In this episode of The Twilight Zone, Marsha White (played by Anne Francis) discovers some strange things happening in a department store. If you’re like me and you find mannequins to be super creepy, this episode is for you!
This episode originally aired on June 10th, 1960.
In this episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy gets infected with the blood of a demon and develops the ability to hear other people’s thoughts. Along with allowing her to discover that Xander is obsessed with sex (like she needed telepathy for that) and that Giles and her mom did it twice on the hood of a police car, it also allows her to discover that one of her classmates might be planning on doing something violent.
This is one of my favorites episodes of Buffy, largely because it uses the paranormal as a way to expose a very real issue and to explore everyone’s shared humanity. Plus, I’ve always felt that, even after playing Buffy and starring in the wonderful guilty pleasure Ringer, Sarah Michelle Gellar remains a sadly underrated actress. This episode features her at her best.
First off, a tweet from five years ago:
I cannot begin to put into words just how much I miss the Fox Reality Channel! From 2005 until it went off the air in 2010, Fox Reality was the channel to go to if you wanted to watch some of television’s greatest guilty pleasures. It was all reality tv all the time, a mix of original programming with reruns of shows like The Amazing Race, American Idol, Hell’s Kitchen, and about a hundred different dating shows. Occasionally, they would devote an entire weekend to showing just one show and I have many fond memories of binge watching Paradise Hotel on Fox Reality.
Fox Reality also showed its share of cheap original programming as well, including today’s guilty pleasure. If you were watching the Fox Reality Channel in 2009 (as I was and I have the tweets to prove it), there’s a good chance that you saw this commercial:
Now, of course, after seeing that commercial, you probably said, “Oh my God, I have to watch this show! I mean, it says ‘sex’ right there in the title so it has to be good!”
So, you tuned into the Fox Reality Channel and, after sitting through the last 15 minutes of a rerun of The Rebel Billionaire: Richard Branson’s Quest For The Best, you watched Sex Decoy: Love Stings.
Fortunately, just in case you were unsure about what you were about to watch, the opening credits explained the whole concept behind this “reality” show:
All 8 episodes of Love Stings started out the same way, with Arizona P.I. Sandra Hope talking about how worried she is about her three daughters: Kashmir, Jasmine, and Xanadu. It upsets Sandra that all three of them dislike her nerdy boyfriend and business partner, Tom. It also upsets Sandra that all three of her daughters work as strippers whenever they are running low on funds. (But, if Sandra is so worried about all of her daughters becoming strippers, why did she give them all stereotypical stripper names? That’s what I’ve always wondered…) Then the daughters show up and make fun of Tom and complain that Sandra doesn’t treat them like adults…
It’s probably around this time that you, the viewer, came to realize that Sex Decoy: Love Stings was obviously an attempt to create a hybrid of Cheaters and Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Much like the Kardashians, Sex Decoy was obviously scripted. However, Sandra and her daughters made Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, and even Kris look like Oscar-winning thespians by comparison. Sandra, in particular, had an amazingly robotic voice. Her dialogue and her interactions with Tom and her daughters were so lacking in emotion and spontaneity that they became odd portraits of existential dread. And when Sandra robotically talked about how much money she made by exposing cheaters, it almost felt as if we were watching one of Jean-Luc Godard’s experimental attacks on capitalism.
Anyway, after each episode’s family crisis had been set up, we would then meet this week’s client and get around to exposing their mate as being a cheater. This, of course, involved a lot of secret cameras and a sex decoy who would be brought in to seduce the cheater while the client watched in a nearby trailer. (Often times, Sandra would use her own daughters as the decoy which was kind of icky. A running subplot, throughout the series, was that Kashmir felt she was never properly used as a decoy and, as a result, would threaten to go back to stripping.) The client, naturally, would often get very upset and eventually, the cheater would end up being confronted while the cameras rolled.
And again, what made this so fascinating was the total inability of Sandra or her daughters to show any hint of human emotion. The client would get upset and start yelling. The cheater would try to talk his way out of it and occasionally beg for forgiveness. Meanwhile, Sandra and the daughters would watch and say things like, “He. Is. A. Cheater.” It was almost as if they were aliens sent down to Earth to expose cheaters.
Each show would end with Sandra, Tom, and the daughters doing some sort of family activity. Sandra would often brag that Sex Decoy was a family business but, being a robot, it always came out as, “After. All. We. Are. A. Family. Business.”
It was seriously just so strange to watch and that strangeness made it the epitome of a guilty pleasure. Sadly, Fox Reality is gone but Sex Decoy lives on! You can watch every episode on Hulu. And, fortunately, there’s only 8 of them so, right when the novelty of the show starts to wear off, it’s over!
Previous Guilty Pleasures
Let’s continue our look at Horror on TV with another classic episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Just as yesterday’s episode focused on a supporting character (Xander), this episode focuses on Willow!
I was going to say that Doppelgangland was one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but then I realized that everyone would probably say that. This is an episode that truly shows why countless fans continue to love the show after all these years.
OH MY GOD, IT’S BUFFY!
I love Buffy The Vampire Slayer and it’s always bothered me that I haven’t been able to share any episodes on this site. But, fortunately, this Halloween, Hulu has come to the rescue!
The Zeppo is one of my favorite episodes. While Buffy and the Scooby Gang save the world in the background, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) finally gets an adventure of his very own! Actually, there’s a lot of things that Xander finally gets to do in this wonderful episode!
(On a personal note, it breaks my heart whenever I read about Nicholas Brendon getting arrested and I’m reminded that Xander was just a fictional character.)
Seriously, enjoy Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
In this episode of The Twilight Zone, Gladys Cooper plays an elderly woman who lives in such fear of death that she refuses to even open the door of her apartment. Then, one day, a young policeman (Robert Redford) is shot outside of her apartment and Cooper is forced to finally confront the world.
This episode was directed by Lamont Johnson and written by George Clayton Johnson. It originally aired on January 5th, 1962.
“Room for one more, honey!”
Agck!
This classic episode of the Twilight Zone originally aired on February 10th, 1961. It was written by Rod Serling, directed by Jack Smight, and stars Barbara Nichols.
In this episode of the Twilight Zone, a con man (Harry Townes) has the ability to change his face to make himself appear like anyone he wants to be. Needless to say, this ability doesn’t quite work out as well for him as he might have hoped.
This episode originally aired on January 1st, 1960.
(If the video is not showing up below — some browsers apparently have problems showing embedded videos from Hulu — you can watch the episode at http://www.hulu.com/watch/440771.)
Along with starting each day of October with a horror film here at the Shattered Lens, we’re going to end each day with a horror-themed television show.
While I had previously caught a few episodes of the Twilight Zone during one of the annual holiday marathons on SyFy, I didn’t truly appreciate the show until I first exchanged e-mails with my friend in Australia, Mark. Among other things, Mark expressed a very eloquent appreciation for The Twilight Zone and that inspired me to watch quite a few episodes that have been uploaded to YouTube and Hulu. Along with being an essential piece of television history, the best episodes of the Twilight Zone remain watchable and entertaining 50 years after they were first broadcast.
Considering the esteemed place that the Twilight Zone continues to occupy in American culture, it seems appropriate to feature it during Horror Month here at the Shattered Lens.
The Jungle, which first aired on December 1st, 1961, is a personal favorite of mine. A businessman returns to New York from Africa. While in Africa, he upset a local witch doctor. Though the businessman, at first, laughs off the possibility that he may be cursed, it soon turns out that he’s wrong. There’s a lesson to this episode and here it is: Don’t piss off a witch doctor.
When I first saw this episode, the final scene caused me to have nightmares!
(By the way, I’m embedding this episode from Hulu. Sadly, you will have to deal with commercials. However, it’s really a great episode!)
(It has also come to my attention that some browsers do not work with embedded Hulu vidoes. Seriously, the internet is so frustrating! If the embedded video is not appearing on your browser, you should be able to watch this episode on Hulu. Here’s the link — http://www.hulu.com/watch/440777. I apologize for the inconvenience but still, it is a really good episode!)
It’s that time of the year. It’s October here in Through the Shattered Lens and that means one thing: horror-theme month.
October has become a sort of favorite month for us over here at Through the Shattered Lens. While other genres and topics will be posted and and get their time in the sun, this month always brings the site back to the shadows and things that made us fear the dark. Horror has been a common thing which drew Lisa and I to continue the site from it’s fledgling early months to going on almost 6 years.
I’d like to start my contribution to all-things horror by introducing those who haven’t experienced one of the best shows on TV which also has one of the most unique horror theme’s on either big or small screen.
The theme for Showtime’s Penny Dreadful was composed by Abel Korzeniowski. It’s a theme that gives an audience of hint at the show’s Victorian Age gothic setting with just the right amount of dark romance and psychological themes the show has become famous for.
So, here’s the latest “Song of the Day” set for the witching hour.
Through the Shattered Lens