Rod Serling hearkened back to his days as host of 'The Twilight Zone' when he opened up this show with the words "we submit for your approval this and other frozen moments of nightmare placed on canvas". You could always count on Serling for some poignant remarks about the story to follow, so that was a nice bit of nostalgia for Twilight Zone fans.
I had the opening story figured out after the first round of signals offered by Dr. Redford (Carl Betz), thinking to myself, how did he remember the various sequence of knocks for each of the conditions simulated by John Fearing (Michael Blodgett)? That he could get confused when bringing Fearing back from the dead was entirely plausible, but therein lies an inconsistency in the story. If Fearing were 'dead', how would he respond to the three-two knock in the first place? No sense worrying about it, the payoff was what one tuned in for with this show, and the one here was perfectly suited for the story.
'The Housekeper' segment had an inconsistency of it's own which I'll get to, but wasn't Larry Hagman a trip in this episode? I believe it's the only time I've ever seen him in a role with a beard, and I have a suspicion it wasn't real, but who cares. The story combines a little science with a little black magic, and for any married man watching the show, might contain perhaps a little bit of 'what if'? Cedric Acton hit upon the perfect solution to replacing his wife but invariably fell victim to a unique case of unintended consequences. The ending would have been classic, except for one thing. If the former Miss Wattle's (Jeanette Nolan) personality now resided in Acton's wife Carlotta (Suzy Parker), then how would the 'new' exchange prospect have the understanding to ask Acton how many more times they would have to do this. The response 'Until we get it right' was a great twist ending, but not really possible given the original premise.
I had the opening story figured out after the first round of signals offered by Dr. Redford (Carl Betz), thinking to myself, how did he remember the various sequence of knocks for each of the conditions simulated by John Fearing (Michael Blodgett)? That he could get confused when bringing Fearing back from the dead was entirely plausible, but therein lies an inconsistency in the story. If Fearing were 'dead', how would he respond to the three-two knock in the first place? No sense worrying about it, the payoff was what one tuned in for with this show, and the one here was perfectly suited for the story.
'The Housekeper' segment had an inconsistency of it's own which I'll get to, but wasn't Larry Hagman a trip in this episode? I believe it's the only time I've ever seen him in a role with a beard, and I have a suspicion it wasn't real, but who cares. The story combines a little science with a little black magic, and for any married man watching the show, might contain perhaps a little bit of 'what if'? Cedric Acton hit upon the perfect solution to replacing his wife but invariably fell victim to a unique case of unintended consequences. The ending would have been classic, except for one thing. If the former Miss Wattle's (Jeanette Nolan) personality now resided in Acton's wife Carlotta (Suzy Parker), then how would the 'new' exchange prospect have the understanding to ask Acton how many more times they would have to do this. The response 'Until we get it right' was a great twist ending, but not really possible given the original premise.