episode #18 - Zzzzz

Air Date: 1/27/64 writer: Meyer Dolinsky Director: John Brahm

A queen bee transmutes herself into the form of a young woman (Joanna Frank). Her plan is to mate with a scientist, an entomologist (Phillip Abbott), to advance her species... I think. The scientist's wife (Marsha Hunt) isn't pleased with what's going on. The scientist is working on a means to communicate with bees; via a special translator, the bees actually speak, in a mechanized fashion. The premise is drawn from an assumption - more fantasy than sci-fi - that other animal lifeforms besides humans may be conducting studies.
This description of the plot above sounds pretty silly and a lot of it is. Why, for example, does a queen bee suddenly have the power to turn into a human-looking woman? At one point, a physician (Booth Colman) calls her a "complete mutant." What is a complete mutant? (it sounds like a contradiction in terms). However, I was surprised that there were a few eerie scenes - this is O L, after all. Some of this episode reminds of the typical fifties sci-fi horror feature (The Wasp Woman, etc.). Much if it depends on conveying the threat of a female predator. I also wonder if Nicholas Meyer was inspired by this to write Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973). The ending returns to the silliness, with some sappy narration about love winning out over such freaks of nature, even though that's not the feeling I got. BoG's Score: 5.5 out of 10

Outer Trivia: as with a very few O L episodes in the 1st season, the pre-credits scene in this one, when we see the queen bee transform into a woman, is the actual first scene of the episode, not a preview.