episode #17 - Don't Open Till Doomsday

Air Date: 1/20/64 writer: Joseph Stefano Director: Gerd Oswald

Now this was a weird and spooky one: the first sequence takes place in 1929, though we don't really know that, unless we spot the old style auto parked in front. There's a wedding reception going on in a mansion, but all we see is some old guy delivering a present, the butler and the groom (David Frankham), who falls victim to what's in the box. Switch to the present times - we can tell by the cobwebs. A young couple (Melinda Plowman & Buck Taylor) on the run are directed to the mansion by the local justice of the peace; the much older bride (Miriam Hopkins) is still there, looking haggard yet made-up as if still waiting for her new husband to plow her. She has some kind of deal going with what's in the box.
What's in the box? It's a creepy-looking alien, whose plans for universal Armageddon hit a snag some years ago - now it needs to find some human stooge; maybe it will be the father (John Hoyt) of the girl-on-the run.
This episode was hard to follow, but I think there was a method to it all; it kind of keeps you guessing for much of it and you're not sure what's going on or where it's all going, especially if seeing it for the first time. Hopkins as the crazed elder bride was disturbing and not easy on the eye; I got the impression of a dame who has been going more & more crazy as the decades went by. There's also a strange noise whenever the box with the alien activates - very eerie. The alien creature itself, a living turd with an eye stuck in, is rather disgusting. There is a suggestion of evil cosmic forces, some of it similar to Lovecraft's work. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10

Outer Trivia: Star Trek TOS actor alert - Frankham appeared in Is There in Truth no Beauty?; Hoyt was in the first pilot of that show, The Cage (also in footage of The Menagerie), playing the ship's doctor.