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Night Gallery: "Brenda"

You never forget your first love, do you? Especially if it's a summer love like Brenda Alden's. And especially if it's not human. But wait. I'm guessing that last part never happened to you.

The funny thing is that Brenda started out this episode seeming just like a normal girl. She chased a butterfly but did not catch it. She knocked down a sandcastle but rather than taking the blame like a normal kid -- Who am I kidding? The way Brenda Alden justified the wrecked sandcastle as an apt response for its builder's failure to talk to her on a previous day was totally the response one could expect from all too many "normal" kids (at least the ones I know). So was her attempt to patch things over and make friends with Frances Anne Emsden, the builder of said sandcastle. She had no real reason to expect Frances Anne to have warmed up to her since the last time they met; if anything, she had just assured that Frances Anne would hate her twice as much in the future. Still Brenda had the chutzpah to at least try to make friends with Frances Anne and as you might guess, she got turned down. Indeed, it was quickly pointed out by Frances Ann that none of the kids on the island were interested in being Brenda's friend. And given Brenda's odd idea of fun, who could blame them?

Then she met a creepy monster that seemed to be passing by from a nearby Theodore Sturgeon story. Brenda Alden tricked the monster into falling into a nearby pit but then she stuck around and talked to the thing. Eventually the thing got out of the pit and started wreaking havoc on Brenda's neighbors. So Brenda naturally decided to respond by leaving the front door of her parents' vacation home open one night. And then, of course, the monster came...

Unlike most conventional monster stories, Brenda Alden never got a comeuppance for any of her more dubious actions in this episode. But I was left with the impression that she was terribly lonely. True, it might be argued that Brenda's loneliness was really Brenda's own fault but Brenda obviously did not see it that way.

And in the end, Brenda had this very creepy monologue where she professed love for the monster even though it had been covered with rocks and placed in a pit by her father and her neighbors, even going so far as to declare the monster to be the only thing that she ever truly loved. (Interesting to know that she did not bother to mention her parents in that speech.) Brenda's monologue was made even creepier by the fact that it took place one year after Brenda and her family left the island where she first found the monster.

We viewers were never told exactly how the monster got there and what it would have done had it not run across Brenda. It was noted, however, that Brenda was twelve when she first found the monster and one year later when she said she loved it, she was thirteen. Coincidence?

Should we consider Brenda's situation to be a metaphor for puberty? Unwed motherhood? Or something else?

Anyway, narrator Rod Serling told us viewers at the beginning of the episode that he hoped that we would never end up being as lonely as Brenda. He had a point. It was hard for me to watch that last monologue and not think, "God, I hope I never get that lonely." And this despite the fact that -- as I've noted above -- Brenda Alden was not a very likable person.

Prediction of the Week

If the Democrats don't get their act together soon, 2020 is going to end up being a replay of 2004.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Beneath You”

Dawn Summers's response to last season's rape scene was a classic "Go Dawn!" moment that compared quite favorably with the rest of the season's tendency to handwave the whole incident on the grounds that well, Spike was a nice guy -- well, not really -- and besides, he was hot.

Dawn Summers needed more "Go Dawn!" moments on this show.

I liked the woman Nancy even if she was just a standard damsel in distress. Then again I have a soft spot for women named Nancy.

And Anya was being a vengeance demon again in this episode. So... trouble.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Lessons”

Kit Holburn and Carlos Trejo really need their own story. Some day I may write one -- especially since the writers who created them have no interest in doing so. Introducing two potential new Scoobies to be friends with Dawn Summers and then not having them in any future episodes... Well, those TV writers certainly showed us. Though it's hard to imagine any storyline involving Dawn, Kit and Carlos that could possibly be worse than some of the storylines the writers actually came up for the rest of Season Seven.

On the bright side, the opening sequence in which Buffy teaches Dawn how to be a Slayer was pretty cool. Buffy's lecture/sermon on power was a bit on the nose but still.

Robin Wood should have been a more interesting character but he wasn't. His mother Nikki Wood deserved a lot more fanfic.

The final scene involving Spike and a constantly morphing entity is a classic. Unfortunately, the rest of the season never lives up to that scene.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Teacher's Pet”

Poor Xander. He wanted so badly to be the hero of a Bruce Campbell movie and win the girl -- in this case, Buffy. But as usual, she ended up rescuing him far more than he ever rescued her.

Plus one of Buffy's teachers actually acted nice to her. So guess what happened to him?

And Buffy actually defeated this episode's supernatural adversary by doing research -- and by reading a book. Will wonders never cease?

Spacetime for Hitler

Heh. There is something so weird about seeing a sci-fi movie set in 2018 -- especially one that had as weird a premise as this one had.
(After all, it is not like we see movies about Nazis on the moon all the time.) Granted, Iron Sky was first released in 2012 but still when it is seen from the viewpoint of 2019, it seems even weirder than it was originally intended to be.

That said, this was one of those movies that -- surprise, surprise -- was not as good as the trailer. Granted, it was supposed to be a comedy and no doubt the rather obvious Sarah Palin jokes were meant to be quite daring back in the day. However, that part of the movie had not aged well and while the movie was not really painful to watch, much of it seemed surprisingly meh considering its premise.

Plus the makers of this movie chose to include that old movie cliché from the 1960s -- the Nazi with a heart of gold -- only this time the Nazi in question was a woman. That cliché had not aged well either though it did make for one of the more surreal moments in the movie.

And yes, as one trailer for this flick hinted, it did contain a variation of an old Harold Saxon quote. But for some reason, it did not come across as strongly in the movie as it did in the trailer.

A Day in the Life

I recently started bonding with a black co-worker over our shared love for the country music with which we both grew up.

Yet more proof that you never know what you'll have in common with someone.

Of course, some would argue that it's politically incorrect for blacks and Hispanics to like country music because it's "their" music. Then again, you don't always get to pick what type of music speaks to you and many times it would be foolish to try.

Trailer of the Week: Iron Sky (2012)

Wow! All this happened in 2018 and the mass media said not one word about it. I wonder why.

But seriously, folks!

This trailer is so over-the-top I can't help but fear that the movie itself in no way does it justice. However, it does seem more entertaining than The Purge.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Funeral”

The four of them had rarely driven this far away from home before that day and since they were unfamiliar with the territory, it was no big surprise that they got lost. By the time they made it to the funeral home, it was after sunset and the service had already started so Ned and the others had to stand awkwardly outside the chapel until it was over.

Not that there was a large turnout. There were only a small handful of friends and relatives who turned out to wish a final farewell to the deceased, a young blonde women in her early twenties who had apparently fallen from a great height. Plus there was a British-looking gentleman in a tweed suit who looked like a high school librarian while in the corner, a white-haired man in a black leather coat stood against the wall while seeming to put a significant distance between him and the various containers of holy water near the chapel entrance.

Ned waited until the service was over and the crowd was leaving before he walked up to the coffin. After looking around to see if anyone was watching, he then gestured to his partner Emerson who got out his stop watch and waited for Ned to make his next move. Then Ned immediately touched his left forefinger to the corpse while his other two friends, Charlotte and Olive, stood and watched.

The young blonde woman in the coffin opened her eyes and looked around in panic.

"Where am I?" she asked. "How did I get here? What happened to Dawn?"

"I'm sorry, miss, but we only got a minute and we have some questions to ask you," said Ned.

"I don't understand," said the woman. "What did you do with my sister? Where are my friends? Who are you people?"

"Can't you see you're frightening the poor girl?" asked a voice from behind Ned.

Ned turned and saw that the white-haired man had not only stayed behind but was also walking toward him.

As he got closer, Ned just smiled and tried to look him in the eye. But the white-haired man just glared back at him.

"You don't understand," said Ned. "We suspect a case of foul play here and we have to ask the victim some questions before her time is up."

"Why would her time be up in a minute?" asked the man in a deceptively smooth tone.

"Because I have this ability," said Ned. "If I touch a dead person once, they come back to life. If I don't touch that person again within a minute and make him or her dead again, then something dies in his or her place."

"It's time," said Emerson.

"That's it," said Ned. "Time to touch her again."

At this point, the white-haired man smiled and said, "You try to do that and I'll break your bloody neck!"

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “The Pack”

After seeing the way Xander treated Buffy midway through this episode, I can sympathize with some of Buffy's actions in "When She Was Bad" much more than I expected. Especially since I can't help but suspect that the sentiments expressed by Xander while he was supposedly being possessed by the spirit of a hyena represented his true thoughts far more than I would like to believe.

But Buffy ultimately forgave him for his attempt to force himself on her so it's okay, right?

On the plus side, the show's writer discovered that the only thing cuter than a young Sarah Michelle Gellar in a short dress is a young Sarah Michelle Gellar in a short dress holding a young pig.

And Xander ultimately snapped out of his spell when he saw his beloved friend Willow in danger so once again, it's okay, right? Right?

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “When She Was Bad”

Here's a scary thought. The first few times I watched this episode, I was quite sure that Buffy's personality issues in this episode were entirely due to some curse put on her by the Master (the head villain of the first season). True, that point was never explicitly made in any of the character's actions or dialogue. But somehow I just knew that had to be the problem.

Yet upon watching it more recently, it became more and more obvious that the issues -- though obviously inspired by Buffy's near-death experience with the Master -- had nothing to do with the Master or anything else supernatural. It had to do with her. It was her true self that acted so insultingly to her friends. Her true self that took joy in teasing poor Xander with a sexy dance which ultimately left Xander frustrated and which made Willow and Angel jealous.

In a later episode, Buffy would describe the old her as a person who was even more shallow than Cordelia. In this episode, we got a glimpse of that person and though it was tempting to say that the Buffy we saw as a result wasn't really Buffy, it would seem more accurate to say that the Buffy we saw in this episode was a Buffy that most of us would have preferred not to see. Yet the writers showed her to us anyway. More power to them.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Witch”

This was one of the episodes to prove that this show would be about a lot more than vampires though I mostly think about it as the episode that introduced us to Amy Madison, a young teenager who aspired to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a cheerleader only to face considerable obstacles -- obstacles that a mysterious someone tried to remove through black magic.

I've gotten so used to seeing how the Amy Madison character appeared in more recent episodes that I forgot she was originally quite blonde. During the next few seasons, her hair color got darker and darker until it was a wonder that she did not have the same hair color as Cordelia. Of course,there were a few seasons when her character was supposedly stuck being a rat due to a self-inflicted spell. And interestingly enough, I've always been a bit curious why the show never focused more on how she adjusted to being human again after that. Oh, well. Writers...

Other thoughts:

Funny Xander. Treating Willow as just another girl-shaped guy to share guy thoughts with instead of as an actual girl.

Funny Buffy. Treating Xander almost the same way -- as a guy-shaped girl to share girl thoughts with.

Robin Riker played an especially good villainess. And her fate -- self-inflicted, of course -- still gives various online commentators nightmares.

Plus -- you know -- cheerleaders.

Buffy looked very cute in her cheerleader outfit. It was a darn shame that the show did not permit her to wear it more often.

Did I mention that this episode had cheerleaders?

Movie Quote of the Week

It's things like this that can make a man a -- a Republican.
--Cary Grant, Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)

TV Quote of the Week

I've recently come to realize there's more to me than just being human. I'm also an American.
--Emma Caulfield, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Tough Love"