transported back to earth the first place he ventures to on the way is a church in a remote North Dakota town. The minister there, a kindly fellow, believes the man needs help and starts telling him about God's word. The "recruited" man scoffs at him saying the minister's beliefs are fiction, but the minister never wavers from his belief that God's word is absolute truth. The minister attempts to aid law enforcement officials later who believe the "recruited" man (who disappeared earlier and was presumed dead) was indeed abducted by aliens.

[b:393007ebd6]The crack in the wall[/b:393007ebd6] (May 20, 1974) (NOTE: I originally was a bit unnerved by this as I downloaded it from KaZaa right after The Station fire in Providence.) A middle-aged man and his wife are understandably bereaved after their daughter is burned to death in an accidental fire. The mother in particular is having extreme difficults coping with the tragedy...she genuinely wants her daughter back.

Complicating matters is a mysterious crack in their basement wall that essentially refuses to be sealed. At night, the mother starts hearing a wailing voice that appears to be originating from the other side of the cracked wall...it's the terrified voice of her daughter. Later, when the couple is attempting to investigate the voice a mysterious (and not particularly pleasant) man appears who says the voice is indeed their daughter's and that they can choose to bring her back. The father is uneasy with the man, the woman, while appreciating the opportunity to possibly see their daughter again, may be developing psychological problems.

Later, the man meets with the minister of their church and tells them about all the goings on. The man asks his minister if he believes in the devil. The minister replies that many in his profession believe the devil is but a concept of evil. The man disagrees, saying "I think I've met him."

[b:393007ebd6]A coffin for the devil[/b:393007ebd6] (January 27, 1975) (NOTE #2: Most such stories were either adaptions of short stories or original screenplays. This one was said to have been a true story submitted by a listener, according to Mr. Marshall) -

Set over a hundred years ago in New England, it concerned a young man who went to work for a mortician, and was paid a visit one stormy night by a man who wanted to design his own coffin. He said he'd died before and wanted, essentially, to be buried his own way "this time".

The mortician's assistant and his friend who were there were deeply scared by the man, although they took his money and agreed on a date when the coffin would be ready. The assistant convinces his employer, a devout Christian, to be there at the time when the man picks up his coffin. The man does arrives and does pick it up, literally, and carries it out of the mortuary. The employer and his apprentice follow him to a cemetary (on a cloudy night, of course). The assistant leaves and warns his employer to do the same, saying something supernatural is at work. The boss disagrees, and goes INTO the cemetary, saying that he believes the man is simply mentally ill and needs help immediately.

Later there is a strange confrontation between the coffin-buyer and the mortician, but the latter says "I am a Christian. I believe that we will all be raised from the dead in the future (at the time of Christ's return). But I don't believe in ghosts." There's some interesting developments later in the story that maybe (or maybe not) call the mortician's character into question, but the way the story ends one gets the feeling that the mortician, who survived the encounter in the cemetary pretty much unscathed, was right.

[img:393007ebd6]http://www.5tharmy.army.mil/21States/tx_fl.gif[/img:393007ebd6]


[b:393007ebd6]The brain without mercy[/b:393007ebd6] (aired July 26, 1976) - A daring hispanic hijacker robs passengers on a plane of $2 million, then parachutes out in the skies above south Texas. However, he misjudges the weight of the gun he used in the robbery and lands harder than anticipated, rupturing his kidneys.

A german (?) researcher and his assistant come upon the man lying aside a road at the same time a radio report of the hijacking/robbery is being broadcast. Putting 2 and 2 together the researcher believes he can get rich quick by performing the same ghastly experiment on the injured hijacker that he's successfully done with laboratory animals...he removes their brains and keeps them alive (even being able to make auditory contact with them) while disposing of their bodies.

The assistant, a mentally handicapped individual, and his wife, who is a domestic there, discuss what's happening. The man says the researcher is "pretty close to being God", while his wife disagrees, saying his research "flies in the face of God". Even the baddies here aren't affected...after the procedure, the first thing the hijacker's brain "says" to the researcher after learning what happened is a prayer to God, in spanish.


[b:393007ebd6]The horror within[/b:393007ebd6] (April 17, 1974) - An orphaned young man named Joseph claims to have mysterious powers that come from his patron saint, St. Joseph. Telling this as a hitchhiker to a trucker who's picked him up for a ride, the trucker pulls over and tells the young man to get out, saying "I'm a Christian, I don't put up with stuff like that." (Kind of like the religious people in the story of the Good Samaritan?) However, as the trucker pulls away we hear Joseph pray "Lord, make him see the error of his ways." (We then hear a tire blow and tires squealing.)

We come to understand that Joseph is equally pious and deeply troubled, even sinister. After the young man lands at his uncle's house and goes to work doing a fortune telling/mind reading act as his uncle's night club, we learn the young man might not be above hurting someone, or worse. When a girl Joseph seems to fall in love with realizes this even though the young man says he's doing the Lord's work, the girl replies "But He didn't want this. He was all about love."

After the girl disappears before the two were to get married, the uncle invites a priest to visit Joseph. The young man asks "are you here to laugh at me, too?" The priest replies "I'm here to help you." The young man is appreciative. He tells the priest how his mother taught him to worship Jesus and St. Joseph, and taught him the ability to call upon the power of the latter to do miraculous things. He says most people shunned him, including his father, and that later "my father was taken from me...I saw the light, and heard the blessed voice of St. Joseph". The priest questions this, saying there are forces of good and evil constantly at work in the world and that sometimes it's tough to tell which is which. He says that maybe the voice Joseph heard wasn't coming from Heaven. Joseph is shocked...he can't seem to believe that evil may be coming from him. (We later learn he seems to worship Satan as equally as he does Jesus and St. Joseph, and the results go accordingly.)

[b:393007ebd6]A small question of terror[/b:393007ebd6] (February 13, 1975) - In a society supposedly in the future but with a "big brother" soviet-era style of government, a woman is able to get herself, mother and fiancee out of the country. Without going into all the details of how she did it, she remarks at the program's end that she believes in God now. Mr. Marshall, (who always narrated the beginning, middle and end of the dramas) says at the end that so many people believe in God when things have been going bad, but that it's important that we should "call on Him (God) when you don't need anything - just call. Door's always open...24 hours a day."


[/quote:393007ebd6][/url]

[Texas]

740410 - "Out of focus"

Friends, this one really bothered me.

At the show's beginning, a successful New York advertising executive has called his wife in suburban Connecticut to tell her that he's killed his mistress, who he thinks was a witch, and that there's no alternative for him now other than to kill himself...he says he's written her a letter explaining what happened. She hears a gun shot and breaks down into tears.

Later detectives find both his body and the letter, and begin reading the latter. The dead man (whose first name was "Schuyler" and was referred to as "Sky") seemed to have it all...a promising job, a wife, a 16 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. One day Sky fell asleep on the commuter train to NYC (a la an old Twilight Zone episode "A stop in Willoughby") and a beautiful woman sat down and talked with him. He became obsessed with finding her, saying that her looks which suggest "endless sex" would be perfect for an ad campaign for a huge new client he's been assigned to. She disappears whenever he turns his back, or when he wakes up from a nap on the train...she tells him later that she doesn't like crowds, and that her name is "Dierdre".

Sky becomes obsessed with finding Dierdre...usually doing so when he falls asleep on the train or has been knocking down Manhattans in a bar, and so forth. Meanwhile, his wife, daughter and son are all feeling neglected by their dad's longer and longer hours at work, the latter child so much that he takes one of the family cars and crashes it into a tree. He's fortunate...all he receives is a concussion. All that time trying to find the woman is hurting Sky's career as well. Sky's wife calls him and worrie that there is a "hex" on their family. It gets to the point, though, where he hangs up on her when she calls...Sky's only interested in finding ways to be with this woman and taking her picture.

In the end, he has an apartment in which he meets this woman. He takes pictures of her, none of which are in focus and none of which contain her. Then he takes an instant picture...for a moment, he sees a horrible witch, then nothing. She looks at him and says "The wages of sin..."

That's when we pretty much arrive at the events which started this episode, and the detectives are left to uncover any additional info. It can pretty much be summed up in the Apostle Paul's admonition that what feels natural to us is often not what is best for us. (or our families...)

[Texas]

771230 - "The ninth volume"

Ohhhhhhh, what a story this could have been if we would have had:

1) one more hour, and;

2) perhaps a few more plot twists.

An oil drilling crew somewhere around western Colorado has been toiling on a certain spot for several days. Their parent company is getting restless because there's been lots of work and no oil found. A young, hotshot geologist is convinced that there's an incredible amount of petroleum to be discovered...the drilling rig boss tells the driller to try and go down 50 more feet, difficult because the drill bit is 4 miles underneath the surface. All of a sudden the drill operator says they appear to have hit an air pocket...oil must be near! Then he stops and gets extremely nervous. The manager and geologist arrive and he tells them red powder started coming out of the hole...power which they learn mysteriously disappears shortly after contact with air.

The geologist links up with one of his favorite college professors and arranges for the dust to be tested. It appears to be a substance unknown to any recorded primitive culture, subsequent tests show it's 12 billion years old.

The professor says an abandoned silver mine he's aware of nearby may have a deep shaft that can lead to a passageway to the vicinity of the finding. The geologist and the drill operator, armed with explosives, venture down to it, then detonate a hole through the rock into the precise area.

They find: a ranch house, looking almost exactly like a home in their era (1998) would appear. Everything's intact, even the windows. The faucets, when turned on, dispense pure crude oil. They also find adjacent to the basement (the floor of which is covered with crude) a library, filled with books by Shakespeare and all the great novelists. Astounded (and filled with glee because the oil is where he predicted it) the geologist finds a set of books that are apparently a set of nine, but only eight volumes are there. Their title: "A history of the world, by D.V. (the "V" stands for "Vladimir" Davis). The ninth volume, which would cover all history past Y2K, is missing.

The geologist is convinced this was a civilization just like ours that lived billions of years ago, and if he can find that ninth volume we'll learn what's going to happen to us[/i:5bf901bcd0].

This is an interesting episode to listen to, but I do think there is so much that could also have happened within...but that's JMO, as we say in webspeak... smile.gif

[Texas]

740713 - "The secret life of Bobby Delan"

A kindly, childless couple are in contact with an orphanage, trying to adopt a child.

The kind, loving man who is the husband seems to settle on a 10-year-old boy named Bobby Delan. Mrs. Appleton, the woman in charge of the orphanage says Bobby is a good child, but he's been in a type of solitary confinement to his room for stealing things...in particular belts, frying pans and shoes. (Those particular objects have a very[/b:f509316646] poignant meaning at story's end.) Bobby had stayed at the home of another family earlier in preparation for a possible adoption, but they opted not to take him because he also stole things on occasion, and tried to run away.

The kind man talks with Bobby, and becomes convinced that he's got a powerful ability for self-hypnosis strong enough to put himself in a trance, and moreso, is able to obtain incredible power when in such a state where his conscious and subconscious mind meet. The husband agrees to take Bobby to his home. Bobby has described it, though he's not quite correct in how his new family's home looks. Also, when he gets to the home he's aware that his new "mother" is not feeling well even though his new "father" believes otherwise. They find the woman has a migraine headache, which Bobby promptly convinces her to "give" him.

Three weeks later, Bobby has started to steal objects...a belt (that he says is too big for him), a frying pan, a high-heeled shoe...then he runs away on a night under a full moon...

(NOTE: This is the only CBSRMT episode I've heard to date where there is a reference to a porno film actresss. Mercifully, no child pornography is involved.)

[Texas]

780428 -"The house on chimney pot lane"

The other CBSRMT site that has descriptions of some of the episodes hinted this was a haunted house story. I was expecting "The Blair Witch Project" or "The Amityville Horror" or something like that, but instead got "Jumanji"....this one was fun (IMO).

A husband/wife playwriting team is house hunting in suburban Connecticut and come across this quaint looking house on the lane in the title. They tell the real estate agent they'd like it, but she says although she doesn't like to think a house is haunted that's not a house they'd want...originally a cult lived there which left the place all at once, then a family which one day disappeared in thin air, then another man who finally got so upset he tried to burn the house down but could not...the fire only singed one wall an burnt itself out. He moved to Florida and would not sell.

Well, in the Sunshine State he passed away and his son was only too happy to sell the property. They buy the house and love it. One of their good friends is a photographer...he suggest blowing up a photo he's taken of a beautiful tropical African jungle scene (complete with exotic birds, a lion, etc.) as a mural covering the full length of (I believe) the wall which wouldn't burn. (Hey, that might have been a good title for this. smile.gif )

It's all wonderful, until they have guests over at a party and the wife notices, while looking at the wall in a quiet momnt, a native tribesman's face peering out through one corner of the bushes. The photographer, also in attendance, sees it and doesn't remember the face. Later when most of the guests have left, they build a fire and look at the mural...the face is gone. They must have just been imagining things...in the firelight and enjoying his adult beverage, the husband notices how the foliage in the picture almost seems to sway.

Later everyone's gone but the ladies. The next day or so the phone repairman comes to take care of a problem. He fixes it and calls into his office from the den (where the picture is) and calls into his office to say all's well and learn where his next service call is (not noticing a low growl in the background that sounds like the "king of beasts"). He gets off the phone, then hears the noise and starts saying "Nooo...get back...get back..."

[Texas]

800409 - "Kitty"

(BTW, Charlie...I've always wondered where you got that RMT logo with the cat. Did CBS furnish that?)

A "young man" (who sounds like he was played by Himan Brown) attempts to forcibly accost a 22-year-old dancer named "Holly Methune" at the "Kit Kat Klub" (sic?). She almost claws his eye out with her fingernails. A police detective goes to her apartment and meets her sister Katherine (a.k.a. "Kitty"), then Holly, who tells the story. While at her apartment the detective receives a call from his partner who says that the man won't be pressing charges...he's dead, his throat scratched open apparently by several small domestic cats.

The man who makes that conclusion is a professor who's a specialist in such animals. He also has a connection to an exhibit of a sacred Egyptian sarcophagus (with a mummified cat inside). Kitty Methune happens to be his assistant...she was found wandering in the desert near the site where the sarcophagus was found and "adopted" by an archaeologist who happened to be Holly's father. (Only in the CBSRMT could you find an archaeologist's daughter who's a dancer at the "Kit Kat Klub") :D .

Later a fellow former dancer at the club shows up at Holly's apartment attempting to blackmail Holly, but unfortunately talks with Kitty instead. Leaving in a huff, the dancer is attacked by a herd of domestic cats on her way home...

(IMO, this was an enjoyable episode to listen to, a supernatural "whodunit" in the best RMT style. It's funny because a few weeks ago after church my wife and I stopped at an italian restaurant, and shared a laugh with other customers because we'd all been startled by an apparently non-rabid but aggressive cat who would leap out from under a bench to near your feet as you were walking up to the front door...he settled in on the warm hood of a car parked by the front entrance. Amazing how one little cat could make an action that would be so unsettling.)

[Charlie]

[quote:d0b94d6eb8="Texas"](BTW, Charlie...I've always wondered where you got that RMT logo with the cat. Did CBS furnish that?)[/quote:d0b94d6eb8]

That's is an official logo. I resized, re-colored, re-worked a bit, etc., to make it work on the site here.

Charlie smile.gif

[Texas]

And while we're talking about animals:

740518 - "The breaking point"

(This could also be called:

- "The doofy professor"

- "Dr. Death wish"

or - "Oh, what we could have made Saddam do to himself had we this capability (assuming he's still alive)" )

A man has been shot in the chest and is hanging on for dear life as the doctors and nurses try to save him...he tells us how he got there.

He's a retired psychology professor and his pretty young wife, and they were conducting a special kind of research at their Palo Alto home. The prof knows a wee bit more about what he's trying to do than his better half. They're also expecting some company...another (Stanford?) professor, who arrives as a guest bringing one of his capuchin monkeys he used for research named "Chi Chi". (The simian plays a crucial role in the action part of the story.) Chi Chi wears a skull cap to cover his exposed brain.

The visiting professor learns a startling secret...the older gentlemen is working to control his wife telepathically. He thinks a command, and she comes out to do it, in a sort of trance. He rings a small gong to bring her out of it at the end of each "experiment".

He's trying to do this, he tells the visitor, because he thinks we can subvert evil leaders if we can develop the ability to control their minds. He's going to learn today if he can REALLY do it...the visiting professor is astounded to learn that his retired friend is going to telepathically tell his wife to get a gun out of a dresser in their house, walk in and shoot him...

[Texas]

...and while we're talking about monkeys:

740625 - "Where fear begins"

A woman gets a call from her sister, who's hysterical, begging her to come over. The line goes dead. Unfortunately, that is also how the police find her sister.

The woman is persuaded to let the authorities conduct an autopsy on her sister, who was in her 20s and in good health. They find she died of heart failure. The woman has to stick close by to help her father take care of her late sister's affairs. She also makes the acquaintance of one of her sister's former co-workers, played by good ole Mason Adams. She has to stay at her late sister's apartment until those arrangements are finished.

One night the sis can't sleep, and goes rummaging through her sibling's medicine cabinet to find a sominex. She finds a bottle marked as sleeping pills and takes them. Not long afterward, a huge gorilla is trying to pound its way into her door.

The sister cannot figure out what's happened, but learns her sister was seeing a psychiatrist. He won't give her any info, but Adams' character agrees to help her out and sees the doctor. Adams learns that, for some of his therapy, the doctor had developed a derivative of LSD that, instead of causing general hallucinations, caused patients instead to see that in their subconscious which most terrified them. The sister then sees the sleeping pills, and finds out they were prescribed by this doctor...

This episode has one of the most amusing E.G. Marshall interludes I've ever heard. THe woman is screaming in abject terror as the gorilla is breaking down her door, then Marshall says: "Well, now that's what I'D call an 'unexpected guest' ". Classic.

[Texas]

811211 - The Song of the Siren

CBSRMT meets the X-files, sort of, only with no grisly killing.

A helicopter pilot flying over the "Valley of the dead" somewhere in the western desert spots a man believed to be a missing professor and sets the helicopter down. He cheerfully calls into his home base and says he recognizes the professor from photographs and should have no trouble loading him into the 'copter since the professor looks to only weigh about 125 lbs. Home base says that's impossible because the prof (who left only 9 days ago) weighed in at around 250 lbs. The professors is babbling things like "take...out...the wires" and "are you one of us or one of them".

A reporter (with a sordid past) for a National Enquirer type newspaper learns of it and goes to the town to attempt to get information. The helicopter pilot only knows what he witnessed. The doctors won't release information on the professor...finally, he bribes an ICU nurse with champagne to become a confidant. She's kindly enough, and tells him pretty much what the chopper pilot told him. The reporter remembers the U.S. army was conducting experiments in that area and asks his boss to investigate. The boss learns that they were experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs there (no reason given why there and not at a research facility). The reporter goes to the professor's wife, who believes he's going to die. He talks with her and learns that the prof was out there because he was convinced from his research that there was a species of life that had survived the age of the dinosaurs out there, and that these creatures were "saurian", lizard-like humans.

The reporter is convinced: he has to go out there as well.

These two plotlines (the saurians and the hallucinogenic=experiment results) could probably have stood on their own...integrating them was a bit strong. Still, this episode has a mildly surprising "Markheim: Man or Monster?" type ending, and is interesting enough.

[Texas]

741120 - "Tattoo for murder"

It's said that St. Louis is a city where "the food is italian, the language is french and the people are german".

Well, in this St.Louis-based episode the bad guy is Otto Kramer, a rich german banker with an equally german old-country accent. (Think an older, more sadistic Arnold Schwarznegger.) He's so bad that he's made his older daughter Erika run away. The younger daughter, whom he seems to favor more but is his virtual prisoner, is cowed but gentle Katrina.

The circus comes to town, and who should arrive with it but Erika...now engaged to the circus manager. She pays a surprise visit to Katrina, and begs the younger one to run away. Little sister refuses, but promises not to tell papa Erika was there. (She was the object of an intense hunt there after her disappearance.) Old Otto suspects something's wrong, though, and later beats the truth out of Katrina. He pays a visit to the circus, and the freak show area. How surprised and horrified he is to learn that Erika is the show's "tattooed lady". (The most amusing part of this show to me was hearing the actor in his heavy accented english repeatedly refer to his daughter as a "f-rrrr-EEEEK".)

Later, Erika cooks up a scheme to free Katrina from the house, and arrange for one last meeting with papa Otto. It's risky, and it also involves tattooing Katrina...

[Texas]

740315 - "The trouble with Ruth"

Ruth Moody is a kleptomaniac. She's just gotten stopped for pilfering merchandise at a department store. She's also in the "book" that is circulated among department stores in certain cities (or used to be...it's all probably internet based now) of known people with such illnesses. (Anyone remember the old "All in the family" series when Edith Bunker put something in her purse without thinking about it, was caught and photographed for such a book, then later finds something else she wasn't aware of in her purse at home...she screamed to Archie "I'm a klepper" and ran up the stairs. Very moving episode). Ruth's husband is a clean, high up person in the budget office of their city government, and she's very afraid of what might happen to him should her condition become known.

Ruth is contacted by two mysterious men, one quite sunburned, the other (whom she meets in a dump of a downtown hotel) who concoct a scheme to steal a $50,000 diamond necklace. They'll create a diversion in a store, she'll pilfer the necklace and give it to them. She refuses at first, then gives in.

I'm a bit perplexed by how Ruth didn't get into more "trouble" in this episode, but once again this is an interesting display of CBSRMT morals. The two criminals who know of Ruth say she can't help her condition, so she's pretty much not got responsibility for it. [i:085b09ccac]Her loving husband confronts her that this is indeed an illness and she needs help for it. [/i:085b09ccac] He also admits to his own wrongdoing in how he did or didn't treat her earlier. Interesting episode.

[Texas]

[img:a064179f13]http://www.5tharmy.army.mil/21States/tx_fl.gif[/img:a064179f13]

790704 - "The great white shark"

This is the first CBSRMT that I can recall that takes place in Australia. It's also the one (to date) which has the most glaring factual error. More on that in a minute.

An Australian charter boat captain and his aboriginal first mate/helmsman agree to take a very wealthy Texan and his young, beautiful wife on a deep-sea fishing trip from Sydney to the Great Barrier Reef. The captain was himself once a wealthy, dashing man, but has become victim to a personal vendetta...he lost his foot in an attack by a great white shark (called "the white death" by his helper, who possesses the "psychic powers" many aboriginals are reputed to have), and is obsessed with finding the shark and killing it.

The Texan is a big blowhard, but a very strong man whom you don't want to cross. The captain, even though lame on land, can take care of himself, but is quite aware that the Texan is footing the bill, and is more intent on culminating his fight with the great white. In addition to the potential explosion between the two men, the captain is falling for the Texan's young wife. (I must compliment the RMT writers...they kept the captain's character on the moral high ground, though the character admits he mighn't have stayed on it in previous years.) Worst of all, the aborigine is predicting that one person on the charter will die in the trip...he doesn't know which one.

There is some great use of simple sound effects in this one...listening to the boat's diesel engines I felt I was leaving Sydney harbor right along with the captain and company. Unfortunately, in a critical moment in the story the captain says that a great white shark isn't a fish but a mammal. In reality, the great white isn't even quite a true fish, but rather part of the lowest subgroup of fishes which have cartilage instead of bone for their skeletons.

In addition, this episode sort of turns into an animal rights story of sorts which strangely seems to water down the plot at the very end even though it still has an interesting ending. All IMHO of course...

[Texas]

761111 - "Strike Force"

A doctor is having dinner with his wife, mother and stepfather...an every-Wednesday-night occurence with this family. The mother makes mention about the doctor's deceased natural father, a war hero with an elite World War II strike force who perished in battle and is buried in a french military cemetary. Her son responds by saying that even though his natural dad was a hero, his stepfather was always there for him and that sometimes he feels the true heroes are those who go out and do their job every day, never giving up. It's obvious he loves his mother's husband as a true father.

Apparently the doctor doubles as a medical examiner, and he's called down to investigate the death of an alcoholic killed in a street fight. When he looks for marks to help identify the body he's stunned to see a tattoo with rattlesnakes and a lightning bolt...it's the insignia from his father's old unit. He convinces (and his stepfather agrees that it should happen) his mother to come down to ID the body...she knew some of her late husband's fellow servicemen. She's obviously quite distraught upon seeing the corpse, but identifies it as her late husband's commanding officer.

Her son thinks the body should have a hero's burial, so he contacts authorities in Washington to have the corpse interred in the national cementary. One problem...the man his mother identified has already been identified, and died, and was buried...years ago.

A good episode, this, even if it's got one CBS RMT twist I'm not yet sure I agree with...and it's got some good comments about families, as well. (My mom was adopted as an infant, and her loving adoptive family will always be my family...I can relate to the son in this episode.)

[Texas]

760722 - "The men with the magic fingers"

This is a CBSRMT rewriting/retelling of the story of Pygmalion and his statue. (Fair warning: the link contains the picture of a semi-nude statue, or a nude semi-woman) (http://www.delanohighschool.org/BillBaugher/stories/storyReader$478), but this has a bit of a different ending.

It begins at the "ending" (before E.G. gets in his final word) of the story...several horrified people are arriving in to the tent of a turn-of-the-century carnival circus barker who, unfortunately, has just killed his wife. The sheriff is summoned and asks the man what happened. (He seems to be dying, but that apparently isn't the case). The man babbles about how he killed his wife, who in turn had previously killed the "Princess of Romany".

His wife happened to be the "Princess of Egypt"...an exotic dancer at their travelling carnival who very much loved her husband but was getting increasingly agitated by his ways. What was agitating her the most was that he was spending most of his time with a beautiful life-size doll he created called "The princess of romany"...a sideshow act. He'd rigged up a device to play records of all types of answers in a woman's voice. The "rubes" (or, people who come to the show, I guess) would ask questions regarding their lives and/or their future, and through his control the "Princess of romany" would answer them. He was spending more and more time fixing her up, and the doll was becoming an increasingly vexing situation between his real wife and he.

At one point after they had a fight, the Princess of Romany started up a conversation with him about how he was one of the "Men with magic fingers"...men who invented things like autos, airplanes, and that newfangled stuff. She said he really wanted to go seek his destiny. He pretty much said "Yeah, I really do" and carried on a conversation for several minutes before realizing that his doll creation was [i:40ca3bfc7d]talking to him...[/i:40ca3bfc7d]

[Texas]

770425 - "Bound east for Haiti"

Told from the recollection of a 70-year-old physician, he stares at a "calabash" (I gather it's a halved gourd from his description, and hopefully not the same meaning as the "calabash" seafood restaurants which lined the main streets of Myrtle Beach, SC when we visited there 9 years ago).

The doc signed on in his younger days with a tramp steamer, the "Molly Moran", which when we caught up with his memories was docked in Port-au-prince, Haiti. The doctor (played by Mason Adams) became good friends with the steamer's captain Pete Johnson (played by Fred Gwynne, who like Adams does one of my favorite turns I've heard from them on the CBS RMT). He meets Lily, a young Jamaican "captain's woman" who's engaged to be married to the skipper, and the first mate "Beaucoup(sic? - pronounced "Boo Coo") a Haitian man who's got eyes for Lily.

While in Port-au-prince the cap'n warns Beaucoup to stay away from Lily. When the first mate attempts to forcibly accost the woman, Captain Johnson makes his point to Beaucoup a bit more forcefully with a pair of brass knuckles. Beaucoup, in the meantime, has gone to his village to seek some "assistance"...he tells Lily that her man, with the help of a little Haitian voodoo (or "voudoun"?) is going to die soon...and the captain starts getting under the weather shortly thereafter...

[Texas]

810204 - "Who is Jessica Worth?"

At the beginning of this story, E.G. says this is "based upon a true happening".

The story opens up with a doctor who's treating Miss Worth, a young woman who has been living with her upper middle-aged aunt and uncle since her parents died in a boating accident. The doctor says she'll be fine, even though she was given a concussion after being thrown from a horse after riding in an area she shouldn't have. Jessica asks her name, and says her name is about the only thing she remembers about herself right then.

The doctor makes friends with her family, and is in fact visiting them when Jessica is hit by an automobile outside their house. Again, she suffers a concussion, though she's fortunate that the rest of her body heals quickly. In the hospital, however, she now cannot recognize her aunt or uncle. Talking with her doctor as he's about to leave the hospital to visit a fellow doctor for dinner, Jessica says she's feeling very tired and is going into a deep sleep...she does, in the form of a 5-week coma.

When she awakens, she doesn't believe she's Jessica, but wants to be called another name. In fact, she doesn't appear to be the same person. Wanting to be called "Tiffany" she's fine except: A) one of her arms will barely move, and; B) she's quite artistically talented. She goes again to live with her uncle and aunt, and lives 5 years as "Tiffany" before going into a coma spontaneously again. She awakens again as "Jessica", has the use of both hands, and asks if her doctor made it safely to his dinner with the doctor friend. Now, however, she seems to be losing the sight of her eyes but can still "see" things. In fact, it appears to her that her vision is emanating from the top of her head. She can describe things many feet away from her in great, clairvoyant detail...

[Texas]

:evil: The moral for the next series of posts - "The devil is bad" (Serious meaning even though this mp3 file is from "Veggie Tales") (http://www.pillowcasey.com/maico/devil.mp3)


[b:d335c32e84]"The devil is bad" Number 1[/b:d335c32e84] 740125 - "Speak of the devil"

<voice dripping with sarcasm>You know, the first thing I'd do if my beloved niece came to visit me from thousands of miles away with her fiancee is to INVITE HER TO A @W#$#@ SEANCE.</voice>

But that's what this scottish lady "Aunt Jeannie" does. She, a friend and his wife all want to contact her "control", a friend from the "other side" who gives them all sorts of information about the departed. The seance starts out so innocently...when the lady asks all the people to "hold hands", the fiance playfully says his bride-to-be will have to "hold both of his", because she can't trust him alone with her in the dark. However, as soon as contact is made, the "control" starts frantically warning them to stop the seance, that there "is evil" nearby.

All of a sudden behind his voice there is a horrible, evil sounding male creature who makes a series of guttural, singsong noises and one word sentences. Something is happening in the room...the niece starts making moaning noises and saying "it burned...it burned". After the lights are turned back on the niece is asking "what's that smell"? (It's the smoke from the incense). Aunt Jeannie thinks she's "loosed some devil out of hell this night". She swears never to hold a seance again.

The niece seems from that point on to be sensitive to any type of smoke, and says that she has a "skin" (an irritation?) She and her fiance are married, but it's not the ideal honeymoon. The niece cannot seem to fall asleep for long without being tormented by the creature that appeared the night of the seance. Then she and her husband learn not long afterward that she's expecting...

[Texas]

[b:530865ffdd]The devil is bad #2[/b:530865ffdd] 800310 - "You're going to like Rodney"

[quote:530865ffdd]

FR. DAMIEN KARRAS - "Who are you?"

PAZUZU, THE DEMON INHABITING THE 12 YEAR OLD GIRL'S BODY (speaking backwards, voiced by RMT alum Mercedes McCambridge) - "NOBODYYYYYYYY..."

[i:530865ffdd]From the movie version of "The Exorcist"[/i:530865ffdd]

[/quote:530865ffdd]

Friends, if you were condemned eternally, having chosen not only to serve but to be evil for that time, and you had no hope of anything but bondage to a master who hates you, you'd not be happy either.

Neither is "Rodney", a 12-year-old thin, pale boy who has been befriended by the brother of a man who lives quite comfortably out in San Diego with his wife. The brother, an east coast attorney, is going to a law convention in Switzerland and needs his brother to care for Rodney for that time, so he flies him out to southern California.

The brother and his wife appear to genuinely want to make the boy's stay a pleasant one. The brother says he'll take Rodney to a San Diego Padres game (first reference to a pro sports team I'd heard in the RMT)...he also attempts to play with Rodney in the family pool, inviting the boy to climb up on his shoulders. Rodney is so strong he almost drowns the man though. Oh, and Rodney doesn't say a word. The man and his wife learn to communicate with him through notes.

Not long afterward, the boy writes a note which bothers the wife: "Your cat is going to die". Shortly thereafter, the family's kind neighbor finds their dead cat Sylvester under her doorstep. They take it to a vet for an autopsy but he can't find a cause. The couple, uneasy at first, think that's cleared Rodney until he writes them a note: "Told you so." Rod gets a slap (apparently) from the husband who's getting irate.

The kind neighbor, talking to the wife, says her sister is a handwriting analyst and might be able to tell something about young Rod by his notes. She does, and it's all the more perplexing...the sister is astounded to learn he's only 12, as the notes appear to have been written by a very old man.

Soon afterward, Rodney writes a note to the couple: "You're next".

[Texas]

[b:386286bc81]The devil is bad #3[/b:386286bc81] - 780217 "The church of hell"

A woman has died in a rental house owned by a New York couple who are quite curious not only how she died but of what was going on inside. The couple had been wanting to spend time in the house as it's in the country away from the city. They find several mysterious things within the house, which was turned topsy turvy from the inside...books and everything scattered about. The detective thinks the lady may have been frightened to death.

They come up to visit with police there about the tragedy, and end up spending the night upstairs there, but are awakened frightfully by what appears to be a terrific storm. However, the night outside is clear...no rain, wind or lightning outside. It appears the storm is coming from within the house...gale force winds, thunder, and screeching cats. (To those of you who are Rush Limbaugh listeners, this particular sequence almost sounded, amusingly, like one of his old "Animal rights updates" minus Andy Williams singing.)

After that episode (where their den is pretty much torn apart) the police detective who has become their friend through this investigation thinks someone else needs to be brought in...a college professor who also happens to be a parapsychologist. He finds evidence that black magic was practiced in that house. (The tenant, he says, wasn't a witch, or if she was was quite an amateur.) Looking at a discovery on the floor he says...well, here's part of his description of what he sees:

[quote:386286bc81]"In the middle ages that material all around the inside of large circle would have been the skin of the victim who fastened to the ground by four nails from the coffin of an executed criminal. Don't be too alarmed, I think you'll find that this is only a simulation, as with the crude representations of the skull of what ought to be the skull of a "patricide"...someone who killed his father. The other three (symbols) are the horns of a goat, a male bat drowned in blood and a black cat who has been fed human flesh."[/quote:386286bc81]

Yeesh...wonder if Harry Potter ever learned that stuff? Fortunately, the prof is on their side, because he believes something evil has been set loose in the house...

[Texas]

[b:68bd26dab4]The devil is bad #4[/b:68bd26dab4] 741028 - "Possessed by the devil"

I'm not a fan of "slasher" movies, but if you ever have a moment in which you want to watch a film within that genre, I could recommend one...this RMT episode is almost a cross (from what I heard) between the aforementioned [i:68bd26dab4]Exorcist[/i:68bd26dab4] and a very interesting film from the late 80s entitled The hidden (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093185).

An emergency room MD and a cleaning lady are in the room late at night with two patients: a poor, passed out wino who while not critically ill is a regular to the ER, and a young man who has suffered what appears to be a gravely serious closed head injury...he supposedly has a depression in his skull big enough for one to put their hand in. (My own daughter had a skull fracture at age 4 so this hit home to me.)

Any way, the cleaning woman is a little irish lady who happens to be left alone in a room with the two while the MD is called away. She's just in time to witness what appears to her to be the devil, exiting the mouth of the wino as a pair of glowing red eyes and a forked tail in a cloud of smoke and going right up the injured young man's nose.

She's extremely frightened, and the MD is amazed. The young man, who appeared to have a fatal injury, stands up and is ready to leave the hospital, while the wino has just died...

(Note: Charlie, I may have to get this one from you as my copy doesn't go to the end of the episode...however, this one is a very spooky one from what I gather, as are the other three...)

[Texas]

UNTIL_NEXT_TIME, YOU ROCK![/b:684eaad0ea]

740303 - "Prognosis negative"

This starts out in a military psychiatric unit, sort of like a little known gem of a movie called "The ninth configuration" (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0081237). (A William Peter Blatty novel, the same guy who brought us the aforementioned "Exorcist"....except HIS setting was an old castle.)

Like that film, however, this involves a patient who wasn't just another enlisted man (he was described as an "agent") who apparently became a psychopathic killer. Kent Hatcher was tortured behind enemy lines and brainwashed - programmed to kill at the drop of a hat. He'll say "Six..five..three...listen to me...listen to me" before he goes off. A colonel warns a doctor at the unit that Kent is a living "time bomb".

He appears to be doing well, but snaps and kills a doctor's assistant, then escapes and kills a clothing store clerk. (The colonel had warned the doctor that this might have been part of the programming of Hatcher's mind.) In the meantime, his picture is being broadcast all across America. Sadly, Kent has no family...his wife remarried after she thought he was dead, and their daughter died of pneumonia.

The episode takes a fascinating turn when Hatcher seeks shelter in the flophouse of a woman who makes her living as a fake medium. She stages phony seances with the help of an assistant who specializes in audio visual tricks. In Kent, she sees someone who is susceptible to the powers of hypnosis (which is how the enemy "programmed" him in the first place after brainwashing him) and whose mind she can control to help bilk a certain rich client out of a lot of money...[/url]

[Texas]

http://www.5tharmy.army.mil/21States/tx_fl.gif[/img:220ab362f6]

(Since I'm back in the Great State for training this week in Dallas, thought now'd be a good time to make my "Texas-themed" episode list from what I remember):

780424 - "The grandee of terra loco"

A newspaper reporter whose last name is Leach (happens to be the surname of Texas Tech's current head football coach as well) goes out to the small west Texas town of "Terra Loco" ("crazy earth"? or "crazy ground") to do a story on a recently deceased town leader/benefactor/patron whose nickname was "The Grandee".

When he starts talking with people, he starts finding out things that weren't common knowledge about the departed man...things that no one in the town seems to want people to know. The man's widow is apparently oblivious to all that her late spouse was involved in...she's a very nice woman. (West Texas [i:220ab362f6]is[/i:220ab362f6] a pretty friendly place. East Texas isn't too bad, for that matter.)

The more the reporter learns, the more hints he's given to get out of town and not say a word about what he's learned. There appears to be a conspiracy around...in fact, there may be [i:220ab362f6]dual[/i:220ab362f6] conspiracies...

[Texas]

[img:bdc1cc22d9]http://www.5tharmy.army.mil/21States/tx_fl.gif[/img:bdc1cc22d9]

750126 - "The follower"

The main figure in this story is a Micheal-Ovitz type agent for acotrs. He's not the nicest of guys...he walks over people, doesn't care who he hurts, etc. He and his wife have no children...their relationship is deteriorating, but the wife is kind hearted and still wants to see him be happy.

She feels especially sorry for him when he starts becoming very nervous - convinced someone is following him whenever he's out walking. In fact, he becomes terrified of walking alone, is convinced he hears constant footsteps behind him and will not turn his head over his shoulder to see who's there. He's sure that whomever is following him is walking in his exact footprints.

His wife thinks he's near a nervous breakdown, and so he goes into therapy. In fact, he seems to be realizing that he needs to change.

(The Texas connection is in the form of a former paramour with a honey-thick accent. The daughter of a very rich Texan, she wanted very much to be a successful actress and made the connection with the main character, much to her misfortune.)

[Texas]

[img:0d2f49814b]http://www.5tharmy.army.mil/21States/tx_fl.gif[/img:0d2f49814b]

"Stampede" - 760322

This is one of those RMT episodes that dealt with a natural disaster of sorts, albeit with a few plot twists (other similar episodes like this I recall are "Blizzard of terror" and "Hurricane!").

This one involves a young confederate soldier returning war-weary to his home in Texas. He'd gone to the War between the states along with his father...but the father was killed in combat. The son is saddened that his mother has remarried...even though his father was killed he can't fully forgive her for taking up with another man for that time. His mother would like him to stay close to home but he can't bring himself to do so.

So he joins a cattle drive and heads out on the range. He sounds like one of the youngest of the grizzled bunch that will be on the drive, but can also take care of himself. He learns also that there's an adversary on the drive...another cowboy who may not be the nicest of sorts.

I'm not a film connoisseur, but I remember surfing on cable television one night and seeing a John Wayne film wherein he played a boss on one of these cattle drives and there was indeed a stampede. I don't know how the cinematographers did it all, but they caught the "mood" of the cattle (and their cowboy attendants) perfectly on a night when they were apparently easily spooked. One unfortunate cowboy went out an camped out at the edge of the group, and was trampled to death by the runaways...the camera angle caught exactly what he would have seen in his final moments on earth, and it was frightening. This episode seems to have the same elements, albeit in a radio version.

It also has one of the few what could be termed "off-color" jokes I've ever heard in the RMT. Paraphrased not long after the young man from Texas joins the drive, at chow time:

[quote:0d2f49814b]

COOK: "Would you like me to throw a couple of them 'prairie oysters' on the grill?"

COWBOY: "Sounds good to me."

[/quote:0d2f49814b]

Pleaaghhhhh..... :oops:

[Texas]

"Promise to kill" - 751203

Charlie, I'll always abide by your rule not to give away the ending of a program. I also will probably never say "I wouldn't recommend this program".

However, there's one situation in the RMT that always shakes me (and probably others) up...when families are broken or destroyed. I said as much in reviewing "Out of focus" previously, the episode where some advertising guy fell in love with a succubus and totally screwed up his own life. I've heard another program that's somewhat similar which I'll review in the future. However, this one's probably the most disturbing of the three. I don't even have to give you the ending...E.G. gives us a very serious warning on this at his intro monologue.

A young professional living a seemingly wonderful life in a planned community is carpooling to the big city (NYC, I think) with his best friend, an attorney, who as a bachelor also seems to almost be envious of the life his friend leads. The professional has just said goodbye to his loving wife and 5-year-old daughter. He'd just brought a "Winnie the pooh" bear home for his daughter and she's overjoyed with it.

While he's on his way to work the wife calls up her good friend and is talking on the telephone when the groceries are delivered by the young, strong, handsome and apparently mentally challenged delivery man. The daughter is upstairs playing. While the lady's trying to sign the bill for the groceries the delivery man starts trying to embrace her, seemingly believing she is attracted to him. When the wife resists (her friend's on the phone the entire time) he becomes upset and kills her, right in front of her screaming daughter who just came down the stairs after hearing the fatal commotion. We later learn the little girl is also killed by the delivery man.

:(

The professional calls home and finds a detective there who tells him the awful truth. Naturally, with a telephone witness the delivery man is ID'd, charged with murder and convicted...to life in prison. The widower doesn't think that's good enough, and wants to see the convicted murderer die. He then attempts to make arrangements for the convict to be killed in prison (I remember a similar arrangement in the movie "To live and die in L.A. (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0090180)"). Unfortunately, while doing so he learns there is more to what happened on that worst day of his life.

It's a powerful morality tale worthy of what we've come to expect from the RMT, but I honestly can't say I'd want to hear it again.

[Texas]

770705 - "Hexed"

Ever notice how countries which have their names tied synonymously with magic are also mired in poverty and related conditions? (i.e. Haiti, which in the movie "The serpent and the rainbow" was said to be (paraphrased) "95% catholic and 100% voodoo".)

This particular show, the only one I've heard yet from a female RMT playwright (Nancy Moore) takes place in another country, Ceylon - today called "Sri Lanka" - which is said to have "marvelous things (such as magic, described by the woman in the lead role in the play)" and indeed has great natural beauty but has had a disproportionate share of squalid conditions.

The lady around whom the play is centered is an American who falls in love with a wealthy British expatriate who owns a tea plantation on the island. He has a staff of servants including a manservant who mysteriously always seems to know where his master is. She immediately becomes distrustful of the servant, and is constantly asking her husband to be about Ceylonese legends of magic and "hexes" - death spells. In fact, she starts to see evidence of them (apparently she's done some reading up), evidence which is confirmed by the servant, who tells his master that the lady needs to leave the plantation a s a p.

Listen to it, and keep an ear on what's happening...there are some interesting plot twists in this one.

[Texas]

980710 - "The stuff of dreams"

(or: [b:2d2dbbfa89]"The devil is bad #5[/b:2d2dbbfa89])

OHHHHHHHHH KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. :oops: :evil:

This is probably the kinkiest RMT that I've ever heard.

It also qualifies as the #5 entry in my aforementioned series.

A young woman (Marian Seldies - the lady who has a voice like the actress Elizabeth Montgomery had in her TV heyday) applies for a job with a reclusive, seemingly crippled woman who lives alone. Like Miss Montgomery's well known TV series, the woman has a nosy neighbor who always keeps his eye on whomever comes and goes.

Seldies' character feels a mixture of pity and almost amusement for the other woman, played by Bryna Raeburn (again, I've complimented her before) who is nearly 300 lbs. Ms. Raeburn does an excellent job portraying a woman whose weight is making her a recluse, and she also has a sad past, being abandoned by her husband who took their 5-year-old son. Ms. Raeburn wants to pay Seldies character to learn about her dreams. Specifically, she wants to [i:2d2dbbfa89]live out[/i:2d2dbbfa89] Seldies character's dreams. Raeburn's character is particularly fascinated by potential sexual aspects...she appears to be a frustrated woman who wants to pretend to be someone else, if only in her fantasies. Apparently one thing she does have a sufficient enough quantity of is money (and you know how it's said that something can't buy happiness...)

Seldies' character seems, as I said, a sympathetic sort. That's apparently why she's befriended a man who is about to be released from prison, and who genuinely wants to meet her new employer. After a "dream reporting" session (when Seldies' character threatens to "quit" after she refused to admit to being raped by her boyfriend, which was apparently in Raeburn's character's fantasies) Seldie's character is paid $300 by her employer, who wants to meet the boyfriend.

The interest is mutual. And the boyfriend's not interested in money...he lights a match to the $300 to prove it.

This one has a plot that twists at sharper angles than even the "Hexed" episode above.

[Texas]

740606 - "Deadly darling delores"

[img:6790d10370]http://www.hillcity-comics.com/toys/metalmenpvc.jpg[/img:6790d10370]

[i:6790d10370](Pictured left-right "Lead", "Tin", "Gold", "Dr. Will Magnus", "Mercury", "Platinum" (or "Tina"), "Iron")[/i:6790d10370]

OK...this episode's not quite the "Metal men" (and they were robots, anyway, and as a kid I always thought the platinum one "Tina" was a dish :wink: ) but it reminds me of a quote from Mr. Spock in the original [i:6790d10370]Star Trek[/i:6790d10370] episode of "The Savage Curtain", as he was describing a life form the ship's sensors observed: [quote:6790d10370]For a moment it appeared almost [i:6790d10370]mineral[/i:6790d10370].[/quote:6790d10370]

A woman real estate agent in New England has just lost a prospective client. She brought him into a house, but neither the lights nor the furnace works. In fact, NOTHING mechanical works in the house.

After he leaves in a huff and she's scratching her head as to what happened, she's startled by a man who's been hiding in the house. He explains (while seeming a bit flustered and maybe just on the verge of incoherence) that he's a scientist on a top secret defense project who's been reported missing in the past few days. He also says something else...that the lights, etc. won't work because [i:6790d10370]he's[/i:6790d10370] in the house. As a demonstration, he leaves it and asks the realtor to turn on the lights, which now work. The furnace is humming, too.

He tells her that he and a fellow scientist, who died in a recent car crash, were using a very special computer on the project, when the other scientist demanded he shut it off. The scientist said the computer started talking to him, and that it threatened to kill him if it didn't do what the computer wanted...he said the computer promised that all metal would "fail" him. It apparently did...just after walking off the job (followed by the scientist telling the story) the other man got into his car, suddenly started driving at an uncontrollable speed and lost his life in an ensuing crash.

The scientist tells the realtor he, too, has heard the computer (nicknamed "Delores") talk to and threaten him. He says Delores and her compatriots (apparently the "other side" (Soviets) have been working on a similar computer) want to end all animal life on the planet, so that they, the metal "life" can control it.

The real estate agent thinks he's going bananas, in spite of his demonstration of the "failing" metal objects to her...

[Texas]

800709 - Sierra Alpha Six Three Eight

[img:32a9714f62]http://www.5tharmy.army.mil/21States/tx_fl.gif[/img:32a9714f62]

A routine flight from El Paso, Texas to Mexico City is hijacked by a "minister". He means business...he shoots the co-pilot dead shortly after commandeering the plane.

He wants the pilot to land his 73+ passenger jet somewhere out in the middle of the desert, specifically within the barren Sierra Madre Occidental range in northwest Mexico. The pilot says he needs at least a 6,000 feet landing strip. The "reverend" says that's exactly what he'll have...he seems to have been a pilot in another career but says he had a "difference of opinion" with the FAA. Turns out he's been into running marijuana, in fact, his whole cult is into smoking dope. The "reverend" traces it to Genesis 1:"something"..."Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed". (Actually, from Genesis 1:11...not that this kook ever paid much attention.) There's more than "Mary Jane" involved, however.

The "reverend" has a shady character for a "business partner", who says he's not part of the "cult" but instead has a lucrative deal set up. The plane has its radio contact cut off by the hijacker, and has disappeared from the radar. The pilot says the reverend isn't human, and the latter agrees...he says, in fact, he's "supernatural".

Interesting listen, if only to hear Robert Dryden and Russell Horton assume a Texas accent as air force F-16 pilots, and also to hear the nutball "reverend".

[Texas]

[b:0efd028c2d](WARNING: 1. Don't listen to this if you're easily upset by stories where children are involved in bad situations, and;

2. I belong to a message board where we have one convicted pedophile/ephebophile who served time in a Wisconsin prison and, since release, has founded a ministry to work with others who have his condition. He wasn't born that way, but even though he didn't choose his attractions he realizes acting on them was both wrong and illegal.

From his testimony and other stories I believe that was, unfortunately, a theme of this episode.)[/b:0efd028c2d]

800414 - "Star Sapphire"

Imagine the old TV sitcom [i:0efd028c2d]Green Acres'[/i:0efd028c2d] Fred Ziffle as a man who is both fascinated by the power of hypnosis and who has the ability to do so, except 1.) This man doesn't own a pig who shares his dinner table, and; 2.) he's a key player in a program that [i:0efd028c2d]isn't[/i:0efd028c2d] a comedy.

Daniel Ferris (played in an excellent RMT performance by Fred Gwynne) and his wife Betsy are a 52-year-old couple who own a truck farm. They're also childless, and want to adopt. Ferris goes to the "Foundling Home" orphanage in search of a child to take in. In fact, he seems to have his eye on one, an older child around 16 years of age (he says it's his understanding that older ones are harder to place) who's been a lifelong ward of the home. She's partially crippled, having a hip condition of some sort, is described as unattractive and seems to be of at best average intelligence. She also seems to have a relationship with the older man, asking him "have you come to take me home with you, Mr Ferris?" He seems kindly enough, telling the orphanage acting director that a family home would be better for the girl (named "Edna") than the orphanage. The director agrees to let the Ferrises take Edna for a trial period.

He takes her home. On the way, Edna becomes fascinated with Mr. Ferris' ring, which features a star sapphire set in pure gold. Ferris says it's his most prized possession, but that Edna may inherit it someday. Taking her in to meet his wife and a couple (Paul and Mary) who live across the road and are close family friends, Edna is quiet. She's got a bad headache. Ferris takes her in a different room and, when she starts staring at his ring, asks her to stare at it intently. He's hypnotizing her...he tells her the headache's gone. After clapping his hands, she doesn't remember what he's done but her pain is indeed gone.

Later, Edna's startled by a rifle shot outside as Mr. Ferris is hunting rabbit for their meals. (This takes place at a time when the Ferrises travel by horse-drawn wagon). Still later, Mrs. Ferris (who's confined to a wheelchair) is amazed to see Edna shooting jars with pinpoint accuracy. Asking Mr. Ferris about it, he tells her he hypnotized Edna into doing the shooting with the aid of his star sapphire ring. Mrs. Ferris is incredulous, but says if it's the truth she wants him to hypnotize her into walking out of her wheelchair. She later confides what he told her to Paul.

Paul and Mary join the Ferrises for dinner later on, and Paul asks Mr. Ferris if what he said was true. Ferris says it was and brings Edna (who seems to respond to his beck and call) into the room for a demonstration. Hypnotizing her, he asks the girl in front of his stunned guests to [i:0efd028c2d]take off all of her clothes[/i:0efd028c2d]...

I've given my feelings about this episode on the "Program Discussions" forum... :!:

[Texas]

[quote:13ff03e51d]"Things that really matter
Are the things that gold can't buy"

[i:13ff03e51d]Alternate chorus from Irving Berlin's Let's have another cup o' coffee (http://www.thepeaches.com/music/composers/berlin/1932.html), quoted at the beginning and the end of this episode.[/i:13ff03e51d][/quote:13ff03e51d]

Now for a bit more pleasant, albeit maybe slightly maudlin, RMT episode.

"Pie in the sky" - 810717

A retired college professor in his seventies is sitting on a porch, pleasantly reminiscing with his wife of 47 years. "I could have been a millionaire, a billionaire, a...trillionaire" he says, as she chuckles at his memories.

He recalls his earlier days several years ago at the turn of the century when, stopping by a club frequented by other professors, he meets a mysterious professor of metaphysics who advises him of a new company called "General Engines" which makes "horseless carriages" that will be a tremendous investment for some lucky shareholder.

Skeptical, the other professor (and hero of the story) returns home to his wife, who's just come into a $1,000 inheritance. She stuns her husband by saying that her brother-in-law has advised her to invest in a company called "General Engines" which will make "horseless carriages". (No, her brother's not the prof of metaphysics.)

The professor is further baffled when, each time he fires up his pipe (his tobacco bag has the same initials on it as the other professor had) his memory plays strange tricks on him. He thinks things have happened that haven't yet, or he'll think things haven't happened that already have. In addition, he meets the other professor again later at the same club, who advises him to buy stocks in electric companies, another emerging industry...

This is a sweet little program (except for the fate of the metaphysics prof) that sounds as if it could have been a Jimmy Stewart movie along the lines of a non-holiday "It's a wonderful life."

[Texas]

750217 - "The death wisher"

Cort Benson (who played the good neighbor "Paul" in the episode two entries above and did an excellent turn as the title role in "The captain of the polestar" (both two of the very most memorable episodes of the RMT, IMHO)) is the head of a victorian-era British family (not far removed in time from the younger American professor and his wife in "Pie in the sky"). Like the aforementioned professor's wife, this is a proper, aristocratic family in which the women, while dealing with certain changes in social structures, know and ultimately respect their place and their men of the household.

However, the supernatural visitor in [i:6f0cebe75a]this[/i:6f0cebe75a] episode is a bit less benign. He's said by Benson's father character to be the son of a fellow military officer who saved the father's life in a war. The ladies of the family (the wife and their two daughters) seem quite affected by the handsome son as he arrives in a carriage. He's described by the girls as like "a fawn", and "Roman" looking. He seems both well-mannered yet slightly smarmy. The older of the two daughters (who earlier had divorced her husband) says that for all his looks and charm she doesn't trust him.

Wise decision on her part...he's a satyr (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=satyr).

He laughs when one of the family's maids seems uncomfortable by his lecherous suggestions. Later that night, after the maid has said goodbye to her paramour in the court garden, she's confronted by the son/satyr, who assaults then kills her. Unfortunately for the mother of the family, she drops by the garden for a late night walk right after he's done it, though the satyr doesn't kill her. She (and the rest of the family) come to learn that he's got a special power...he can kill any living creature any where, just by wishing it to die. He says he was taught how to do so by his gypsy mother. He also is bitter because he "had no father".

And there's [i:6f0cebe75a]another[/i:6f0cebe75a] big secret that the family doesn't know about waiting to rear its ugly head later...

Interesting listen.

[Texas]

750226 - "The strange case of Lucas Lauder"

Lauder is a prison warden, and in a couple of days an inmate there, a former professor of parapsychology who committed some gruesome murders of women at knifepoint, is to be hanged.

The warden meets with the prisoner (played in a brilliant performance by Ralph Bell in which you're almost sorry to hear him die if only because he won't be back in the play) who tells him that he (the professor) in turn had met with a man who also had committed similar crimes and been put to death. The first man to be put to death told the professor that he was possessed by the spirit of the man who had been "Jack the ripper", and (in an interesting twist on the tale of reincarnation) said that he would begin to possess the professor's soul in [i:af73260e43]advance[/i:af73260e43] of his (the other man's death).

The professor in his first meeting tells the same story to Lucas Lauder, the warden. Later that night, at dinner with his wonderful, loving wife, he handles a steakknife and starts to dream of killing her...

(If I can I'll put an .mp3 file of a clip of Bell's character interacting with the Lauder character...Bell was magnificent for this episode, IMHO.)

[Texas]

760220 - "The bloody legend"

http://www.lone-star.net/literature/beowulf/mrsgrendel1.gif[/img:96c090e7e4]

(O K, after the second listen I think I'll classify this as 90% "I got it now" and 10% "What the heck was THAT? :wink: )

A college professor is an authority on the epic Beowulf (http://www.lone-star.net/literature/beowulf/), said on that web site to be the oldest surviving epic in British literature.

The professor and his wife are good friends with a psychiatrist, and that's a good thing. When the prof nods off to sleep, he starts reciting [i:96c090e7e4]Beowulf[/i:96c090e7e4] in chapter and verse, and then some. People around his community meet violent deaths. This episode would also be one you wouldn't want your sensitive child to listen to...at one point something gets loose in an animal shelter and does terrible things there. (It didn't affect me like "Star Sapphire" but I remembered it enough to cuddle with our adopted-from-the-Humane-Society poodle/terrier mix dog last night and this morning.)

It's probably a good thing that the psychiatrist is a friend, because the professor is one of his clients, and here's where you have to listen. The prof apparently had (if I remember this term correctly) what some psychologists call a "classic triadic" relationship with his parents (weak father-domineering mother-affected son). No offense meant in advance to anyone reading this, but usually you hear of a relationship like this with prehomosexual boys. The prof is married in this episode, to a very devoted wife, but through the therapy sessions we learn he hated his somewhat abusive mother, and seems to objectify her as the "sea hag" (shown as the hyper-buxom she-monster confronting Beowulf above). The prof, when either in his dreams or on the therapist's couch, seems to waver between thinking he's the personification of Beowulf or of the evil monster Grendel, the sea hag's spawn.

What's more interesting is that one can't tell whether he's leading the psychiatrist (who asks "Who is Grendel in [b:96c090e7e4]your[/b:96c090e7e4] life?" to the prof) or vice versa.

This, somewhat like the "Lauder" episode above, is a made up play using an existing story. Like the enjoyable Ralph Bell performance, this one is wonderful as a means of showcasing the late, classically talented Arnold Moss (http://www.iamoka.com/cbsrmt/forum/viewtopic.php?t=156&sid=cac091920a3c4eeec800c6728fc7a12d) reading the [i:96c090e7e4]Beowulf[/i:96c090e7e4] prose. Just be prepared to listen carefully if you play this or else you may find yourself going "huh?" (Or maybe that was just me...)

[Texas]

760429 - "Two plus two equals death"

[quote:b6d06186ec]
"Darling, let's stop this pretending...
what more is there to say...
here's to your eyes and my final demise...
oh, Simone, it's [i:b6d06186ec]you[/i:b6d06186ec]..."

[i:b6d06186ec]from the song "Simone", sung by Boz Scaggs circa 1980[/i:b6d06186ec]
[/quote:b6d06186ec]

E.G. Marshall asks in his own inimitable way "What is reality"? Adequate enough question for this episode, which takes place as he calls it "in a third rate circus" in Europe 100 years ago.

Peter is an architect who (along with his mother) was deserted by his circus performer father years ago...as a young boy he trained for a performer's job there. He's arriving just as graveside services for his father are concluding. The younger man seems ill at ease with the circus and seems to want to collect some money his father promised him. The ringmaster/manager of the circus (well played by an accented Robert Dryden) says the money's there in a few days. (Is it?) But he needs an ending act in the father's place to keep the show going. So Peter the architect becomes (for an intended limited time) "Peter the mechanical man"...the first "two" in this title.

He finds himself falling in love with a ballerina named "Francesca" who is warm and kind to him, and assists him in his act. At times, though, he'll see her and attempting to be cordial, is coldly rebuffed. He learns the "cold one" is "Simone", Francesca's twin sister who's also one of the circus ballerinas. (Hey, Pete, you should have gotten a clue when you never saw the two of them together, but, then, we wouldn't have had as much of a story.) Then again, E.G. talks in one of his interludes of how Francesca and Simone's mother used to get different answers from them while playing as little girls, so what [i:b6d06186ec]is[/i:b6d06186ec] reality, anyway? The sisters are the second "two" in the equation.

Again, interesting episode...I'm just not much into carnivals and circuses and the like... :?

[NAtlantis]

Excellent reviews!

Texas, you provide a great service with your reviews! Great detail!

WTG! Thanks! You make it easy to find something new to listen to!


John (NAtlantis)

[Texas]

NAtlantis...thanks. I enjoy reading yours as well.

810427 - "Big Momma"

IBM used to be "Big Blue". Coke was "Big Red". UPS was "Big Brown". ([i:d5e21ef770]Man[/i:d5e21ef770], I used to tire of reading those nicknames in the Atlanta paper when I lived there....as ya'll know now the latter wants to be known simply as "Brown".)

In this episode we learn that a giant conglomerate known as "National Semiconductor" is also known as "Big Momma".

And "Momma" is interested in buying several acres for a new headquarters site in a certain town. Just one problem...the town planner there (played by the usually aristocratic sounding Paul Hecht) doesn't think it's a good idea. He's genuinely motivated by concern for his hometown. He's ALSO motivated, secretly, to be a successful writer...and he quietly yet earnestly longs for a book of his to be published, though it's been turned down several times by other publishing houses.

Enter a representative of "Big Momma", who's trying unsuccessfully to entice the planner to give his approval to the land purchase. The smooth-talking executive gets nowhere, until a semi-happenstance encounter with the planner's landlady alerts him of the would-be writer's dreams. He schedules [i:d5e21ef770]another[/i:d5e21ef770] meeting with the planner, who is stunned to learn that "Big Momma" also has (under her apron?) a subsidiary that happens to be an exclusive book publisher...and the temptation begins...

[Texas]

750313 - "Death pays no dividend"

Starring Cort "The Captain of the Polestar" Benson, Guy "The Hand" Sorrell, and (ohh...that VOICE... smile.gif )...Ann Shepherd.

Sorrell's character is just about to step off the ledge of a hi-rise and jump to his death before Benson's character (they're business partners in a brokerage firm (founded by Sorrell's character's father) that was swindled, but they're about to take the rap for it) and Shepherd's character (she's their secretary) convince him to come inside. The hard nosed senior partner seems almost disdainful when he's told of the near-suicide, but he invites the would-be jumper into another, seemingly more fruitful suicide pact...he and the other partner (played by Benson) are going to hire a hit man to kill them so insurance will pay (dearly) their survivors, who otherwise will get nothing. Sorrell's character reluctantly agrees to join in on the pact. The hard nosed guy says "Once we make this phone call (to arrange the hit) there's no going back."

Sorrell's character finds he's not quite ready for eternity yet. He and the secretary (who seems to be his Girl Friday) go on a cruise, where as they're nearing home port they receive some wonderful news. He'd bought some "penny gold" stocks in a mining company as a favor to a friend years back. Originally nearly worthless, their value has gone through the roof with the mining company's discovery of a mother lode of gold. Hurray! The debts can be paid off.

Sorrell's character phone's Benson's with the great news. He also says they can call off the little deal they arranged for. One problem...the hard nosed partner was shot dead where he stood that morning on the street.

(A memorable line...his name was "Mr. Folger", and Shepherd's character says: "I'm going to go into Mr. Folger's office to make some coffee.") [/img]

[Texas]

760906 - "Graven image"

[img:277a27a11c]http://www.toy-tia.org/industry/publications/blind01/images/dolls_doubletalkinwoody.jpg[/img:277a27a11c]

Jody Barnes (voiced by Jack Grimes, who sounds like he'd make a perfect Jimmy Olsen on an RMT version of "Superman"), a talented yet struggling young country music singer from San Jose, CA (kind of quaint to think of this as a place where one has to hope to be discovered) hooks up with a manager who is convinced he can become a big star. The manager proceeds to make him one, working the singer's posterior off in the process.

He becomes a country superstar, and finds images of himself showing up in places that only a media superstar will see them, which becomes increasingly unnerving to him. What shakes him up the most is a doll, bearing his likeness, that has a pre-recorded message on it. In fact, he begins to hate the doll and will react angrily to it any time he sees it. He also seems to be suffering from fatigue.

When the episode starts, his fans are flocking to a million-dollar concert at Madison Square Garden, but his manager and wife can't find him. Where is he? He's at their apartment, but doesn't want to answer the