Very competent direction and a top cast (aside for the actor playing Mr Righteous), but a total and utter mess in every other way.
Yet again we have the superior alien that can't stop boasting about its moral superiority, which it of course does by putting down humans. No sooner has it appeared, does it already start giving righteous speeches, admonishing humans ever-so-subtly about being violent savages. The alien is made up of light (or whatever) hence has the privilege of not having to fight for survival - which allows it to take the high moral ground vis-a-vis humans. Doesn't it realize how pompous this attitude makes it sound?
"I already see another of your weapons... distrust."
How is distrust a weapon though? Not the only silly line though...
The alien isn't the only one giving political speeches. The wealthy Mr Bellero gives an impassioned Serling-like soliloquy about how much he hates war, and then pathetically tells Kellerman that people like her are even worse than war. She doesn't seem too phased by this lame insult though, because she clearly enjoys that open war had finally broken out between her and the benign, Gandhian capitalist. (Just imagine if all of post-war America's capitalists were this pacifistic... We'd all be speaking Russian!)
So even though Mr Righteous Bellero is supposed to be the good guy and Kellerman the heavy, to me the family war isn't such a black-and-white issue. I detest pacifists even more than they (allegedly) detest war, and Mr Bellero did after all try to interfere in his son's marriage by trying to separate him from his evil wife. She may be evil, but it's his (dumb) choice of wife.
A really dumb scene - very obviously a cheese plot-device from the moment it occurs - is when Sally's barefoot(!) maid hands her a gun. What for?! This isn't the Wild West, nor is she planning to kill anyone - and even if she did she'd rather use the laser which disintegrates its target into atoms. Yet, the alien had proved itself immune to lasers, and Kellerman anyway didn't initially forge plans to kill it. This plot-device was thrown in literally just so Kellerman could become a killer. Sally even smiles as she receives the gun. Her character is a bit too over-the-top. But hey: dumb thriller.
She goes inside, planning to kill the alien! She'd already failed to kill it with a laser, so why would she assume that lead would work? I can't imagine any halfway acceptable quasi-scientific explanation to rationalize a creature made out of light being hurt by a damn little lady pistol, not even in a dumb sci-fi pulp thriller. Hence Kellerman isn't just evil and greedy, but an idiot. Dumb villains are no good though, narratively speaking... unless you're doing a comedy. Villains are supposed to be cunning, in order to be effective. Kellerman isn't a calculating mastermind at all; she and her evil sidekick just keep winging it, guessing and improvising, without the use of any common sense. That this allegedly "superior" alien allows itself to be duped and then even destroyed by such nincompoops speaks of its inferiority, if anything.
Kellerman's stupidity is underlined also in her refusal to let Mr Bellero inside the house. There was a clear opportunity to get Bellero's money by showing the alien to him - as Landau later very logically suggests. Wasn't this bloody obvious? Not to the women. So in fact Kellerman and her evil maid do everything stupidly, their strategy being that of 11 year-olds.
"How long is a minute?" The alien stupidly asks. Well, Mr Noble Flash-of-Light Alien, since you are able to speak English you should know what a minute is. Right?
After Landau fails in getting Mr Virtuous Capitalist to come back, we do have to wonder how this phone conversation played out... because it is never shown.
"But there's an alien in my lab! Won't you at least come to see it?!"
"No no and no! I hate that wife of yours!"
"But... This is the scientific breakthrough of the century!"
"I don't care. I hate her!"
Something like the above? Yes, his refusal to come over is idiotic - unless Landau omitted to tell him WHY he needed him to come back. But in that case Landau is the idiot. (We later find out that Landau didn't tell him about the alien over the phone i.e. Landau is an imbecile too - which is hilariously ironic because Landau later says that he is glad he told him nothing because he'd be considered "an imbecile" if he did!) I.e. Idiocy runs a bit too rampant among all these characters, who are supposed to be devious villains (the two women) a brilliant scientist, and a successful capitalist. Yet none of them act very intelligently. Most of them act like children.
Half the episode is humans begging the alien: ¨ "Don't go, please! Wait a little longer (until we can use you to get famous and/or rich)!" The alien itself is surprisingly street-smart for a noble, pacifist traveler, because he immediately figures out Kellerman to be nasty. Despite this apparent lack of naivety, he volunteers information to her about the "Bellero shield" which he didn't even divulge to Landau! This is not only far-fetched but contradictory: if he is so deeply suspicions of Sally, why tell her about the value and power of his tiny little ping-pong-ball defense mechanism? Well, so she can kill him, obviously. This writer simply didn't care that he was making the story predictable and cliche.
Predictably, the alien gets shot by Kellerman. (This "plot-twist" is even revealed in the spoiler, which is a dumb move by the producers. Fortunately, I always skip the intro.) And yes, not only does that tiny single lead bullet hurt him - he immediately drops like a sack of potatoes to the ground! What a goofy scene.
"It has a bullet in the base of its skull!" the maid later says. Which skull would that be? The skull inside the head of a creature composed only of light? What would it need a skull for?! It doesn't even stem from our universe - yet it has a skull. Nice going, Stefano...
Then the two women drag the body into the cellar, at which point the script had shot itself in the foot as well as shot a goofy alien. The story dissolves into a by-the-numbers dumb thriller, and I can't stand thrillers... They are empty-headed, dumb "entertainment" for lazy minds. Besides, nearly every thriller is idiotic, as is this one.
They actually plan to bury the alien's body in the garden! What about the Belleros gaining fame for having an alien encounter? That hadn't occurred to the these two nitwits?
Very stupidly, Mr Righteous Capitalist for some reason changes his mind, decides to return to the house - again! Then Landau tells him to go back because he found out that the alien is gone. So Mr Righteous heads to his car... again. This time Kellerman GOADS him into changing his mind (for the 11th time already) into going back to the lab, promising him some huge scientific breakthrough. Mr Righteous very comically rushes into the house...
Evidently, the story plays out like a comedy of errors, with Mr Righteous going in and out of the house a million times, much like something from a Blake Edwards comedy or even a Bugs Bunny cartoon. And all of the above happens in the first 30 minutes! Needless to say, still plenty of nonsense is to follow...
Next up is a dumb scene when everyone is FINALLY back in the lab. Alas, the alien is dead. So Kellerman, in her infinite stupidity, proudly offers the ping-pong ball as a great new invention for mankind. Very predictably, it doesn't work the way she intended it - because why would it? The alien had already started saying that it was unusable without him (which Kellerman would have heard had she thought it wise to LISTEN to the alien) before he was interrupted earlier on. (What a cheesy, convenient plot-device: interrupt the alien while he is trying to make the great reveal.) Kellerman's laywoman's assumption that the ping-pong ball would work in anyone's hands or could be easily replicated by scientists is just too dumb. Laywoman or not, common sense should have warned her that her possession of the ping-pong machine is far from a guarantee of success.
But so convinced is she in her success that she actually asks Mr Righteous to shoot at her! HOW could she be so certain it would work in her hands?! She doesn't even test it beforehand, to make sure she doesn't get accidentally killed, which is such horribly dumb writing...
Naturally, another question begs itself all throughout the episode: isn't Landau's laser gun a great enough invention to impress investors? It just casually lies around the lab, like some useless toy. The fact that Kellerman is surprised by its power is clear proof that this story doesn't take place in a distant future when such weapons are common. Hence yet another logic hole, in this Swiss-cheese of a script. Sure, Mr Righteous Pacifist said he didn't want to finance any new weapons, but Landau could easily get funding and fame elsewhere, with that laser gun.
Eventually, Kellerman gets trapped in the shield, which is the only clever, unpredictable twist in the entire story. When a desperate Landau eggs her on to try the ping-pong ball again, to free herself, she says this:
"Movements and words achieve nothing. They only deplete the oxygen (within the tightly-sealed shield) and the soul." She actually says this. A speech! A short one, admittedly, but a dumb little speech nonetheless.
Very predictably, Mr Righteous is killed in the basement by the maid, who is literally like a ninja, right after he gives yet another stupid speech - which also serves to force the maid to kill him. She tells him "no cops!", and he responds by agreeing - BUT then he goes on to talk about accolades and awards, which contradicts his agreement of not alerting the authorities. So OBVIOUSLY he is just begging to be killed.
To read the rest of this review, go to my Outer Limits list, where I have reviews for all of the episodes.
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