The Ray Bradbury Theater
Season 2

THE FRUIT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL

A betrayed husbands murders his wife's lover and then realises he has a mammoth job removing all his fingerprints from the scene.

The opening episode of this second season of the anthology show opens with a non-genre episode, though it stars genre favourite Michael Ironside and the original Man from U.N.C.L.E. Robert Vaughan. Instead, this episode returns to the theme of what lies in the darkness of men's hearts, both the broken would-be author husband and the loathesome lothario. For once, character is completely to the fore here as the entire running time of the episode maps out the crumbling sanity of a man driven over the edge, flashing back to the earlier events that led to violence.

This means that both actors are given plenty to work with. Michael Ironside plays against his hard man stereotype as the weak, cuckolded husband whose sanity is eroded away by the awful reality of what he has done, whilst Robert Vaughan uses his much shorter screen time to craft a dominant, hatefully arrogant man with a secret that gives us the twist in the tail, but also informs the whole character.

The plot barely exists, but the episode is riveting and thoroughly satisfying. It is probably the best of the series to date and a good start to the new season.

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SKELETON

Bert is a hypochondriac and this week it is his bones that seem to be bothering him. Since his regular doctor wants nothing more to do with his malingering, he seeks out a bone doctor who offers a very bizarre form of treatment.

Skeleton is the most perverse and humorous of the episodes to date. It has at its core a light and funny performance from Eugene Levy as a man whose imagined illnesses are enough to make him instantly as annoying to the audience as he is to everyone else in the story. The snapshot we are given of his home life leaves us with nothing but sympathy for his long-suffering wife.

Unfortunately, a story needs more than just a central performance to hold it up, and there is precious little else going on here. The doctor Bert goes to is so obviously sketchy, that nobody, not even Bert, would go back for a second opinion. What story there is leads up to a final scene punchline that has the benefit of being a decent special effect and quite amusing, but hardly a satisfying conclusion.

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THE EMISSARY

A bed-ridden boy uses his roaming dog as a window on the outside world. One day, he has the idea of getting his dog to bring home some company and his life is changed forever.

For much of the time, we have been bemoaning the running time of the show being too short for the stories it is trying to tell. For once, this story feels too slight even for this running time and is padded out with lingering shots of a dog leaping in the sunlight and running through the streets. Much of it plays out like it has been marinaded overnight in a soft summer sunset. We get it, this is a rose-tinted remembrance of childhood, of friendship, of a first crush.

And talking of crushes, this episodes loves Helen Shaver. There's nothing wrong with that, but she is introduced through a slow-motion soft focus haze that would be more appropriate for a supermodel in a high fashion advert than a schoolteacher and mentor. It is true, however, that her presence is more as a symbol than as an actual character. Many of her scenes are montaged to create the illusion of time passing and friendship bonding.

But what's this - some genre material creeping in at the end? Does she know something bad is going to happen to her? After all the soft glow nonsense before it, the supposedly chilling final shot fails to scare.

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GOTCHA!

Two people fall madly in love after meeting dressed as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy at a costume party. The woman then suggests a game of Gotcha! What is that, you ask? The boyfriend is about to find out it's an hour of terror.

Once again, muddy storytelling mars what might otherwise have been an excellent episode. The opening section depicting the couple's first meeting and early courtship is very nicely done, creating a real sense of togetherness and a relationship that convinces. When the night of the game of Gotcha! arrives, there is plenty of creepy imagery and an increasing sense of dread, but the outcome fails to provide a resolution. Was any of it real, or just in his head? Is there more to the girlfriend or was it just a silly game that got out of hand? Was his reaction to her game real or just a game of his own? Inconclusive endings can be intriguing, but this one is just frustrating.

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THE MAN UPSTAIRS

A young boy living in his grandmother's Parisian guest house, is immediately suspicious of a new Hungarian guest. He seems to have a sensitivity to light and an allergy to silver. Since there is a spate of vampire-like killings happening in the city, the boy decides the new guest must be a vampire.

There is a disturbing sense that this story misses its mark completely. The 'hero' of the piece is a young boy who suspects the newcomer to be a vampire. What is his basis for this belief? A sensitivity to the sun and a silver allergy. This, along with a strange appearance when looked at through a pair of child's heat-sensitive binoculars convinces the boy that it would be OK to plunge a carving knife into his chest, rip out his organs and fill the cavity with silver. Perhaps, had he gone to his grandmother, or the authorities, with his suspicions we could have sided with the boy and cheered his eventual success, but the manner in which the kid tortures the newcomer through the sounds made by his silverware and the glee with which he hacks out internal organs makes it much more likely that the true message of his story is not beware of vampires, but that even strange bloodsucking alien monsters are better than American children.

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THE SMALL ASSASSIN

A mother has the unshakeable belief that her newborn child is aware, mobile and malevolent. Nobody believes her and her paranoia increases.

This is absolutely the worst of the episodes to date. Postnatal depression is a known condition and there is certainly room to make play on the havoc a new child wreaks on its parents' lives quite naturally, let alone as a malevolent entity. Unfortunately, real babies are not mobile and can't do anything particularly scary (discounting the contents of their nappies, of course). As a result there is nothing for the mother to base her terror on and no amount of point of view shooting will convince us that a deadly baby is crawling around planning the demise of its parents. As a result, the episode is more tedious than terrifying.

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PUNISHMENT WITHOUT CRIME

A rich man buys an android identical to his faithless wife so that he can live out the fantasy of killing her. But is a crime carried out in the heart a crime that should be tried and punished in a court of law?

It seems inevitable that when we are able to create androids we will either want to have sex with them or to kill them. Those seem to be the only two options appearing in science fiction and it is murder that is in the mind of this episode. Is the act of killing an exact copy of his wife the as killing his wife? Regardless of the person in whose image the android is made, does that android not have the same rights as a human and therefore killing it is murder? Is the company in existence only to catch those who have murder on their mind before they kill a real person? If the android is created to be killed then is killing it murder?These are all interesting questions to ponder, but the muddied storytelling doesn't make any of this clear. The man wants to kill the android, then he doesn't, then the android all but forces him to do it. The purpose of the authorities in executing him when no murder has been committed is not clear. The continued existence of a company that offers a service that comes with a death sentence makes no sense.

Donald Pleasance does his best to ground the episode, but the flashback structure, the over-ripe dialogue, the over the top direction and the sense of self-importance infused throughout the episode overwhelms him. The themes deserved a better story to frame them.

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ON THE ORIENT, NORTH

The Ghastly Passenger is a man who pale and sick, travelling by train to the United Kingdom. A woman befriends him and urges him towards his final destination. His health and spirit improves, but is there more to him than meets the eye? And is there more to her?

This is another of those episodes that is marred by not making things clear, in this case exactly what is the nature of the man and woman. The relationship between them is nicely played, genteel and seemingly genuine, but when the supernatural starts to occur, the explanation for it remains maddeningly obscure. Whilst it seems clear he is some sort of vampire, feeding off the life energy of his new companion, her status at the end suggests he was a ghost all along, a ghost that everyone could see and interact with.

The pairing of Ian Bannen and Magali Noel gives the tale more depth, wit and emotion than the writing deserves. They are intriguing characters to spend time with, even if the conclusion is less than satisfying.

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THE COFFIN

Charles Braling died before completing the building his own state of the art coffin. His brother Richard, a wastrel and gambler, has come to the house to lay his hands on the family fortune, which has been hidden somewhere in the house.

It is obvious from the beginning where this particular story is going, but having Dan O'Herlihy and Denholm Elliott makes the episode more about the journey than the destination. It's fun whilst it lasts and doesn't outstay its welcome. Some of the coffin's more advanced features may seem a little risible (the self-burying mechanism, for example) and the robot servant really doesn't convince, but otherwise, this is a fun, macabre story with hints of Poe.

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TYRANNOSAURUS REX

A sculptor of movie dinosaurs takes his revenge on a tyrannical director on screen with the aid of a manipulative lawyer.

It's a little hard to be sure what's going on in this story as everyone seems to be manipulating everyone to very little effect.There is a tyrannical film director with the obvious disfigurement, the sensitive monster sculptor who is willing to ridicule the odious man on screen and a lawyer who manipulates everyone around him to make sure everyone gets what they want. None of them are particularly likeable characters and the story just sort of ends rather than comes up with a meaningful conclusion.

There's also the small facts that the amazing sculptor actually makes rubbish dinosaurs and the supposedly celebrated director makes really bad stop motion films that fake audiences seem to have been bribed to love. Never has the storytelling on this show been less clear. And, stop motion dinosaurs aside, there is no genre content in this story.

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THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN

When Death comes for her, Matilda Hanks is not ready to go. When he takes her dead body, she immediately sets about getting it back from the undertakers.

This is a fun story that is played for laughs and generally gets them as a little old lady's spirit takes on a series of men, Death included, standing up for herself and getting what she wants. Mary Morris gives a feisty performance in the lead role, whilst Ronald Lacey makes an impression without saying a single word.

There's no deeper meaning to this, just a fun interlude, and as that it is successful.

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AND SO DIED RIABOUCHINSKA

A man is killed at a theatre and the detective in charge suspects the world famous ventriloquist is involved, a ventriloquist who seems unable to keep his dummy quiet.

This is either a simple murder story (there is no mystery involved) or it is a ghost story in which the puppet of a ballerina is imbued with the spirit of a dead ballerina. In either case, it is a slight story that barely manages to maintain interest throughout its short running time, even with Alan Bates filling out the star role.

It's also told in a long monologue flashback, so the minor characters, including that of the ballerina who is pivotal to the story, take a back seat. This is not a great way to end the season.

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