episode #28 - The Special One

Air Date: 4/6/64 writer: Oliver Crawford Director: Gerd Oswald

This looked like an early version of The Power (1967) to me when the episode started, involving dangerous superior humans or mutants - but it's not. It's aliens (again), planning a new kind of invasion. The parents (MacDonald Carey & Marion Ross) of a special (very smart) boy are visited by a Mr. Zeno (Richard Ney), who claims to be from a government agency that sends tutors to educate extra intelligent youngsters - for the common good. However, the audience, if they watched the first scene, knows that Zeno is not what he seems. The lessons begin and soon... the father grows suspicious.

This one has a measure of suspense - as the father gets more tidbits of alarming information, we begin to wonder about the boy (Flip Mark); has he been subverted? I wonder if some viewers may look at this episode as a metaphor for pederasty? The alien teacher exudes a kind of slimy interest in the kid and is obviously a poor influence. This also has some cool FX - animation mostly - for a sixties TV show. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10


Outer Trivia: Marion Ross would begin to play her most famous mom role about a decade later in Happy Days; Carey encountered other possibly dangerous kids in The Damned (1963)