Episode Spotlight: "The Brain Center at Whipple's" (5/15/1964)

Season 5, Episode 33 (153 overall)

Originally aired 5/15/1964

Cayuga Production # 2632

Wallace V. Whipple is gleefully automating his factory, boosting profits but forcing scores of loyal employees into unemployment. Chief engineer Hanley is righteously horrified, but it ends up being plant manager Dickerson who steps up and takes action: he gets himself plastered late one night and attacks one of the computer banks in the soulless factory. Whipple grabs the night watchman’s pistol and puts a nonfatal bullet into him to protect his investment.

Hanley is let go shortly thereafter, followed by a programmer who complains that the factory is too quiet. Alone, Whipple goes stir crazy in short order and, when one of the machines malfunctions, he loses his cool altogether.

Whipple finds Hanley in a nearby tavern some weeks later, and informs him that he too has been phased out… and replaced by a machine. He laments about man’s obsolescence in the face of technology, finally experiencing first hand the misery that his greed has created. We close on Whipple’s replacement, a rather familiar automaton…

Rod Serling’s “The Brain Center at Whipple’s” (which turns fifty years old tonight) reaches for meaning in its exploration of man’s dependence on --- and possible subjugation by --- the machines he builds for his own convenience. It’s certainly a potent concept, one we’ve seen pop up multiple times this season, but here Serling renders it all but mute beneath the overblown, at times near-histrionic, speechifying the characters engage in. After a while it’s all just noise. We want to sympathize with Joe Six-pack (er, Dickerson), but by the time he’s done with his drunken rant, I kinda wanted to shoot him too. Hanley comes out the hero of the piece, but he doesn’t actually do anything but occupy the moral heart of the piece; nothing he says makes a damn bit of difference.  The worst offender is Dickerson, whose drunken rampage is made all the creepier by the fact that he stares directly into the camera for a really long time.

The direction by Richard Donner is serviceable, actually decent in spots (I do enjoy the montages, but I guess that’s more editing than direction). And it’s a pretty small detail, but I love the fact that the neon Whipple sign is visible through the window of the nearby bar (this may be more set-decoration than direction). And Hanley’s surprise slapping of Whipple is quite convincingly staged (there; that’s gotta be thanks to Donner, unless there was a stunt coordinator on the set). Donner will be back next week for “Come Wander with Me,” which is much more stylish.

The final scene in Whipple’s office, in which things have clearly began to unravel, contains what I can only assume is an intentional sight gag. The walls are covered with hand-written equations and formulas; presumably Whipple has been feverishly trying to figure out even more ways to maximize efficiency around the plant. Given the episode’s obvious cautionary-tale angle, we’re seeing the literal “handwriting on the wall.” But y'now... if I zoom in on the picture, the writing looks more like scratches. So hell, what do I know?

If the super computers around Whipple’s plant look familiar, it’s because we’ve seen variations on them twice this season (“The Old Man in the Cave” and, more recently, “From Agnes – With Love”). They have less personality here, which I suppose is appropriate (Agnes, by contrast, was positively alive); I suppose they’ll be more interesting to look at when they eventually attain sentience, maybe after Whipple’s factory is taken over by Cyberdyne Systems.

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THE MUSIC

“The Brain Center at Whipple’s” is stock-scored almost exclusively with cues by Marius Constant, who of course is responsible for the famous Twilight Zone theme used for four of the show’s five seasons. The cue titles (“F Story,” “A Story,” “D Story,” etc.) suggest that they all come from the same work, but I couldn’t tell you what it is. I’m guessing it was composed specifically for the CBS Music Library to be used for a variety of purposes (remember, Constant’s TZ theme is actually two pieces of stock music spliced together). I should also note that Constant composed two original scores for the 2003 UPN Twilight Zone series (for the episodes “Burned” and “Rewind”); I must admit this is a cool historical note, even though I pretty much despise the UPN series.

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Richard Deacon stars as Wallace V. Whipple in his only TZ appearance; he’d cross paths with Rod Serling again in 1973 on Serling’s Night Gallery (“How to Cure the Common Vampire”). Genre fans may also recall his role as Dr. Bassett in 1955’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which starred TZ alum Kevin McCarthy); eagle-eyed viewers might also have glimpsed him in This Island Earth that same year (he had an uncredited bit part as a pilot). Most TV viewers probably remember Deacon best as Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66).

Mr. Hanley is played by Paul Newlan in his only TZ appearance. Newlan has a secondary Rod Serling connection: he appeared in 1956’s The Rack, the big-screen adaptation of Serling’s 1955 teleplay for The United States Steel Hour, in which he shared the screen with several future TZ alums, including Anne Francis, Lee Marvin, and Cloris Leachman. Newland doesn’t have much else in the way of genre credits, but he did appear on Boris Karloff’s Thriller an impressive four times (“The Big Blackout,” “The Cheaters,” “The Grim Reaper,” and “The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk”).

That drunken lout Dickerson is played by Ted de Corsia, who played Marty Sall way back in season one’s “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine.” De Corsia also did two tours on The Outer Limits (“It Crawled Out of the Woodwork” and the two-part “The Inheritors”). His other genre appearances include The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“The Magic Shop”) and the aforementioned Thriller (“The Fingers of Fear”).

Robby the Robot (Dion Hansen) makes his second TZ appearance (he had a much more prominent role in “Uncle Simon” earlier this season) and, in doing so, gives us one more Forbidden Planet alert! before the series ends in a few short weeks. Bittersweet? Definitely.

Robby with TZ alum Earl Holliman.

In perusing the cast list for this episode, I was momentarily excited to see that the part of “Night Watchman” was played by none other than suave 70’s game show host Bert Convy… until I read it again. It’s Burt Conroy, playing the night watchman at Whipple’s factory. I’m not gonna lie… I’m a bit disappointed.

L.A. artist (and super nice guy) Woody Welch has shared several TZ sketches and paintings via his Facebook page in recent months, including a great sketch of Mr. Whipple himself, Richard Deacon. Woody has an uncanny knack for capturing facial likenesses, and this is no exception. Oh, and here’s a Welchified Robby the Robot too!

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“The Brain Center at Whipple’s” is generally maligned by reviewers, but I don’t dislike it. Its main fault is the usual over-written Serling dialogue which, despite its inflated nature, still manages to crackle here and there. The performances are fine, it looks nice… and hell, we get another Robby the Robot cameo. I just can’t hate it.

Couldn’t happen, you say? Look at that smartphone or tablet in your hand, and reflect on much you rely on it. Maybe it’s not banks of computers or bulky robots that have subjected us, but we’re very clearly ruled by the technology we’ve created.

Next week:

A conniving rockabilly singer runs afoul of some scary mountain folk. Probably not a comedy.

Episode Spotlight: "Uncle Simon" (11/15/1963)

Season 5, episode 8 (128 overall)

Originally aired 11/15/1963

Cayuga Production # 2604

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to tonight’s heavyweight bout. In this corner, hobbling with a cane and demanding hot chocolate, is Simon Polk, retired university professor and inventor of mechanical gizmos and gadgets. And in this corner: frumpy, bitter and beaten down after years of verbal abuse, let’s hear it for Barbara Polk, Simon’s niece, caregiver and sole heir to his estate. It’s a grudge match for the ages, folks. And now. without further ado… let’s get ready to rumble!

Rod Serling’s “Uncle Simon,” turning 50 years old tonight, finds the titular Simon and his niece Barbara locked in mortal emotional warfare.  They bicker, needle, sneer and shout their way through the first half of the episode. Seriously, nothing actually happens until Simon takes a fatal plunge down the stairs during an altercation with Barbara. 

Simon’s will dictates that, as his only living relative, Barbara is to inherit the entirety of his estate, on the singular condition that she provides ongoing care for his latest experiment, which just happens to be awaiting activation downstairs in his lab.  Kids, meet the third corner of this odd, uncomfortable triangle…

Ba-ba-ra!

Simon has created an automaton which, after a few days, begins to take on his mannerisms (not to mention his penchant for hot chocolate; odd that a mechanical being could ingest liquids, but whatever). Before you know it, its voice synthesizer starts to sound like Simon’s voice, at which point the vicious insults resume. When the robot demands that Barbara address him as “Uncle Simon,” well… it appears she’s stuck for good, unless she wants to be broke and homeless. So I guess that means that Simon, by far the more offensive and cruel of the two, wins….? Is this fitting? Is this justice? No, it’s another example of the show’s moral compass drifting out of whack, a disappointing hallmark of season five.

When I first discovered The Twilight Zone when I was in middle school, I used to tape record episodes and listen to them over and over again (this was a couple of years before we got our first VCR). I recall listening to my recording of “Uncle Simon” frequently (probably because my sarcastic nature was beginning to bloom at that age, so I would've found the over-the-top verbal abuse entertaining… I still kinda do, in all honesty). Naturally I've become a bit more discerning over the ensuing three decades, so the episodes flaws are much more apparent. The characters are drawn so thin that it’s impossible to really care about either one of them (though it seems Barbara may have been at least somewhat human in her youth, before Simon berated her into the “bovine crab” she’s become).

At the helm is Don Siegel, who also directed 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which starred TZ alum Kevin McCarthy), one of my Top 20 favorite films of all time. Seeing as how “Uncle Simon” is bereft of any perceptible style aesthetic (excepting the inclusion of Robby the Robot, which adds significant production value), I think it’s safe to assume Siegel phoned this one in. Hell, I probably would've done the same.

Not to say “Uncle Simon” is a total loss. I do like the decision to have the robot develop and mature over time, à la Adam Link (from the “I, Robot” series of short stories by Earl and Otto Binder). And of course we have the always-welcome Forbidden Planet alert in the form of Robby the Robot, who can always be counted on to brighten things up, here playing Simon’s mechanized surrogate. And despite the drab, uninteresting direction, there’s a cool dissolve between a Barbara’s face and a clock face, which I guess is more an editing choice than anything else. It’s a nice visual, in any case.

Robby the Robot was given a custom head for this episode (a clever way to differentiate this from his other TV and film appearances), which looks convincingly homemade with its visible rivets and whatnot (the eyebrows are an odd choice, however). The man inside the costume is Dion Hansen, who will also inhabit the role (har har) in “The Brain Center at Whipple’s” later this season. Of special interest (to me, at least) is the fact that the robot is voiced by none other than Vic Perrin, whose day job at the time was narrating The Outer Limits as the Control Voice.

“Uncle Simon” is scored with stock music from the CBS Music Library. I've commented in past entries that the stock selections are generally made with commendable deftness; unfortunately, something went wrong here. Jerry Goldsmith’s “The Big Tall Wish,” with its wistful harmonica, is used in several key scenes (including the closing scene), and it sounds awkwardly out of place. Further, a couple of shock “stings” by D.B. Ray are employed in moments that really don’t call for them (Simon sneaking up on Barbara in the opening scene and, later, the robot uttering Barbara’s name for the first time; neither are anywhere near as earth-shatteringly urgent as the music would suggest).

FAMILIAR FACES

Sir Cedric Hardwicke is nasty, brutal and thoroughly detestable in his only TZ appearance, but he turned in a memorable performance as the blind servant Colas in The Outer Limits’ “The Form of Things Unknown.” He also appeared in several of Universal’s classic horror films, including 1942’s The Ghost of Frankenstein.

Constance Ford (Barbara Polk) is sufficiently unpleasant in her only TZ appearance. She never showed up on The Outer Limits, but she managed to appear on almost every other genre TV show in the 50’s and 60’s, including Inner Sanctum, Lights Out, Climax!, Suspense, and ‘Way Out. 

Ian Wolfe (Simon’s estate attorney Schwimmer) only graced the TZ set this one time, but he crossed paths with Rod Serling again in 1972 on Night Gallery (“Deliveries in the Rear”); however, genre fans will likely best remember him as the cosmic librarian Mr. Atoz in the Star Trek episode “All Our Yesterdays” (which also featured Mariette Hartley, who we’ll see later this season in “The Long Morrow”).

Marc Scott Zicree’s The Twilight Zone Companion (and the IMDB) lists John McLiam in the cast as a police officer but, unfortunately, you won’t see him anywhere because his scene was cut (thanks to Martin Grams’ exhaustive The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic for this bit of trivia). McLiam appeared in three other TZ episodes (“The Shelter,” “The Midnight Sun” and as the sympathetic museum guard in “Miniature”), so I’m mentioning him despite his scene here getting the ax.

I can’t dismiss “Uncle Simon” outright, as much as I’d like to. Hardwicke and Ford are both fine in their underwritten and one-dimensional roles, and some of their combative dialogue is admittedly fun (albeit bizarre; try dropping “garbage head” or “bovine crab” into a conversation and see what happens). And of course there’s the wonderful Robby the Robot, who I fetishize almost as much as The Invader. File this one under “N” for Not Entirely Bad and scram, you angular turnips.

Next week (intended):

TZ alum Gladys Cooper is getting obscene phone calls. Okay, maybe they aren't exactly obscene,

but they’re definitely creepy.*

* The episode “Night Call” was scheduled to air on 11/22/1963.  On that date, at 12:30 in the afternoon in Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In light of the massive nationwide turmoil and grieving that ensued, most television programming was preempted, Twilight Zone included. To keep the series’ weekly schedule intact going forward, “Night Call” was moved to the next available slot (2/07/1964). Serling’s “next week” promos have been conveniently rearranged on Image Entertainment’s blu-ray release of Season Five to reflect this change.

In two weeks (actual):

Mars Meets Venus.  Again. *sigh*

Repeat Report: Summer 1961, Part 2

The Twilight Zone's repeat schedule for summer 1961 (post-season 2) was 14 weeks in length, and was composed entirely of repeats from the show's first season. We covered the first half here, and we'll cover the second half here. It appears I missed two fairly obvious Forbidden Planet connections in my initial episode promos, so I'll spotlight 'em here. Oh, and make sure to click on the images to see the full-size HD beauty, thanks to Image Entertainment's stunning blu-ray release.

07/28/1961
"Elegy"
(originally broadcast 02/19/1960)

Forbidden Planet alert! Check out the mega-cool "Pac Man" lights, which were originally part of the film's ancient Krell laboratory... we also saw them previously in "People Are Alike All Over," and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they pop up again in the series' run.

08/04/1961

"Mirror Image"
(originally broadcast 02/26/1960)

Damn you, Vera Miles! I'm still waiting for my autographed 8x10...

08/11/1961

"One for the Angels"
(originally broadcast 10/09/1959)

Forbidden Planet alert! There's Robby the Robot, in wind-up toy form, making his first of three Twilight Zone appearances. Note the rather TZesque eyeball sticker on his dome.

08/18/1961

"The Big Tall Wish"
(originally broadcast 04/08/1960)


08/25/1961
"The Chaser"
(originally broadcast 05/13/1960)

09/01/1961

"Nightmare as a Child"
(originally broadcast 04/29/1960)

09/08/1961

"A World of His Own"
(originally broadcast 07/01/1960)

What can I say? I'm kind of a big deal.

Season 3 commences on 9/15 with a haunting tale of a chance encounter between mortal enemies. We'll witness firsthand that the line between love and hate is quite thin indeed. It's "Two" good to miss.