Monday, April 25, 2016

William Shatner's love child, and other hazards of turning 85




OK, so you already know that one of my many fascinations/obsessions is William Shatner. Whenever I read about his hyper-busy life, I think: geez, that's a lot for a man his age. 65, is he?

No. Nor 70. Nor 75. Nor. . .

He doesn't LOOK like a man of 85. He doesn't SOUND like, LIVE like, or do anything like whatever-85-is-supposed-to-be. Every so often, when I'm watching YouTube or an old Twilight Zone or just about any TV series from the 1950s, I'll see an unbelievably gorgeous Shat, just a matinee-idol type with the most exotically beautiful eyes.

Hey wait a minute. The *1950s*??

I was just about kind of getting born then. (Forgive all the italics. This is about William Shatner, after all.) He already had a career well underway on TV, worked steadily, had cut his teeth on Shakespeare at Stratford, Ontario. WHEN, during the Depression or what?

This guy is like that character in Trek who was Da Vinci, Brahms, Einstein, Bill Gates or whatever, all those different famous smart guys (and they always throw in a few we've never heard of, presumably from other planets), but he never dies because of "whatever". I don't really care why. The point is, this guy not only never DIES, he never slows down either. Right now, along with a host of other things, he is involved in - gulp - a paternity suit, the kind of thing a guy in his 30s might face.

I don't know how long he can keep going like this. He seems ageless. It creeps me out, some way, it really does seem downright weird, and in past posts I've wondered if he made some sort of a deal with "somebody" to just stop ageing.

I've known too many people, especially lately, who have expired far too soon. I don't know what happens to them. Then you have this guy who looks like a well-preserved 65, who is literally 20 years older than that.

Predictably, he has a whole lot of new stuff happening/coming out now. Not sure how he does it, but I'm glad he does.




William Shatner talks fame, Leonard Nimoy ahead of Calgary Expo appearance



William Shatner speaks during the Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose, California on March 18. He will be guest at the Calgary Expo     JOSH EDELSON / AFP/GETTY IMAGES


On the day William Shatner talked to the Calgary Herald, a Google News search of his name turned up a wide variety of articles.

There were headlines from Vanity Fair about how star-struck actor Sam Heughan of the series Outlander had gone out to dinner with Shatner and was thrilled to learn he was a fan of his sci-fi fantasy series.

RollingStone.com was reporting on Shatner’s newest book Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, which chronicles his relationship with his Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy. Gaming sites were all atwitter with news that the space simulation, Elite: Dangerous, would soon feature Shatner’s voice.

Finally, there were tabloid-y reports about a man suing Shatner for $170-million, claiming he is the actor’s love child.

It suggests that, at 85, “The Shat” still commands a good deal of attention and continues to experience all the vagaries of fame: The good. The bad. The weird.




“Denial and downcast eyes is a good way of dealing with fame,” jokes Shatner, without referring specifically to any of his recent headlines. “It has it’s own qualifications. It can be irksome. But, on balance, what it has brought me in terms of talking to you, and going to Calgary and eating at the charcuterie there … if one were to look at my life, you would have to say: ‘One of the luckiest son-of-a-bitches that ever lived.'”

Shatner sneaks in the Calgary reference because he will be returning to the city this week as one of the higher-profile guests of Calgary Expo. He heads an impressive contingent of Star Trek stars that come from virtually every chapter of Gene Roddenberry’s ever-increasing universe, from the original series and movies in which Shatner played Captain James. T. Kirk to J.J. Abrams’s recent reboots. Shatner, as with many Trek alumni, has been at the Expo before. But this is a special year, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rodenberry’s vision.

While Shatner’s relationship with the Trek phenomenon has had its ups and downs, the half-century milestone is also a reminder that he has spent at least that long in the spotlight.




Few performers could have parlayed starring in a three-season cult series into such a wide-ranging, artistically restless career. As an actor, he has done everything from serious drama to goofy self-parody. He has authored or co-authored dozens of fiction and non-fiction books. He has directed documentaries, released albums, raised horses, played poker for charity, hosted a talk show, been a pitchman for Priceline, developed an autobiographical one-man show for Broadway. . . the list goes on.

At 85, he apparently has no plans to slow down and still has some surprises up his sleeve.

“I helped design a motorcycle in Chicago,” he reports. “A group of people drove, and I drove the motorcycle, from Chicago to Los Angeles and on the way shot a documentary of what went on as well as raising funds for the American Legion. All and all it was a very busy time. But I’ve got a lot of film of what I’ve called ‘the ride.’ And, in the intervening time, there are all kinds of documentary suggestions that I’ve got and I’m trying to sell and make. I’ve been very busy doing that kind of reality work.”

As a documentary filmmaker, Shatner has mostly concentrated on Star Trek, whether it be revealing “the shenanigans” that went on behind the scenes during the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the very entertaining 2014 TV doc Chaos on the Bridge, examining the deep cultural reverberations of the series in 2013’s Get a Life! or interviewing his fellow starship commanders in 2012’s The Captains.





For those documentaries, Shatner occasionally seemed to be looking at the ramifications of the franchise from a bemused distance. But that certainly wasn’t the case with his latest book, which was a deeply personal affair. In Leonard, he reflects on his five-decade friendship with Nimoy, who played the original Mr. Spock in Star Trek. By the end of his life, Nimoy was no longer speaking with Shatner, who says he doesn’t know why his good friend shut him out of his life.

The actor has written plenty of books, but this one was different, he says.

“Writing a factual book on somebody I really cared about was difficult,” he says. “It took a toll. We had so much in common. Our lives, our backgrounds, even our foregrounds, were strangely in line. So we talked about that a great deal over the years. And yet when you lose somebody that is close to you, all those memories are in jeopardy of being forgotten, they might as well have never happened. You have no validation from the other person. So that was one reason for writing that book, to try and remember some of the incidences and motivations.”

While Shatner may keep busy with writing and directing, one of the reasons he stays in the spotlight is because he remains one of the more prolific celebrity tweeters. The aforementioned exchange with Outlander actor Sam Heughan followed months of online banter between the two.




In 2015, he gained headlines for mocking Star Wars: The Force Awakens in a number of tweets.

A few weeks after this interview, he drew attention by briefly debating morality with author Stephen King in relation to the Netflix series The 100. But while he clearly seems to enjoy it — particularly if he can dictate the tweets (“Typing is onerous,” he says) — maintaining such a high profile online is also a pragmatic exercise. In fact, bringing it up in conversation allows him to plug another one of his many pursuits.

“Not a small part of it is that I raise money for charity, especially for children and veterans, and by making acquaintances that you wouldn’t recognize if they came into a room and they are with a show, they will give me stuff to auction off,” he says. “So the silent auction, for my charity show, which is the Hollywood Charity Horse Show, I’ve gotten really some wonderful stuff that has made use of this celebrity by raising money for kids in need.”

William Shatner is scheduled to appear at the Calgary Expo at Stampede Park from Thursday to Sunday. Visit calgaryexpo.com.




OK, so MY question is. . . where can I see all those documentaries? They never come on TV. They don't appear in theatres. I would DIE to see any one of them, or all three. Do I have to go to film festivals or what??

UPDATE/BADDA-BOOM. This is from the Smithsonian Magazine. Is there nowhere this man doesn't show up? I mean, doesn't he show up nowhere? Doesn't he anywhere NOT show up? Or something. But for some reason, not one article mentions that he looks 65 when he's 85.

William Shatner spoke at Smithsonian Magazine's "The Future is Here" festival. We sat down and asked him questions regarding his thoughts on politics, climate change, and the new Star Trek series. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

We're probably six minutes into a 10-minute interview when I ask William Shatner the question that's been dogging me ever since I found out there was to be an interview.

"Ted Cruz, the Republican presidential candidate, has said that Captain Kirk is a Republican," I said. "Do you agree?"

For Shatner, this could have been an easy question. Who better to answer it than the man who played the swashbuckling "Star Trek" captain on film for nearly 30 years?

Maybe he didn't want to color the way people view his character. Maybe he was channeling the post-partisan politics of "Star Trek's" 23rd century. Whatever the reason, Shatner did a very un-Kirk-like thing: He took evasive action.

"If you could define what 'Republican' and 'Democrat' means nowadays, I might be able to enter into that discussion," he said. "But the roles seem to be mixed. And what defines a Republican and certainly what defines a Democrat is so blurred, I don't quite know where anybody's standing."




So Shatner is very reluctant to talk about politics, it turns out. But if he could cast a ballot today, chances are he wouldn't be voting for Cruz.

You see, Cruz has been a vocal critic of man-made climate change. And Shatner's biggest fear? It's that humanity won't even live to see the 23rd century because of overpopulation and greenhouse gases. In fact, Shatner is disappointed in us all for making 2016 such a letdown compared to the sunny utopia laid out in "Star Trek."

"There was all kinds of interest in flying vehicles and health and the state of the world" among science fiction writers 50 years ago, Shatner said. "That we wouldn't be melting away, into the sixth extinction. It would be a much more pleasant. Peaceful. Humane world. Than it is."

Are there any technologies that worry you? I asked.

"The technology that worries me is the old technologies," Shatner said. "The technology of uses of energy and the spilling of toxins into Mother Earth, and we're killing our Earth and nobody is irate about it enough. And not enough people are irate about it. People like yourself — young people like yourself should be screaming at the top of your lungs to the people who lead."

It's a challenge not even Captain Kirk would be able to take on, Shatner said. Kirk was the captain of a single ship. Climate change is a big collective action problem requiring the input of lots of different actors.

I later asked him whether there was any role on "Star Trek" that Shatner, looking back, would have liked to try. He joked that he might have wanted to replace George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, the USS Enterprise's helmsman. Perhaps it was a dig at Takei, with whom Shatner is said to have a contentious relationship. But it was clear Shatner is preoccupied by bigger things these days than politics, on or off the set.

BLOGGER'S NOTE: Finally. We know Sulu's first name.

These eyes






Coolest thing ever: click on the link!








































http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mcvmagazine/bird_songs_interactive/index.html

And your bird can sing. Click on the link to get the interactive poster. Click on each bird and watch your cat go crazy. (Note. Make sure you don't mouse away from the bird or it will stop singing. Leave the cursor over it. Some of the songs go on for half a minute or so!)


Sunday, April 24, 2016

The puking Olympian (and other Shakespearian inventions)





Words Shakespeare Invented

The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original. Below is a list of a few of the words Shakespeare coined, hyperlinked to the play and scene from which it comes. When the word appears in multiple plays, the link will take you to the play in which it first appears. For a more in-depth look at Shakespeare's coined words, please click here



academeaccusedaddictionadvertisingamazement
arouseassassinationbackingbanditbedroom
beachedbesmirchbirthplaceblanketbloodstained
barefacedblushingbetbumpbuzzer
cakedcaterchampioncircumstantialcold-blooded
compromisecourtshipcountlesscriticdauntless
dawndeafeningdiscontentdisheartendrugged
dwindleepilepticequivocalelbowexcitement
exposureeyeballfashionablefixtureflawed
frugalgenerousgloomygossipgreen-eyed
gusthinthobnobhurriedimpede
impartialinvulnerablejadedlabellackluster
laughablelonelylowerluggagelustrous
madcapmajesticmarketablemetamorphizemimic
monumentalmoonbeammountaineernegotiatenoiseless
obsceneobsequiouslyodeolympianoutbreak
panderspedantpremeditatedpukingradiance
rantremorselesssavageryscufflesecure
skim milksubmergesummitswaggertorture
tranquilundressunrealvariedvaulting
worthlesszanygnarledgrovel




YEE-HAW! Even though I significantly reformatted this thing so I could post it on my antiquated blog, it's still interactive, meaning if you click on ANY of the above words, it'll take y'all to a very lengthy quote in which the word is featured, nay, COINED, by Shakespeare himself. Not quite as cool as the one with the bird calls, but close.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Auto eroticism, part 2: the Popeye connection




As a kid, I am sure I saw this Popeye cartoon (called Service with a Guile, a title no kid would ever understand) repeatedly. I remember thinking the car in it looked a little strange. It wasn't contemporary, not for 1963 anyway. More like 1943. (Today, this is the kind of car I have a major Jones for.)




I don't know what the animators were thinking here. Even as a kid, this cartoon made me a little uneasy. Something decidedly tumescent was happening to this tire as it slowly overinflated while Olive kept - hmmm. Rubbing it and rubbing it. And - 

This is a wartime Popeye, and one of the ways you can tell is that they've glammed Olive up a little bit. She has nicer shoes, for one thing, with high heels, and a more shapely ass. She ain't no pinup girl, she won't give Betty Grable a run for her money, but hey, this is for the kiddies. And that turban! Hubba-hubba.




(Pre-War Olive. Compare and contrast.)




Not only is the car's scrotum about to explode, the fender now has an erection. Can't help it, that's just what I see. Popeye is in a state of panic through all this.




Now HERE is where it gets interesting.  There are these two gigantic red globular "things" that keep expanding and expanding, with this horn-like thing in the middle, and then there are more red bulges coming up behind them with sort of fleshlike creases in them, and then the whole thing stretches and stretches (with a sort of weirdly sensual, tonguelike effect not unlike the Rolling Stones emblem) until you can SEE through it - and there's even a sort of creaking noise for hard-core rubber fetishists - and - 




OMG. The explosion blows them all backwards through a wall, so that they land in different sets of clothing on a clothesline: Popeye is a baby, Bluto is wearing an enticing bustier, and Olive - what the hell does Olive have on, anyway? It sure isn't very sexy. At least she still has her fetish heels on. All these things, now that I look at it, are designed to be humiliating in one way or another. Long red underwear on a woman trying desperately to be a World War II pin-up girl. Bluto, the essence of manhood, in a corset and a bra. And Popeye. . . the Spinachmeister, reduced to helpless infancy.

I can see now why this cartoon disturbed me: it's plain weird, is what it is, and the more I look at that tire blowing up the more uncomfortable I get.



Friday, April 22, 2016

Auto eroticism

                                                                                                                 


                                                                                     
Behold! His Mighty Hand. Or something. I feel as if I'm in one of those Cecil B. DeMille epics where Moses discovers the burning bush and takes off his sandals and falls on his face.


For this is The Ultimate Car. 

YES.

The 1939 Bentley Embiricos.




What is a Bentley Embiricos, you may ask? Hell if I know, except that of all the gorgeous, bulbous old cars I've ever looked at, this one is the most flagrantly, lavishly erotic.




Erotic, because why? Because its bulbousness, femaleness, shyly covered rear wheels implying an intimate boudoir or bridal chamber, contrast startlingly with slyly tapered, fiercely-pointed fenders, an even more fierce point at the tail, and squatty primeval-looking predatory "legs" that throw the whole machine into a kind of snarly crouch.

This is less a car than something alive. Something with animus, with soul.




I don't know who Embiricos was, and I don't care much (except I feel a bit guilty and negligent not researching him for this post). Some race car driver, or someone who could afford to have a whole car designed after him - like Edsel, except this one was GOOD. The Embiricos appears to have been manufactured for several years, from about 1936 to 1939, but I can't see much difference in it from year to year. It just goes from exotically gorgeous to exotically gorgeous.




It's funny, because to me it has more of the look of a '40s car, with all those pregnant-looking bulges. But at the same time there is the pointiness, even angularity, and a raciness that implies gazelle-like speed. You could take this thing out on the track back in 1939 and beat the hell out of all those pathetic Bugattis and whatever-else-was-around.




I think it's obvious by now that I know nothing whatsoever about vintage cars. But I know what I like. I have the most embarrassing reaction to them. I want to sit on the roof of this thing, facing its rear bumper, and just sli-i-i-i-i-i-de on down.




(and omigodlookatthoserearwindowstheymakemewanttoediieeeEEEEEE)

There is a name for this fetish-y thing I'm talking about. Can't remember it, but there was a whole TV series about it, My Amazing Whackadoodle Addiction or Compulsion or something. A woman was going to marry the Eiffel Tower, for example, but I guess he said no. Another woman wanted to marry a carnival ride (which didn't work, by the way - I didn't get that one at all, for if a ride doesn't work, how would you get off?)





I don't really want to marry cars like this one. I want to have lustiferous affairs with them, ride around inside them to the creak of leather and the woah-woah-woah-woah-woah hummy sound of an old-fashioned car engine. I've heard that riding in these things is sort of like being in a Sherman tank (not that I've ever been in one of THOSE either), in that they seem simply huge inside and out. 




Every year, Bill and I go to a local car show which is made up of about 85% vintage: cars older than 40 years. The oldest of these, a Ford predating the Model T, had a crank. The one I first had a real Jones for was a little red Corvette (do they come in any other colour?) that I wanted to slip into my pocket. But in the last few years, the '40s models, wide and swaggering, chugging along like mighty seagoing vessels, have done it for me. 

And yet, look at this one! It predates them all. And from every angle, it looks like a different car. It even looks downright modern from the side. This front view looks very race-car-ish - as a matter of fact, it's downright futuristic, like the Batmobile or Supercar. It looks as if it could easily take off and fly, its rear jets blazing.

But the sleekness from the side. . . oh God. Gulp. I want to lick it, to swallow it. It's just that kind of car. You could put it on a stick in the summer and consume it. 





I'd sing to it. Wrap it up in a blanket at night (one-o-those tarp thingies).




I'd wish upon it, instead of a star.




I'd knock on it, instead of wood.




"BEHOLD, HIS MIGHTY HAND!"


Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Happy Birthday, Harold

































The things you remember to forget




Can I piece this together, or should I just leave it in its natural pieces?

Years ago, when the internet was still somewhat Jurassic and YouTube was all new to me, I kept trying to find something, anything, about an episode of a sci-fi TV show I saw in the '60s. Wasn't sure if it was Twilight Zone, Outer Limits or (my personal favorite, the one that scared the bejeezus out of me) One Step Beyond. 

I don't think I even saw the show, in fact. My much-older sister was reading a description of it out of TV Guide. "A woman doctor awakens to discover that she has become extremely obese." My sister said, "Oh, that sounds like me." I didn't even know it at the time, but she was pregnant and hiding it from the world, including me.

But that wisp of memory is ALL, I swear, that I had to go on.

I did find this on a message board, and thought: I think, I think she's talking about the same thing:




Does anybody remember an episode of Twilight Zone or Outer Limits about a Queen Bee? It isn't the one with the sexy queen bee trying to breed with a human male. This was about a woman who wakes up and discovers she is enormously fat because she is a queen bee and she is never allowed to do anything but breed and be fed. Program, episode and names of actors would be appreciated.

Update: Zzzzzzzz is the one about the sexy queen bee. I'm looking for the one about the morbidly obese queen bee.

Answers

Best Answer: Outer Limits: Zzzzzz

Season 1 Episode 18

Actors: Vic Perrin, Bob Johnson, Ben Wright, Robert Culp, Robert Duvall

It wasn't the Outer Limits, and I believe it was in black and white. I can see the actress, but I can't think of her name. She did a lot of stuff in the 60's and 70's. Sorry to be of no help. Good luck.






It wasn't Zzzzzz, I checked on YouTube. It wasn't even Twilight Zone or Outer Limits or any of those, I obsessively checked the synopsis on every single episode and watched the ones that were available, and no obese doctor. So I gave up. Every so often, every few years I mean, I'd take another half-hearted stab at it. THEN!

Then, just tonight, I found this - this description on IMDB, and bingo-bango.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV Series)

Consider Her Ways (1964)

Plot Summary

Dr. Jane Waterleigh wakes to find herself in an obese body, having just given birth to her fourth baby, and is called "Mother Orchis" and "Mother 417" by an all-female medical staff. The other Mothers, all of whom are corpulent and much larger than their helpers, the Servitors, tell Jane that there are no men, their only responsibility is to give birth, and Mothers neither read nor write.






Jane, however, remembers her past life as a physician and wife, so two policewomen try to arrest her for "reactionism." The Doctors refuse to surrender her, and send her to sick bay, then to Laura, the historian. Laura explains that all of the men died decades ago, when a Dr. Perrigan developed a virus to control the rat population, but the strain mutated, killing all male humans, but sparing females, who were immune.




Now only women survive, and they are sorted at birth into four classes--Doctors, Mothers, Servitors, and Workers--and raised in learning centers. When Laura tells Jane that she will now receive an hypnotic treatment, a drug-induced amnesia to remove all of her memory, she becomes hysterical, and returns to her earlier world. 

She is in the office of Dr. Hellyer, her boss and the Chief of Staff at her hospital, who reminds her that she volunteered to test a new narcotic, Sonadrin, which apparently took her to the fantastic matriarchal world from which she just escaped. She discovers that Dr. Perrigan is a real biologist, who is working on a myxomatosis strain to exterminate brown rats.




She meets Perrigan and tries to convince him to discontinue his project, but he refuses, so she shoots him, lights a fire using all of Perrigan's research notes, and burns down his laboratory. She is tried for murder, but refuses to plead insanity, and insists that her sacrifice is worthwhile, since she is saving humanity from a terrible future. 

Then her attorney, Max Wilding, tells her that Perrigan has a son, another Dr. Perrigan, who promises to complete his father's work.




OK THEN! Great episode, based on a short story by John Wyndham (which I now have to find!). I decided to post the entire (detailed) synopsis because it's so fascinatingly bizarre. It DOES have termite queen aspects to it (and dear GOD do not get me going on termite queens, those seething bags of - ). I do not have the video, and the only photos are these godawful grainy things I scrounged and blew up. There is a mere snippet from the ending on YouTube, from which I have made a few not-very-good gifs.

But it's gratifying to realize that from that tiny wisp of memory, I have been able to retrieve something this tangible. Hell of a good story, too - too bad I didn't watch it.




BADDA-BOOM: There's got to be a rim shot to this. The actress in this episode was catching my mind at first - boy, she looked familiar (one of those!), until one of my Google image searches just sort of stuck her name in my face.

I remember her from Barney Miller! And many other things, of course - she had one of those long careers character actresses used to have.  And now that I think of it, my older sister - the pregnant one - (the termite queen, I mean) - used to watch The Alfred Hitchcock Hour all the time, and wouldn't be caught dead watching One Step Beyond. That sort of show was for the common rabble. Hitchcock was Art.

So I should've remembered. Eh?




POSTLY POST: So the next day, like ripping a bandaid off something barely healed, I began to look for some more. Can't leave it alone, it seems.

Enthralling as that story outline seemed, there were holes in it, and parts of it that didn't make much sense. This was the only other detailed synopsis I could find, from Wikipedia:

The story is mostly a first-person narrative. It begins with a woman (Jane Waterleigh) who has no memory of her past waking up and discovering that she is a mother of some description, in a bloated body that is not her own. After some confusing experiences Jane's memory gradually returns and she recalls that she was part of an experiment using a drug (chuinjuatin) to see if it enabled people to have out-of-body experiences. It seems that the drug has worked far better than anyone could have anticipated: Jane has been cast into the future. She also realises that she is in a society consisting entirely of women, organised into a strict system of castes, and that she is now a member of the mother caste. Jane's initial contacts have never even heard of men, and believe her to be delusional.





When it becomes clear to doctors who attend Jane that something strange has happened (since she can read and write, while the mother caste are illiterate) they arrange for her to be taken to meet an aged historian named Laura. It seems that Jane is in a society somewhat more than a century after her own time. Laura relates that not long after Jane's own time a Dr Perrigan carried out scientific experiments that unintentionally created a virus that killed all the men in the world, leaving only women. After a very difficult period of famine and breakdown, a small number of educated women, found mainly in the medical profession, took control and embarked on an urgent programme of research to enable women to reproduce without males. The women also decided to follow some advice from the Bible ("Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways") and created a caste-based society in which Jane has become a member of the Mother caste.





Laura does understand what Jane means when she talks of men. However, she is certain that they were oppressors of women and that the world is far better without them. Jane disagrees and feels the demise of men to be a terrible blow.

Distressed at the prospect of spending her life as a bloated producer of babies, expected to be unable to read, write or reason, Jane requests that she be administered a dose of chuinjuatin in the hope that she might return to her own time. It works, and once transported, Jane decides to stop Dr Perrigan at all costs. The story has an ambiguous ending, which may suggest that it is the narrator's own actions that will lead to the catastrophe she hopes to prevent, an example of the predestination paradox.

This is actually the synopsis of the original John Wyndham short story, though the Wiki entry says the Hitchcock adaptation was "fairly faithful" (though transplanted to the U. S. Note the word "programme" in the synopsis - even we Canadians don't use terms that antiquated and bulky).

But here's one more snippet: a review posted on a Hitchcock fan site. Gives a little more insight into this strange and twisted thing. This just makes me want to see it all the more, but I'd have to order it on DVD or something, along with 576 other episodes.




This was a weirdly disturbing episode...but NOT for the reasons presented. In the future, men are dead and the surviving woman have become a single-gender society, with classes and levels organized along the same lines as the Ants. A woman wakes with no memory of who she is...and finds she's a hugely obese, barely mobile woman named "Mother Orchis" who (as a mother) is genetically designed to have babies...and nothing else. She gradually remembers she has a husband (nobody even knows what a 'man' is), can read and write (something Mother Orchis can't do) and was in fact a doctor. The story's pretty facinating (involving mental projection and time travel) but the the whole "No woman is complete without her man!" message has an ugly ring to it. Still, I'm charmed by the effectiveness of the primitive fat-suits and the sight of those huge woman, reclining on couches and eating...being massaged by servants (drones) and existing in this strange society that survived the loss of the other gender and adapted.

(I have just one question. Wouldn't they still have male babies? Did they kill them all off, or what? Unless perhaps they cloned themselves, but that part of it is never explained.)