For tonight’s horror on the lens, how about a chance to watch David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon battle the forces of dark magic?
That’s right, it’s an episode of Baywatch Nights! This episode shows what happens when Angie and David investigate the burned book that they found at the scene of an occult gathering. It’s all a little bit silly but then again, that’s the charm of the show!
Enjoy!
The Twilight Zone wasn’t the only televised horror anthology show to air in the late 50s and early 60s! There was also a show called One Step Beyond, which ran for three seasons. It was hosted by a man named John Newland and each episode was supposedly based on an event that may have actually occurred … an event that defied rational explanation!
The episode features one of the icons of horror cinema, the one and only Christopher Lee! Lee plays a German soldier who, during World War I, enlists a local psychic to discover whether or not his lover is being faithful to him. When he discovers that she isn’t, he uses the psychic’s powers to get revenge. Afterward, when he wants to confess to his crime, he runs into a problem. No one believes him because he was over 800 miles away when the crime occurred.
To be honest, the main reason to watch this episode is to see Christopher Lee but isn’t that reason enough? Lee was one of the great gentlemen of horror and his performance in this episode helps to show why.
This episode originally aired on May 31st, 1961.
Enjoy!
For tonight’s trip into the world of televised horror, we have an episode from a 1986 attempt to revive The Twilight Zone.
This episode is a remake of one of my favorite episodes of the original series, Shadow Play. That’s the one where the guy is on death row but he says he’s not worried about being executed because he knows he’s just having a reoccuring nightmare. Of course, this kind of freaks out some of the people around him because, if he’s just having a dream, what happens to them when the dream ends?
While the remake is nowhere near as good as the original, it’s still fairly well done. Plus, it’s on YouTube and the original isn’t.
This episode was directed by Paul Lynch, the Canadian director who also directed the original Prom Night.
Enjoy!
For tonight’s excursion into the world of televised horror, we have the 2nd ever episode of the HBO anthology series, Tales From The Crypt!
In this one, a woman (Mary Ellen Trainor) kills her husband on Christmas Eve, just to discover that she can’t properly dispose of the body because a psychotic escaped mental patient (Larry Drake), who just happens to be disguised as Santa Claus, is hanging around outside of her house. It’s a bit of a mess, especially since the woman’s daughter is eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa herself.
This originally aired on June 10th, 1989 and it’s an enjoyably insane package of holiday cheer and menace. And, of course, it was directed by none other than Robert Zemeckis!
Enjoy!
For tonight’s excursion into the world of televised horror, we have an episode from the 2002 revival of The Twilight Zone.
In The Pool Guy, Richie (Lou Diamond Philips) is a pool cleaner with a problem. While his clients appear to believe that Richie is living a glamorous life straight out of a bad suburban melodrama, Richie actually feels as if his life is going nowhere. He’s never even gotten seduced by a bored housewife! Maybe Richie just isn’t a very good pool guy…
However, Richie has another problem, on top of all that. A man keeps mysteriously appearing and telling him to “Wake up!” before then shooting him. Immediately after getting shot, Richie wakes up somewhere else, just to once again be approached by the same man.
What is going on and why is Richie being charged $12,000 for the experience!?
Over the years, there have been quite a few attempts to revive The Twilight Zone and the results have always been mixed. The 2002 revival featured Forest Whitaker as the host and was canceled after just one season. That said, The Pool Guy is actually pretty good. Philips gives a good performance and the episode’s central mystery is an intriguing one.
This episode originally aired on October 16th, 2002!
Enjoy!
For tonight’s excursion into televised horror, we present to you an episode of Suspense!
What was Suspense? It was an anthology show that ran from 1949 to 1954. Each episode dealt with ordinary people who found themselves in not-so ordinary situations. As well, each episode was broadcast live and the entire show was sponsored by the Autolite Corporation. They make spark plugs.
Out of the over 250 episodes of Suspense, only 90 still survive. Suspicion, the second episode of the first season, originally aired on March 15th, 1949. It details what happens when a doting husband comes to suspect that his housekeeper may be a notorious arsenic poisoner!
And yes, it does start with a commercial for spark plugs.
Enjoy!
On this day, 58 years ago, one of the most influential shows in the history of television, The Twilight Zone, premiered on CBS. Created by Rod Serling, this anthology show not only featured some of the best actors and writers in the business but it also used tales of the unexpected to address some of the most pressing issues of the day. (Many, if not all, of those issues remain relevant today.) The Twilight Zone inspired a countless number of future filmmakers and writers and it remains popular today. The annual New Year’s Eve and 4th of July marathons on SyFy continue to delight viewers both new and old.
When we first started doing our annual October horrorthon here at the Shattered Lens, every single episode of the original, black-and-white Twilight Zone was available on YouTube. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. As I sit here writing this, while several episodes from the show’s later (and largely unsuccessful) revivals have been uploaded, there is exactly one episode of the original Twilight Zone on YouTube.
Fortunately, that episode is a classic. In 1962’s To Serve Man, an alien (Richard Kiel) comes to Earth and invites people to return to his home planet with him. He leaves behind a book. When everyone learns that the title of the book is To Serve Man, they excitedly decide that the book must be an instruction manual on how to help mankind. The truth, as we learn in the episode’s classic finale, is something a little bit different.
Here’s the episode! Watch it before YouTube yanks it down.
Enjoy!
Can you believe it? The first day of Horrorthon is nearly over! I’ve got tears in my mismatched eyes.
You may remember, from previous horrorthons, that I like to end each day in October by sharing a classic example of televised horror. Much as with the the horror movies that I share at the start of each day, it should be remembered that I’m a bit at the whim of YouTube here. If YouTube decides to yank down a video after I share it on this site, there’s nothing that I can do about it. That’s why I encourage everyone to watch these now! Don’t wait until 2024. Who knows if YouTube will even still be a thing in 2024?
Anyway, let’s start things off with The Curse of Degrassi!
This is a special episode of my favorite TV show of all, Degrassi! Originally airing on October 28th, 2008, The Curse of Degrassi features Degrassi’s main mean girl, Holy J Sinclair (Charlotte Arnold), getting possessed by the vengeful spirit of deceased school shooter, Rick Murray (Ephraim Ellis). Chaos follows! Fortunately, Spinner (Shane Kippel) is around to save the day. As any true Degrassi fan can tell you, only Spinner has a chance against the forces of the undead.
Enjoy!
(Before anyone asks, yes, I did share this same episode last October. What can I say? I really like Degrassi and forcing people to watch my favorite Canadian obsession is a bit of a tradition around here. We’re all about tradition here at the Shattered Lens.)
Last night, Lisa Marie did not watch the Emmys because she says that, “I’m just not feeling TV this year.” If Twin Peaks had been eligible to be nominated, I bet it would have been a different story!
Instead, she asked me to watch the ceremony and let everyone know what I thought. It needed less politics and more cats.
Here’s the list of winners:
BEST COMEDY SERIES
“Atlanta”
“Black-ish”
“Masters of None”
“Modern Family”
“Silicon Valley”
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
X — “Veep”
BEST COMEDY ACTRESS
Pamela Adlon, “Better Things”
Jane Fonda, “Grace and Frankie”
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Ellie Kemper, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
X — Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Tracee Ellis Ross, “Black-ish”
Lily Tomlin, “Grace and Frankie”
BEST COMEDY ACTOR
Anthony Anderson, “Black-ish”
Aziz Ansari, “Master of None”
Zach Galifianaks, “Baskets”
X — Donald Glover, “Atlanta”
William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”
BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Vanessa Bayer, “Saturday Night Live”
Anna Chlumsky, “Veep”
Kathryn Hahn, “Transparent”
Leslie Jones, “Saturday Night Live”
Judith Light, “Transparent”
X — Kate McKinnon, “Saturday Night Live”
BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTOR
Louie Anderson, “Baskets”
X — Alec Baldwin, “Saturday Night Live”
Tituss Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Ty Burrell, “Modern Family”
Tony Hale, “Veep”
Matt Walsh, “Veep”
BEST COMEDY DIRECTING
X — “Atlanta” (“B.A.N.”)
“Silicon Valley” (“Intellectual Property”)
“Silicon Valley” (“Server Error”)
“Veep” (“Justice”)
“Veep” (“Blurb”)
“Veep” (“Groundbreaking”)
BEST COMEDY WRITING
“Atlanta” (“B.A.N.”)
“Atlanta” (“Streets on Lock”)
X — “Master of None” (“Thanksgiving”)
“Silicon Valley” (“Success Failure”)
“Veep” (“Groundbreaking”)
“Veep” (“Georgia”)
BEST DRAMA SERIES
“Better Call Saul”
“The Crown”
X — “The Handmaid’s Tale”
“House of Cards”
“Stranger Things”
“This is Us”
“Westworld”
BEST DRAMA ACTRESS
Viola Davis, “How to Get Away with Murder”
Claire Foy, “The Crown”
X — Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Keri Russell, “The Americans”
Evan Rachel Wood, “Westworld”
Robin Wright, “House of Cards”
BEST DRAMA ACTOR
X — Sterling K. Brown, “This is Us”
Anthony Hopkins, “Westworld”
Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”
Matthew Rhys, “The Americans”
Liev Schreiber, “Ray Donovan”
Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”
Milo Ventimiglia, “This is Us”
BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Uzo Aduba, “Orange is the New Black”
Millie Bobby Brown, “Stranger Things”
X — Ann Dowd, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Chrissy Metz, “This is Us”
Thandie Newton, “Westworld”
Samira Wiley, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jonathan Banks, “Better Call Saul”
David Harbour, “Stranger Things”
Ron Cephas Jones, “This is Us”
Michael Kelly, “House of Cards”
X — John Lithgow, “The Crown”
Mandy Patinkin, “Homeland”
Jeffrey Wright, “Westworld”
BEST DRAMA DIRECTING
“Better Call Saul” (“Witness”)
“The Crown” (“Hyde Park Corner”)
“The Handmaid’s Tale” (“The Bridge”)
X — “The Handmaid’s Tale” (“Offred”)
“Homeland” (“America First”)
“Stranger Things” (“Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”)
“Westworld” (“The Bicameral Mind”)
BEST DRAMA WRITING
“The Americans” (“The Soviet Division”)
“Better Call Saul” (“Chicanery”)
“The Crown” (“Assassins”)
X — “The Handmaid’s Tale” (“Offred”)
“Stranger Things” (“Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”)
“Westworld” (“The Bicameral Mind”)
BEST LIMITED SERIES
X — “Big Little Lies”
“Fargo”
“Feud: Bette and Joan”
“Genius”
“The Night Of”
BEST TV MOVIE
X — “Black Mirror: San Junipero”
“Christmas of Many Colors”
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”
“Sherlock: The Lying Detective”
“The Wizard of Lies”
BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTRESS
Carrie Coon, “Fargo”
Felicity Huffman, “American Crime”
X — Nicole Kidman, “Big Little Lies”
Jessica Lange, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Susan Sarandon, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Reese Witherspoon, “Big Little Lies”
BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTOR
X — Riz Ahmed, “The Night Of”
Benedict Cumberbatch, “Sherlock: The Lying Detective”
Robert De Niro, “The Wizard of Lies”
Ewan McGregor, “Fargo”
Geoffrey Rush, “Genius”
John Turturro, “The Night Of”
BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Judy Davis, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
X — Laura Dern, “Big Little Lies”
Jackie Hoffman, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Regina King, “American Crime”
Michelle Pfeiffer, “The Wizard of Lies”
Shailene Woodley, “Big Little Lies”
BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTOR
Bill Camp, “The Night Of”
Alfred Molina, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
X — Alexander Skarsgard, “Big Little Lies”
David Thewlis, “Fargo”
Stanley Tucci, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Michael Kenneth Williams, “The Night Of”
BEST MOVIE/MINI DIRECTING
X — “Big Little Lies”
“Fargo” (“The Law of Vacant Places”)
“Feud: Bette and Joan” (“And the Winner Is”)
“Genius” (“Einstein: Chapter One”)
“The Night Of” (“The Art of War”)
“The Night Of” (“The Beach”)
BEST MOVIE/MINI WRITING
“Big Little Lies”
X — “Black Mirror: San Junipero”
“Fargo” (“The Law of Vacant Places”)
“Feud: Bette and Joan” (“And the Winner Is”)
“Feud: Bette and Joan” (“Pilot”)
“The Night Of” (“Call of the Wild”)
BEST REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM
“The Amazing Race”
“Amercan Ninja Warrior”
“Project Runway”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Top Chef”
X — “The Voice”
BEST VARIETY TALK SERIES
“Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”
X — “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Late Late Show with James Corden”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
“Real Time with Bill Maher”
BEST VARIETY SKETCH SERIES
“Billy on the Street”
“Documentary Now”
“Drunk History”
“Portlandia”
X — “Saturday Night Live”
“Tracey Ullman’s Show”
BEST VARIETY SERIES DIRECTING
“Drunk History”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
X — “Saturday Night Live”
BEST VARIETY SERIES WRITING
“Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”
X — “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Late Night with Seth Meyers”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The Twin Peaks finale, which began with Part 17, concludes with an episode that we’ll probably still be debating 25 years from now.
The Doppelganger sits in the waiting room of the Black Lodge and bursts into flame. MIKE (Al Strobel) uses the Doppelganger’s soul to create another Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). One scene later, that Cooper is arriving at his home in Las Vegas, where he is embraced by Janey-E (Naomi Watts) and Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon).
In the woods outside Twin Peaks, the real Cooper leads Laura (Sheryl Lee) by the hand. Again, Laura vanishes and we hear the sound of her screaming.
Suddenly, we are again in the waiting room of the Black Lodge. Cooper sits in his chair. MIKE asks him, “Is it the future or the past?” Events from Parts One and Two repeat. Cooper again meets the Arm but this time the Arm asks him not if he remembers the Doppelganger but if he knows the story of the little girl who lived down the street. Again, Laura whispers in Cooper’s ear before being pulled away by an unseen force. Again, Leland (Ray Wise) tells Cooper to find Laura.
And, once again, Cooper starts to walk through the Black Lodge but this time, he finds a room that is full of dead trees. And in that room, Diane (Laura Dern) is waiting for him. “Is it you?” she asks him, “is it really you?” Cooper is shocked but happy to see Diane.
(Is it possible that, even after saving Laura Palmer and therefore eliminating the event that led to him going to Twin Peaks in the first place, Cooper still found himself trapped in the Black Lodge for 25 years? But now, instead of being sent to destroy his Doppelganger, could it be that Cooper has been allowed to leave specifically to track down Laura?)
In the next scene, Cooper and Diane are driving down a desert road. It looks like the same road in South Dakota where the Doppelganger crashed his car when Cooper previously escaped from the Black Lodge. It does not look like it’s anywhere near Odessa, Texas, which will become important shortly.
They pull over to the side of the road. “Exactly 430 miles,” Cooper says. Cooper gets out of the car. He looks at the power lines above. Remember — in the world of Twin Peaks, electricity is magic. Cooper gets back in the car and asks Diane to kiss him. “Once we cross,” he says, “it could all be different.”
They drive forward. Electricity crackles. Suddenly, they’re driving down a highway in the middle of the night. They pull into a motel and get a room. They make love, with Cooper telling Diane to keep the lights turned out and Diane placing her hands over Cooper’s face.
(It was around this time that I started to realize that a lot of unanswered questions — like what’s going on with Audrey and why Sarah Palmer can remove her face — were probably destined to remain unanswered.)
The next morning, Cooper wakes up in a room that appears to be different from the one that he fell asleep in. Diane is gone but there’s a letter on the nightstand. It is addressed to Richard and it is from Linda. Linda’s letter says that she’s leaving because, “I don’t recognize you anymore.”
(Remember during Part One, when the Giant told Cooper to remember Richard and Linda? I’m going to assume that, just as how Cooper was previously Dougie Jones, the “crossing over” that he and Diane did transformed them into Richard and Linda.)
Cooper leaves his motel and it’s a totally different motel from the one that we previously saw him checking into.
A city limits sign indicates that Cooper is in Odessa, Texas. (Lynch does not make my home state look very good in this episode but I’ll forgive him because he’s otherwise awesome.) As Cooper drives down the street, he sees a sign for Judy’s coffee shop–
JUDY!
Cooper pulls into the parking lot and enters Judy’s. He asks the waitress (Francesa Eastwood) if there’s another waitress who works there. She tells him that there is but it’s her day off. When a few rednecks in cowboy hats (really, David?) start to harass the waitress, Cooper beats them up and drops their guns in the deep fryer. Explaining that he’s with the FBI, Cooper asks for the other waitress’s address.
Cooper’s drives up to the waitress’s house. He sees that she has an electric poll (marked No. 6) outside of her house. When Cooper knocks on the door, it’s answered by Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)!
Except that she says that her name isn’t Laura Palmer. She insists that her name is Carrie Page and, when she hears that Cooper is FBI, she immediately asks, “Did you find him!?” Cooper tells her, “Your father’s name is Leland. Your mother’s name is Sarah.” When Carrie hears Sarah’s name, she appears to be momentarily shaken and asks. “What’s going on?” Cooper tells her that she is Laura Palmer and that she needs to come with him to Twin Peaks, Washington.
“D.C?” Carrie asks.
“State,” Cooper replies.
Carrie agrees to go up to Twin Peaks with him. Her willingness may have something to do with the dead man who is propped up on her couch.
Cooper and Carrie drive all the way from Texas to Washington State. That’s quite a long journey and, as I watched them slightly driving down yet another dark highway, I again resigned myself to the knowledge that the show would never reveal just why exactly Audrey was screaming in that white room.
Hey, Coop, I know you’re busy but remember Audrey?
(My theory is that, after raping her, the Doppelganger sent Audrey to the Black Lodge, and, just as he did to Diane, manufactured a replacement. But if Cooper saved Laura and the Doppelganger never entered our world, is Audrey in the Black Lodge? In fact, if Laura never died then Ben never had to sale the Ghostwood Estates to get an alibi, which means that he never pushed Audrey to become an environmental crusader and, hence, Audrey was probably not at the bank when the bomb went off.)
Finally, Cooper and Carrie reach Twin Peaks. They drive past the Double R. Carrie says she doesn’t recognize anything, not even the Palmer House.
Cooper and Carrie walk up to the house. (Rather sweetly, Cooper and Carrie hold hands as they approach.) What follows is Lynch at his creepiest, his best, and his most frustrating.
Alice Tremond was played the actual owner of the house that’s used for the exterior shots of the Palmer House.
When Cooper knocks on the door, it’s answered by the house’s owner, Alice Tremond. (Longtime fans of the show will recognize the Alice Tremond name as belonging to one of the inhabitants of the Black Lodge. However, Cooper never met Mrs. Tremond. Only Donna met her and her odd grandson.) Mrs. Tremond says that, as far as she knows, no one named Palmer has ever lived un the house. When asked, she says that she bought the house from Mrs. Chalfont, another Black Lodge inhabitant that Cooper never met.
Stunned, Cooper and Carrie walk away from the house.
“What year is this?” Cooper asks.
Carrie shrugs.
Suddenly, from inside the house, we hear Sarah Palmer’s voice. “Laura!”
Carrie screams. We hear a burst of static electricity and it appears that lights in the house go off. The screen fades to black.
The screaming fades. Again, we see Cooper’s passive face as Laura whispers in his ear.
End credits. Sheryl Lee is credited twice. Once for playing Laura Palmer. Once for playing Carrie Page.
And so it ends.
We’re going to spend years debating what all this means and I don’t want to say too much until I get chance to watch the entire series a second time. (I plan on watching all 18 hours next weekend.) It does appear that, no matter how much Cooper and Laura try to avoid it, all paths lead back to not only Twin Peaks but also to the unspeakable horror that occurred in the Palmer House. Much like Dana Andrews’s obsessive P.I. in the classic film noir, Laura, Cooper is obsessed with saving a dead woman.
I’ll write more on this later, after I’ve had time to rest. For now, I just want to thank everyone who has followed our Twin Peaks coverage here on the Shattered Lens. And thank you to Jeff, Leonard, and Ryan for contributing!
It’s a strange world, isn’t it?
Twin Peaks on TSL:
Through the Shattered Lens