"Behold Eck!"
| Original Title: "The Reluctant Monster" Production Order #37 and Broadcast Order #35 Shooting Days: 28 July-4 August 1964 First Air Date: October 3, 1964 |
| Production Credits: Teleplay: John Mantley Story: William R. Cox Director: Byron Haskin Assistant Director: Robert H. Justman Director of Photography: Kenneth Peach Composer: Harry Lubin |
| Cast of Characters: Peter Lind Hayes as Dr. James Stone Joan Freeman as Elizabeth Dunn, the secretary Parley Baer as Dr. Bernard Stone Douglas Henderson as Detective Lt. Runyon Jack Wilson as Sgt. Jackson |
Opening Narration:
"Since the first living thing gazed upward through
the darkness, Man has seldom been content merely to be born, to endure,
and to die. With a curious fervor he has struggled to unlock the mysteries
of creation and of the world in which he lives. Sometimes he has won.
Sometimes he has lost. And sometimes, in the tumbling torrents of space
and time, he has brief glimpses of a world he never even dreams..."
Plotline:
By accident, an alien being, named Eck from a two dimension
world, breaks in ours and creates rifts and tensions and, only the people
who wear spectacles fashioned by eye specialist doctor James Stone can
see it but Eck takes them off to protect its privacy. Nevertheless, the
doctor establishes a link with the being which asks a special lens to
see the doorway to return home safe and avoid the destruction of the Earth.
Closing Narration:
"Paradoxically, Man's endless search for knowledge
has often plundered his courage and warped his vision, so that he has
faced the unknown with terror rather than awe, and probed the darkness
with a scream rather than a light. Yet there have always been men who
have touched the texture of tomorrow with understanding and courage. Through
these men, we may yet touch the stars."
Quote:
"In my world, nothing can prevail against fire.
(...) You could not understand, it is too different, too far removed from
anything you could imagine. It is not even a world at all, as you think
of it."
—Eck
Comments:
The episode opens with a footage of a
cloudy, a sunny sky and a foggy landscape. Douglas Henderson is now retrograded
to a cop and he is dull detective Runyon who announes that Dr. Stone's
lab (Stone Optical Laboratory) is the fifth one to be destroyed. The grotesque
comical bent of the episode lies in the intercourses between the two brothers
Stone. Dr. James Stone is considered as an absent-minded and irresponsible
charlatan by people like Detective Runyon and an unseen admiral, during
a conference at the US Science Research Division, who calls him 'the optical
illusion'. Three patients of Dr. Stone are the victims of Eck whose one,
a housewife, dies of a heart-attack. The peculiar distorted voice of Eck
as well as its ultimatum of returning to its universe to avoid the destruction
of the Earth is a reminder of "Don't Open Till Doomdsay". A
stock shot used in "The Galaxy Being" is recycled when Eck desintegrates
a power plant. Eck gives one of its four eyes to Dr. Stone to fashion
a lens that he can't wear while traveling through walls. Eck also fears
fire and therefore two average policemen use an expiditious method, coming
straight from Gordon Douglas' "Them!": the blowtorch to carbonize
it and Stone's lab (what about Stone's fire assurance?). In the end, the
audience feels cheat and disappointed by not watching Eck's doorway. A
nice premise about an alternate universe but with a talky "Perry
Mason"-like narrative structure—this is the first repetitive
"comings and goings" framework—and a cheap mediocre treatment.
It is supposed to be funny? The 2-D monster is as cartoonish as is its
visual and biological nature. Bi-dimension reflects the new producer's
internal limitation in all directions. What the heck the third one is
missing: poetry! It could have been the ideal companion piece to "The
Borderland" owing to its parallelel universe. The last sentence from
the end narration reminds "The Mice": "... Through these
men, we may yet touch the stars." Notes: Lou Elias wears the electrified
Eck suit and Robert Johnson does its voice as well as the Radio Announcer
voice.
