Episode Spotlight: "Sounds and Silences" (4/03/1964)

Season 5, Episode 27 (147 overall)

Originally aired 4/03/1964

Cayuga Production # 2631

Fifty years ago, a man found himself victimized by a surreal, aural nightmare. Besieged by unknown forces, he bravely attempts to…. oh, screw it. I can’t polish this turd, nor am I inclined to try.

Roswell G. Flemington is obsessed with all things nautical, particularly recordings of actual naval battles, which he regularly blares at full volume. After twenty years of wedded misery, his wife finally leaves him, after which his hearing becomes inexplicably sensitive: quiet sounds like dripping water become deafening roars to him. He sees a doctor, who refers him a psychiatrist, who makes the staggeringly clinical diagnosis that it's all in his head; moreover, he can choose to exercise control over it.

Bolstered, Flemington goes home, where he finds his estranged wife, there to pick up the last of her things. He uses “mind over matter” to reduce her voice to a whisper. Smugly satisfied, he goes to play one of his beloved naval battle records, which he finds he can’t hear at all. He then comes to the horrifying realization that he can’t hear anything at all.

Well folks, here it is: the single worst episode of season five. I’m not quite prepared to place it below “Mr. Bevis” or “Four O’clock,” but I’ll definitely rank it in the bottom five of the entire series. First and foremost, there’s almost no story at all. Loud guy suddenly develops super-sensitive hearing, and then abruptly (and presumably) loses his hearing entirely. That's it. It’s essentially a depiction of a man losing a vital sensory function. How is that a Twilight Zone? Is causing an asshole to become disabled really Cosmic Justice?

I could almost find it in myself to sympathize with the ol' guy a bit. Almost. Not quite.

It doesn’t help matters that Flemington is such a complete and utter tool, or that there’s a ridiculous amount of overacting on John McGiver’s part, particularly every time he (over)reacts to the exaggerated sounds around him (it’s almost as if he’s using his facial expressions to compete with them). Seriously, how flagrantly obnoxious can one character be? Flemington makes previous Obnoxiometer™ placers like Roger Shackleforth and George P. Hanley seem positively likable by comparison. In fact.... I can't believe I'm about to do this, but.... 

That's right.... he's worse than James B.W. Bevis. That's quite a feat, Mr. Flemington.

“Sounds and Silences” is yet another episode that, once aired, resulted in somebody crying plagiarism and suing Cayuga Productions. Since litigation was still pending, the episode wasn’t included in the syndication package, and remained buried for 20 years. When the series turned 25 in 1984, it was resurrected along with vault-mates “Miniature” and “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” for a syndicated special. The episode is now easily viewed via Hulu and Netflix, and can be acquired in the various DVD and Blu-ray iterations of the series.

Rod Serling had to have known his teleplay was an utter piece of shit; however, he clearly didn’t care anymore at this late point in the series. There’s a whiff of season two’s “The Mind and the Matter” as Flemington utilizes what he calls “mind over matter” to minimize the sound of his wife’s voice. Serling wrote that one too; I guess it’s the closest to an antecedent we’ll find for “Sounds and Silences.” In the director’s chair this week is Richard Donner, who also helmed “From Agnes - With Love” (‘nuff said).

THE MUSIC

“Sounds and Silences” is notable (I guess) for having no actual underscore; aside from the copious sound effects herein, there are only a few brief snatches of nautical source cues played on Flemington’s hi-fi.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

I despise Roswell G. Flemington; however, I do like John McGiver quite a bit. We last saw him in season four’s “The Bard" but, to me, he’ll always be the noble democrat Senator Thomas Jordan in 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate.

Mrs. Flemington (no first name, apparently) is played by Penny Singleton, probably best known as Blondie Bumstead in the long-running Blondie film series (1938-1950). If she sounds more familiar than she looks, it’s because you've undoubtedly heard her as the voice of Jane Jetson on TV’s The Jetsons.

Michael Fox plays the unnamed psychiatrist (I love how the nameplate on his door reads, simply, “Psychiatrist”). This is his third sojourn into The Twilight Zone: he played the doctor in season one’s “Nightmare as a Child,” and was one half of the two-head Martian in season two’s “Mr. Dingle, the Strong.” He also popped up on the 80’s Twilight Zone revival in “A Message from Charity."

Francis de Sales plays the unnamed doctor (give these people some names, for Rod’s sake!). Genre fans may have spotted him in the Outer Limits episode “The Mice,” which also turned 50 recently.

“Sounds and Silences,” like its protagonist, is all bluster and no substance; there’s honestly nothing of value here. The completest in me is relieved that it’s available along with its Lost Five kin, but its relative rarity doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the worst offerings in the entire series. I’m filing it under “S” for “sucks” and turning a deaf ear to it for the rest of my days. 

Next week:

Season three's "The Dummy" gets a late-in-the-game surprise repeat airing, and---- wait, what? It's not a repeat? It's a new episode? We're doing another dummy story?  Really....?

TZ Promo: "The Bard" (5/23/1963)

Season 4, Episode 18 (#120 overall)

Cayuga Production # 4852

Originally aired May 23, 1963

50 years ago tonight, an ex-streetcar conductor-turned-struggling television writer found a supernatural route to instant success, with the help of history’s greatest playwright.

“The Bard,” the eighteenth and final episode of The Twilight Zone’s abbreviated fourth season, finds Julius Moomer badgering his agent, Mr. Hugo, into giving him a crack at a pilot for a series about black magic. Does he know anything about black magic? Of course not, but he’ll happily research it. Hugo, clearly exasperated with Moomer’s aggressive begging, relents.

Our first indicator that supernatural forces are at work comes when Moomer visits a book shop in search of material for said research. An ancient tome (cleverly titled Ye Book of Ye Black Arte) flies from a shelf, apparently of its own volition, and lands at his feet. Spooked, the clerk lets him have the book gratis and hustles him on his way. Moomer’s subsequent attempts at conjuring (what exactly he’s trying to conjure isn't clear) appear unsuccessful at first, but his misfortunes reverse when he inadvertently summons….

…yup, it’s William Shakespeare himself. He doesn't seem terribly nonplussed to have inexplicably materialized in the twentieth century; in fact, he rather congenially agrees to ghostwrite Moomer’s pilot assignment. The Tragic Cycle results, Moomer gains instant acclaim from the Television City bigwigs, Shakespeare objects to the sponsor-demanded changes to his work and, as the saying goes, hilarity ensues.

“The Bard” is surprisingly successful for a Serling-penned comedy (like earlier entries “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” and “The Night of the Meek”; his other attempts are dreadfully unfunny and, in the cases of “Mr. Bevis” and “Mr. Dingle, the Strong,” actually rage-inducing). Since most of the characters here are larger-than-life, Serling’s inflated and unrealistic dialogue isn't as glaringly inappropriate (an exception is Cora, a meddlesome kid in Moomer’s building who suspects he’s up to no good):

Caption:  Seriously, what 12 year-old talks like this?

Much of the success of “The Bard” stems from Serling’s inside perspective on the inanities associated with television production. Shakespeare’s bristling against network interference, for example, comes straight out of Serling’s own well-documented experience with censorship of his pre-TZ work.If you haven’t seen it, there’s a remarkable Mike Wallace interview with Serling in which this very topic is discussed in detail.

There’s also a marvelous in-joke in the episode’s prologue: among Moomer’s many failed TV series ideas is one in which he proposes to turn The Millionaire into The Multi-Millionaire and expanding it to fill an hour time slot.  Serling is clearly jabbing CBS for its questionable decision to do that very thing to The Twilight Zone (his point must have hit home, seeing as how the very next episode aired --- the season five opener “In Praise of Pip” --- found the show returned to its original half-hour format).

Jack Weston is perfectly cast as the talentless but endlessly determined Julius Moomer. We last saw Weston murder poor Pete Van Horn in season one’s “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.”  

The great John Williams (no, not the film composer) shines as the beleaguered William Shakespeare.  Williams was a frequent face on TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents; he also appeared in Hitch’s Dial M for Murder and To Catch a Thief. His last role was Sire Montrose on the “War of the Gods” episode of TV’s Battlestar Galactica in 1979.

The estimable John McGiver appears as Mr. Shannon, the soup magnet whose company is sponsoring The Tragic Cycle, and we’ll see him again in season five’s “Sounds and Silences.” McGiver is excellent as liberal Senator Thomas Jordan in one of my favorite films, 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, in which he famously takes a fatal bullet through a carton of milk.

A young Burt Reynolds offers his services as Rocky Rhodes, the actor cast in The Tragic Cycle’s lead. Rhodes is an obvious lampoon of the method actors of the day, but Reynolds goes the extra mile and infuses him with a certain, shall we say, dullness of mind that is truly hilarious to behold. Reynolds went on to a storied career in film, and was apparently quite a sex symbol in the 70’s, as evidenced by his appearance in Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1972.

Effective March 23, 2015, Blogger will disallow all sexually explicit or graphic nude images. Therefore, ol' Burt's nether region must be concealed. Sorry, guys 'n dolls.

I hadn't seen “The Bard” in probably 20 years or so before scanning the episode for screen captures recently. Reynolds’ performance brought to mind Matt Leblanc’s dimwitted but lovable Joey Tribbiani from TV’s Friends. I dunno, maybe it’s just me (betcha never thought you’d see a Friends reference here, did you?).

Fred Steiner was commissioned to create original music for “The Bard,” his seventh and final contribution to The Twilight Zone’s musical landscape. His score is comprised solely of brief, comical cues (appropriate, since there’s really no drama to be found here) and, while it all works fine within the context of the episode, I’m sure they could’ve pulled similar cues from the CBS Music Library (for free!) and used Steiner’s considerable talents elsewhere (stock scores were used in a number of season four episodes which certainly deserved original music, like “In His Image,” “Death Ship” and “Printer’s Devil”). Steiner also contributed the score for “I Dream of Genie” earlier this season, which was equally pointless… man, what a waste. For Rod’s sake, this is the guy who gave us “The Passersby” in season three, which stands one of the all-time great TZ scores! Anyway, if you care, Steiner’s underscore for “The Bard” is isolated on both DVD releases (volume 42 and the season 4 Definitive Edition set) and the more recent season 4 blu-ray release, so you know where to go if you want funny music to accompany those cat videos you’re about to upload to YouTube.

“The Bard” is a nice hearty chuckle to close out the series’ abbreviated fourth season. The Twilight Zone would return for its final season in September 1963, which means we’ll be back in September of this year to celebrate each episode’s 50th anniversary. I imagine it’ll be pretty quiet ‘round here between now and then... Have a great summer!