Cliffhangers!
Episode 2
Charles R. Cassey joins Joe Harnell in providing
the music score in this episode.
For some reason both Stop Susan Williams and The
Secret Empire cease to use roman numerals as labels for their
chapters this episode, with only The Curse of Dracula
retaining the roman numerals. SSW uses a spelled out number and
TSE uses an Arabic numeral.
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Chapter
Three
"JUNGLE DEATH TRAP"
Written by Andrew Schneider
Directed by Reza S. Badiyi |
Didja Notice?
Picking up from the cliffhanger ending of the previous chapter,
a cobra is about to strike Susan in the neck as she sits bathing
in a tub. Jack shows up just in time to shoot the snake. But we
see water leaking out of the tub from the bullet which went
through the snake and then through the wall of the tub!
Wouldn't the bullet have hit Susan too?! Thankfully, she's OK!
The ring with the blue stone again indicates the leader of the
conspiracy and we see his face this time, but don't learn his
name. His name is printed on a desktop
nameplate in his office at 8:23 in the episode, however, it is
too blurry to make out what it says. But the chapter's ending
voiceover by the narrator tells us his name is Anthony Korf.
Susan leaves Marrakech, Morocco for Nairobi, Kenya in this
chapter.
At 13:52 in the episode, we see that Chamberlain is wearing the
same kind
of ring as the leader of the conspiracy.
During his discussion with Jack, Chamberlain says, "Ours not to
wonder why, ours but to...you know the rest." Chamberlain is
making a (popular) misquote of a line from Alfred, Lord
Tennyson's epic poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The line
from the poem is "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and
die." Ironically, when he says this, he and Jack are discussing
a front company called Parnassus Imports; the name Parnassus is
often a metaphor for poetry because Mount Parnassus in Greece is
the mythological home of the Muses and, thus, the home of poetry
(and writing and music).
During Jack and Chamberlain's discussion it's revealed that Jack
is squeamish about cold-blooded murder, suggesting that our
morally ambiguous mercenary does have a certain code of ethics.
The cliffhanger ending this week: Susan falls into a pit with a
hungry lion!
Don't miss Chapter Four: THUNDERING DOOM
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Chapter 4
"PRISONER OF THE EMPIRE"
Written by Gene R. Kearney
Directed by Joseph Pevney |
Didja Notice?
We learn that the people of the secret empire are not able to
breathe the atmosphere on the world's surface. The Phantom Riders
wear a special mask over their mouth and nose when they go above
ground and Princess Tera wonders how Marshal Donner can breathe
in both the above- and below-ground civilizations.
Possibly, Princess Tera's name is derived from the Latin name
for Earth, Terra.
The compliatron runs on gold for fuel, which explains why the
Phantom Riders have been stealing from surface world shipments.
The secret empire is known as Shimera by its residents.
The compliatron is a chair with a set of extending prongs on the
headrest. When powered by gold and activated it "programs" the
person in it to be extremely open to suggestion for an extended
time. It's sort of a slightly less malevolent version of the
conversion chamber used by the alien Visitors in Kenneth
Johnson's later sci-fi series
V!
When Yannuck finds Princess Tera in her room and realizes she is
under the spell of the compliatron, she asks him if there is
anything she can do for him. After a pregnant pause he closes
the door to the room, implying he is about to take advantage of
her suggestibility for a sexual liaison!
The cliffhanger ending this week: Donner is attacked by a
vicious green monster!
Don't miss Chapter 5: THE MIND TWISTERS |
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Chapter VII
"BLOOD STREAM"
Written by Renee and Harry
Longstreet
Directed by Jeffery Hayden |
Didja Notice?
This chapter has a lot of padding, replaying several scenes from
Chapter VI (in reminiscence by Mary) to fill out its 15 minutes
of running time.
In the previous chapter we learned from Mary that Dracula has 20
coffins in the U.S. that she and Kurt knew of and they had
destroyed 13 of them. As Dracula pens his journal at the
beginning of this chapter, we learn that he had 20 coffins
placed in strategic locations around the city (San Francisco).
Does this mean he may, unknown to Mary and Kurt, still have
other coffins already hidden in other cities as well?
Also from Dracula's journal, we learn that the 13th destroyed
coffin (from the previous chapter) was in Marin county, north of
San Francisco.
Dracula calls his two dogs (possibly Rottweilers) Desdemona and
Othello; these are the names of two characters who are lovers in Shakespeare's play Othello.
The cliffhanger ending this week: Under sedation in the
hospital, Kurt's I.V. line is poisoned while Mary looks on
helplessly!
Don't miss Chapter VIII: DEMONS OF THE DARK |
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