"The Special One"
 
Production Order #31 and Broadcast Order #28
Shooting Days: 26 February-4 March 1964
First Air Date: April 6, 1964
 
Production Credits:
Writer
: Oliver Crawford
Director: Gerd Oswald
Assistant Director: Claude Binyon, Jr.
Director of Photography: Kenneth Peach
Composer: Dominic Frontiere (stock music)
Cast of Characters:
Richard Ney
as Mr. Zeno
Flip Mark as Kenneth "Kenny" Benjamin
Macdonald Carey as Roy Benjamin
Marion Ross as Agnes Benjamin
Edward C. Platt as Mr. Terence
Jason Wingreen as Bill Turner
Burt Freed as Joe Hayden
 
Opening Narration:
Do not contain a Control Voice's soliloquy.
 
Plotline:
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.
 
Closing Narration:
"The mold of a man stems from the mind of a child. Educators and emperors have known this from time immemorial. So have tyrants."
 
Quote:
"You could have been a god!"
—Mr. Zeno (Richard Ney)
Comments:
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, predictable—thanks to a beacon-distorted close-up of the intruder, the fourteen years old boy knows that something goes wrong—and 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 speech—in most films, the device is destroyed to avoid any risks of an unwise use—when 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.