"Specimen: Unknown"
| Production Order #10 and Broadcast Order #22 Shooting Days: 12-20 August 1963 First Air Date: 24 February, 1964 |
| Production Credits: Writer: Stephen Lord Director: Gerd Oswald Assistant Director: Lee H. Katzin Director of Photography: Conrad Hall Composer: Dominic Frontiere (stock music and additional music from "Stoney Burke") |
| Cast of Characters: Stephen McNally as Colonel J. T. MacWilliams Richard Jaeckel as Captain Mike Doweling Russell Johnson as Major Clark Benedict Arthur Batanides as Lt. Kenneth Gavin Peter Baldwin as Lt. Gordon Halper Dabney Coleman as Lt. Rupert Lawrence Gail Kobe as Janet Doweling John Kellogg as Major Nathan Jennings |
Opening Narration:
"For centuries, Man has looked to the skies and sought
to uncover the mysteries of the universe. The telescope brought into focus
the craters on the Moon and the canals on Mars, but it was limited, and
Man's insistent hunger for knowledge and experience would not be satisfied
until he broke the massive chains of gravity and set foot himself on a
planet other than his own. Project Mercury was his first venture into
space—a testament to his technical ingenuity and courage, a green
light to a hundred other projects which would take him still further.
This is Project Adonis, a laboratory orbiting a thousand miles above the
Earth, a tiny, far-flung world connected only by radio and memory, and
inhabited by a handful of men dedicated to removing the unknown for future
space travelers. At ten minutes after six on January 8th, Lieutenant Rupert
Howard stumbled upon something clinging to the wall of the space-lock
that appeared alive. He called them "space barnacles" for temporary identification.
They were not."
Plotline:
A scientist military officer has found unknown mushrooms
on the weather station satellite and died. The space crew returns to Earth
with the sample that turns into white flowers which proliferate inside
the shuttlecraft. They start to kill the astronauts by emitting poisonous
vapors. Earth's militaries reluctantly allow them to land. The plants
have already contaminated the crashed site, but, fortunately, a burst
of rain occurs and eradicates them.
Closing Narration:
"There are many things up there, evil and hungry, awesome
and splendid. And gentle things, too. Merciful things like rain."
Quote:
"It'sss... a malignant thing... Don't let us land...
Contamination... Destruct us... Destruct..."
—Major Benedict (Russell Johnson)
—Major Benedict (Russell Johnson)
Comments:
A minor straightforward episode that I
find enjoyable (thank to Conrad Hall) despite the fact the invasion plot
is pretty light weight stuff cliché (see "The Day of the Triffids"
or "Quatermass Experiment") and the making of the film is chaotic
(the added prologue when Lt. Lawrence analyzes and gets gassed by the
mushroom is written by Leslie Stevens and directed by Robert H. Justman).
The cast works: Gail Kobe, Stephen McNally, Richard Jaeckel—aka Captain
Doweling who, as Allen Leighton in "The Architects of Fear", takes a sunlight
bath in his lab (see Act I) but to unwind-blossom as the plants' biological
process: photosynthesis—and Russell Johnson are hectic-enough. There
are stock footages from another sci-fi series: "Men Into Space"
(see the shot of Project Adonis Station and the scene of the space repair
man who walks on the wing). I like this ecologic fable with a salvation
rain (foreseeing "The Andromeda Strain") which cleans up the
poisonous flowers' threat: the contamination theme again. Notice that
the plants bleed—and the gas they release "destroy the haemoglobin
in the blood", said Major Benedict—and cry out out which indicate
a basic form of intelligence. The space funeral anticipates the mood of
"2001: A Space Odyssey". There's an effective use of OL stock
music and sound effects from "Forbidden Planet" (during the
return to Earth scene). The interior of the shuttle is seen in "The
Man Who Was Never Born" (watch the seats) and there're too many recycled
rocket footages from "Nightmare". During Act IV, Colonel MacWilliams
and Janet Doweling run and pass by a bridge that we recognize from "The
Children of Spider County". This is the only episode with the highest
audience rate. TV Analogy: The view of the crashlanded spacecraft is reminiscent
of a "Twilight Zone" episode: "Probe 7 Over and Out"; the basic situation of flowers that release dangerous vapors is recycled in a season 1 episode of "Star Trek" entitled: "This Side of Paradise" in which they alter the psyche.
Notes: Robert Johnson is the voice of the Project Adonis Intercom. Gail
Kobe returns in "Keeper of the Purple Twilight".
