episode #10 - Nightmare

Air Date: 12/2/63 writer: Joseph Stefano Director: John Erman


This was one of Sheen's earliest roles; Shigeta and Ed Nelson are billed over him in the actual episode. Sheen plays Dix, the lowest-ranked (private) and youngest member of the 6 captured Earthmen. Thus, he's more prone to panic and despair during this captivity. David Frankham plays a British captain. John Anderson, virtually unrecognizable under the make-up, plays the main Ebonite.
This episode also carries overtones to THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), like the previous The One Hundred Days of the Dragon, in that helpless prisoners endure mind games and mental torture. It's anti-war and displays the inhumanity inherrent to such a situation. It's grim and cynical, even depressing: this suggests that even a unified Earth will still have enemies to battle in the future, in a never-ending cycle of conflict. BoG's Score: 7 out of 10

It's interesting in that the alien Ebonites are referred to as "gargoyle-like" above; the voice for the main Ebonite is electronically modulated to make it sound inhuman, kind of mechanical; the same technique was used for the voice of the main gargoyle in the TV movie GARGOYLES (1972).


Outer Trivia: Star Trek TOS actor alert - Frankham appeared in Is There in Truth no Beauty?
also popping up briefly is Whit Bissell as a general; he would play a very similar character in a regular role on The Time Tunnel (1966).