Cliffhangers!
Episode 3
Starting with this episode, Stop Susan
Williams and The Curse of Dracula swap places in
the lineup, TCOD showing first and SSW showing
last.
Les Baxter joins Joe Harnell in providing
the music score in this episode.
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Chapter VIII
"DEMONS OF THE DARK"
Written by Myla Lichtman
Directed by Jeffrey Hayden |
Didja Notice?
When the nurse's console monitoring Kurt's room goes straightline, she announces, "Code blue. 213." "Code blue" is the
hospital emergency code for a patient requiring immediate
resuscitation. "213" is the room number.
In this chapter we see that Dracula's two dogs, Desdemona and
Othello, guard the coffin in his home while he sleeps through
the daylight hours.
Besides the normal lid, Dracula's coffin also has a wall panel that
opens down so that he can easily climb in and out.
The California license plate of Dracula's car is ETERNAL.
When the motorcycle cop pulls Dracula over, he says "You ran
that light back there going like a bat out of hell." That's
ironic considering Dracula is usually depicted (though not in
this series) as being capable
of turning into a bat himself!
Dracula objects to the cop's representation of the traffic
incident, saying, "That light was yellow. I know the color red
when I see it." Another, this time intentionally, ironic
statement in that Dracula is very familiar with the
color red...as in blood!
For good measure, the cop delivers one last, unintentionally
ironic, line. Referring to Dracula's car, he says, "You know, you
guys get one of these $20,000 jobs and you think you own us
all...body and soul."
Mary finds a lead on another of Dracula's hidden coffins at a
business called Beacon Mortuary Supplies located at 666 Sunset
Road. There seem to be three word gags in this address. A beacon
is often used as a warning to stay away from a dangerous
location, such as a lighthouse beacon to warn ships of nearby
shoals. 666 is a widely known symbol of the devil. And "Sunset"
as the name of the road is probably a reference to the time that
Dracula begins his day.
Dracula claims to have known, and compares Mary's qualities to:
the courage of Mary, Queen of Scots; the grace of Pavlova; and the
beauty of Anne Boleyn. Mary, Queen of Scots was Queen of
Scotland from 1542-1567 and was briefly Queen of France through
her marriage to King Francis I of France before his death; she
also had aspirations to becoming Queen of England and was
eventually tried and executed for her involvement in three plots
to kill Queen Elizabeth I. Anna Pavlova was a world-renowned
Russian classical ballerina in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Anne Boleyn was the beautiful second wife of King
Henry VIII for three years until he had her beheaded when she
failed to bear him a son and he became interested in another
woman.
The cliffhanger ending this week: Mary is trapped inside a
collapsed phone booth as Dracula's dogs, Desdemona and Othello,
tear it apart from without to get at her!
Don't miss Chapter IX: DEPOSITORY OF DEATH
 |
Chapter 5
"THE MIND TWISTERS"
Written by Gene R. Kearney
Directed by Joseph Pevney |
Didja Notice?
The vicious, green beast that
attacks Donner turns out to be a
pet and sort of watchdog to Maya
named Taz. I wonder if he was
named for the Looney Tunes
character, the Tasmanian Devil
(Taz for short)? The snarling
sounds he makes sound similar to
the cartoon character! Listen:
Taz
Tasmanian Devil (Thanks to
the
Looney Tunes Sound Source.)
Maya refers to Taz as a subform
from her people's home.
Maya claims her people came from
another planet ruled by
oppression. Some of them fled it
and came to Earth and
established the underground
kingdom of Chimera. But now
oppression has returned as
Thorval has usurped leadership
from Maya's benevolent father,
Demeter, now believed dead.
There are rumors that Demeter
escaped to live on the surface,
but they don't know how he could
survive the ultraviolet rays of
Earth's sun.
Maya reveals that Thorval seeks
to gain enough gold to use a new
form of the compliatron to
enslave the surface people as
well.
When asked about the rebels
plans by Thorval, Donner
retorts, "Didn't you hear?
Robert E. Lee surrendered in
'65." This is a reference to the
Confederate general and
commander of the Confederate
Army, who unconditionally
surrendered to U.S. forces at
Appomattox Courthouse, VA in
1865, ending the U.S. Civil War.
The cliffhanger ending this
week: Donner and Tera plummet
into a deep pit with growling,
hungry creatures lurking below!
Don't miss Chapter 6: SEEDS OF
REVOLT |
Didja Notice?
For some reason, this week's chapter has a different opening
music theme than previously. And the following chapter has a
semi-jungle theme before it goes back to the original opening
music with
Chapter 6.
Co-writer Richard Christian Matheson is a horror and screenplay
writer who is the son of famed fiction writer Richard Matheson.
Susan comments on having nearly been eaten by a lion who
obviously had never seen Born Free. She is referring to
the 1966 film (based on the book of the same name) about the
true-life adventures of Joy and George Adamson, who befriend and
raise three lion cubs, one of whom is returned to the wild as an
adult but continues to remember and treat them as friends when
they track and find her a year later.
At 38:24 in the episode, after running out of gas in the Jeep
and finding the gas can in the back empty, Susan throws the can
back inside the rear hatch and closes the hatch. But, then as
she walks away, we see the hatch is still open!
The tune Susan is whistling at 38:51 in the episode is the
"Colonel Bogey March" (1914).
At 40:28 in the episode, Anthony Korf calls Parnassus Imports
and asks Mr. Samuelson about "the computer timing device" and
when he gets the answer that it will arrive from Switzerland at
1700 hours, he says, "Excellent. Then we can expect its arrival
well before May 15th." First, Switzerland is known for it
excellent clock-making, hence the timing device's origin. Second,
since May 15th is the day that will "stun the world"
(as stated in Episode 1), the timing
device may be an early clue as to the nature of what is planned
for that day.
The cliffhanger ending this week: A herd of stampeding elephants
is driven straight towards Susan!
Don't miss Chapter Five: DEADLY DESCENT |
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Episode Studies
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