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"The Special One"
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Opening Narration:
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Do not contain a Control Voice's soliloquy.
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Plotline:
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In order to overthrow the Earth, imperialistic alien Mr. Zeno
poses as an official of the State to infiltrate the population and train
future native collaborators for the new world order. After a first attempt,
its new target is a gifted kid in which it can easily manipulate his fresh
mind but its plan fails because the kid only pretends to join it to fight
it back in its own game.
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Closing Narration:
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"The mold of a man stems from the mind of a child.
Educators and emperors have known this from time immemorial. So have tyrants."
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Quote:
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"You could have been a god!"
Mr. Zeno (Richard Ney) |
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Comments:
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A home episode about child's endoctrination
whose proselyte alien character is the counterpart (reverse the syllables
of his name and you obtain: Mr. Noze or Nazi; I wonder if Mr. Zeno's name
takes its roots into the Zen philosophy?) of Klaatu from "The Day
The Earth Stood Still", with a family-oriented treatment in an old
fashioned set. The story is slow-moving, wordy, predictablethanks
to a beacon-distorted close-up of the intruder, the fourteen years old
boy knows that something goes wrongand never convinces the out-and-outer
fan. Perhaps, three moments are worthwhile, the prologue (and its corridor
tapestry) , the effects that produce the materialization (the quick and
various stages from a lightning [blitz] to a full human body) of Mr. Zeno
in Act I, II & IV, and the climax of the last Act when Mr. Zeno is
chased by Kenny Benjamin (a kid!!!) with the climatic control device (suffocating
Mr. Zeno looks like a livid vampir). There's a prop mistake when Roy Benjamin
is on the brink of jumping out of the window (a la Paul Cameron from "Corpus
Earthling"): an artificial branch is seen outside even though it
is supposed to be a tall building with some traffic (see the high angle
stock shot). As in "ZZZZZ", the film editor uses a nice fade
over process and here, by adding swirling white feathers instead of bees.
Mr. Zeno makes reference to the sound technology (soundwave pattern of
the climatic machine)two relevant warmonger symbols are present,
when, at night, Kenny, under the influence of Mr. Zeno, turns the device
on and warm his globe up; Mr. Zeno teaches Kenny to cross the wall of
his house back and forth (in order to infiltrate and subvert the country)as
in "The Mice" and "The Chameleon". There are many
props recycled in many episodes, for instance, the stairway of the Benjamin
(see "The Guests"), the elevator from "O.B.I.T.",
the elevator storey display (see "Controlled Experiment"). Just
a second before Mr. Zeno rings the bell, the Benjamin's are currently
watching a Daystar's unsold pilot on TV: "Mr. Kingston" and
if you listen carefully, you can catch dialogues ("please, I must
call, Mr. Kingston!") blended with a Dominic Frontiere's cue. There
is, as usual, a nuclear reference: Mr. Zeno talks to the Benjamin's about
their exposure to radiations and describes their son as a "mutation
plus", i.e., a "product of superior quality...". To conclude,
the kid makes a conformistic pro-gov speechin most films, the device
is destroyed to avoid any risks of an unwise usewhen it comes to
the machine (see "O.B.I.T.") to stop the sneaking invasion from
the planet Xenon (a gas that you find inside a TV set, by the way). This
one doesn't feature an opening narration.
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