Perversions of Science, S1 E9: Ultimate Weapon

Starring:

Heather Lagenkamp as Lou Ann Solomon

Mitchell Whitfield as Matt Solomon

Paolo Seganti as Mike Calderone

Kim Myers as Selena

Jennifer Darling as Lou's Mother
Maria Cina as Tess
Steve Kahan as Lou's Father

Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Gilbert Adler and Jeannette Lewis, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Dean Lopata

Well after one of the best episodes of the series, it seems we're back to the muddled, uneven mess of a show that has plagued a majority of the episodes up through this point. But, at the very least, “Ultimate Weapon” is an entertaining, sometimes-clever failure, so much so that not even a cringe-inducing finale can cancel out all of what it has to offer.

Lou Ann Solomon believes she is under attack by aliens. Apparently, this is nothing new; after having an episode in the middle of the night, her husband claims he's had enough of her nonsense, wishes they had never married, and leaves the house. Apparently, still during the same night (I think?), she goes out with friends at a local bar. Why does it seem like every television show lead has two friends, of the same sex, who are willing to drop whatever it is they're doing to hang out with their best friend at any given time? And why is it that all “girl's nights” have to end up with the women all getting drunk and gossiping about hot guys? It's one thing if we're talking about singles, but here we have a married gal, whose friends are ready to hook her up with someone for the night, simply because she and her husband got into a little fight. Okay...

Well now two powder-white aliens show up to the bar, with specific instructions to basically knock her up in order to create a combined species. Now, there's no way the ugly, sexless creatures are going to get laid like this, so of course they have the ability to morph into anyone within a moment's notice. This causes some potential marital problems for Lou Ann, when her and her friends wish her old flame Mike Calderone was there...and lo and behold, there “he” is. Only, it's not him...it's the alien that morphed into him. Then, the real Lou Ann invites the alien Mike Calderone home, while the second alien mimics Lou Ann, waiting for her friends to return from the bar with a drink. Alien Lou Ann ends up getting so hammered, her friends have no other choice but to cut her off and take her home. Am I making any sense whatsoever so far? Bare with me, because this does get a little tricky...

Once home, real Lou Ann tries resisting the robotic urges of Mike Calderone (she can't hear his neck creak like metal everytime he turns his head?), who we learn she broke up with after hearing rumors of his homosexuality, and then walking in on him in a dorm room hugging another man. Alien Mike swears that he is straight, and the two are about to embark on a passionate journey of love and sexuality...until Lou Ann's parents decide to make an unannounced visit.

Why is it that parents in television shows always think it's okay to just enter a house without knocking? No one ever acts this way in real life, yet it's a staple of every sitcom ever made. And of course, the two of them are bringing luggage...they're going to be spending the night for an unspecified reason. Panicking, Lou Ann begs Mike to hide, but alien Mike just turns into alien Matt (her husband), confusing her and her parents. Meanwhile, Lou Ann's friends bring alien Lou Ann home, and when they see her parents are over, decide to sneak her upstairs because she is so drunk. They do this by making her parent's car alarm go off, using the ensuing confusion to get her up into her own bed.

From here we can kind of gather what's going on, at least in its most basic form: Real Matt will come home with alien Matt, and Lou Ann will have to figure out which one is which. But there is one awkward, unbelievable twist that I'm going to have to reveal, so if you don't want the episode ruined, then please stop reading right here: The two aliens have sex with each other. That's right, alien Matt ends up going upstairs to find drunk and sleeping alien Lou Ann, at which point they proceed to have loud, frivolous sex that alerts everyone in the house to their location—and eventually, their real identities. Come on now...shouldn't two aliens with an ability to morph into anything somehow be able to differentiate their alien bodies with that of those they are impersonating? Maybe we can give a pass to alien Lou Ann because she was technically drunk (we'll assume that alcohol has the same effect on aliens as it does on us), but alien Matt should have certainly been able to tell.  Still, it's at least slightly humorous if not entirely believable, even within the confines of this particular episode.

For the final “twist”, the one alien ends up impregnating the other one, and the episode ends with the two of them getting married on their own planet. What a crock of shit.

But like I said, despite its common setup and terrible ending, this one at least had some imagination behind it. Yes, the parents and friends showing up is textbook plot device, but by adding in clones of a couple of characters, it gives it an added layer of complexity—and occasional humor—to the proceedings (i.e. having a character walk right behind the person they are cloning, with neither of them noticing). It all adds up to one of the more straight-up entertaining episodes of the entire series, despite a significant number of flaws. Like the way characters clearly start coming and going simply to further the plot, with no logic behind their actions. For example, Lou Ann's parents say they're spending the night initially right when they show up unannounced, then claim they're “leaving for a show” not five minutes later, then come back because they've forgotten something just in time to catch real Matt in a lewd, and misconstrued, situation. In another bit, one of Lou Ann's friends demands Lou Ann give her a ride home out of nowhere, not at all caught off guard by the fact they drove (alien) Lou Ann home themselves because she was so plastered. I get there's some creative licensing involved with just about all science fiction stories, but within the confines of a twenty-minute show, you would think it could have been a little tighter.

Any way you add it up, though, this is an above-average episode, at least as far as this series is concerned. It has a couple moments that made me chuckle, and manages to keep viewer's on their toes by tossing a constant barrage of increasingly unbelievable moments at them with rapid-fire imprecision. And what is a television show if it's not entertaining?

EPISODE RATING: 5.5/10

FULL EPISODE

Perversions of Science S1, E2: Anatomy Lesson

Starring:
Jeremy London as Billy Rabe
Jeff Fahey as Bearded Man
Joanna Gleason as Mrs. Rabe
Jim Metzler as Stan Rabe
Devon Odessa as Linda
Justin Chapman as Little Billy Rabe
Gary Grossman as Sheriff
Ace Mask as Science Teacher
Maureen Teefy as Chrome

Written by: Kevin Rock, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines

Directed by: Gilbert Adler

Whereas the first episode, “Dream of Doom”, played to the strengths of its low budget, it is episodes like “Anatomy Lesson” that helped to kill this series before it ever had a chance to shine. The focus on special effects, which somehow manage to be every bit as terrible now as they were back when they first aired, takes the viewer right out of the story, while the twisty finale twisted itself right out of my interest level, lingering on an implausible finish that makes very little sense. Part of its failure stems from its short run-time: this feels like a 50- or 60-minute episode cut in half, which doesn’t allow much time to build up the required amount of character development to make any of this work.

“Anatomy Lesson” focuses on little Billy Rabe. He’s the son of the town’s coroner, and looks forward to sneaking into the basement while his father performs autopsies. He seems to be getting to do that more and more frequently lately, because there’s a serial killer loose in the town, dispatching child molesters and other unwanted scourges of society. (Maybe an inspiration for "Dexter"? Haha, just kidding...that would have required author Jeff Lindsay to watch a series that no one even knows ever existed.) But there’s something much more sinister within Billy than just morbid curiosity--he frequently gets the urge to kill. Our first clue to this behavior is after his father (Jim Metzler, in a great performance) catches Billy snooping in the basement; he is banished to his room, where we discover he stole one of his dad’s scalpels. Then, a nearby cat “meows”. A grinning Billy closes in, scalpel extended and ready to cut. He comes down on the window sill--only to have the cat jump into the arms of a bearded man, who tells him to go to bed. Terrified, Billy obliges.

Flash-forward to the present. Little Billy Rabe is growing up so fast--he’s a teenager already, and is now played by Jeremy London. But his urges haven’t subsided…in fact, if anything they seem to have gotten stronger. So when a hot, stereotypical high school slut named Linda (Devon Odessa) comes on to him, his first thoughts aren’t of making out with her, or taking things even further--no, he just wants to kill her.

That night, as things are getting hot and heavy in her car, he pulls her hair back. She thinks he’s just getting into it, so she leans her head back, going along with his aggression.  But Billy grabs a knife instead, and goes to plunge it into her unprotected neck--but a hand gets in the way, absorbing the weapon. That hand belongs to the same bearded man that appeared to him when he was a younger child! Linda is terrified, unaware of just how close to death she was; Billy is only angry that he didn’t get to finish the job. He tosses the keys to Linda, and tells her to leave, while he exits the car to track down the bearded man (Jeff Fahey), who ran away after saving her life.

After catching up to him, the bearded man informs him that he’s intervened because a killer needs a good reason to kill, like offing sex offenders and other murderers. Billy, in the heat of the moment, goes to kill the bearded man…only to discover that he’s not all that he appears to be. Then a bunch of even more stupid shit happens, and what starts off as a fascinating episode goes from 60 to zero in record time.

I don’t want to reveal the ending, but that is where all the cheesy effects come in, and they range from just plain bad, to astonishingly embarrassing. I will say that the acting is pretty solid here--I can’t remember if that’s the case with all of them, but they seem to get some pretty talented people for such a low budget. I guess that’s probably the main plus to having a production crew consisting of Robert Zemeckis and Walter Hill and Joel Silver (to name just three of many), which probably helped with landing them some solid B-list stars.

In the end, there’s just very little here to recommend. The buildup is rather intriguing, and it’s pretty neat to see some small shards of “Dexter” in here, what with the serial killer offing murderers and other lowlifes and all (though such plot points have probably been around for years, so I’m in no way insinuating this was an influence). But for an installment that relies pretty heavily on its ending, to have such a terrible finish pretty much blows any air out of the momentum balloon, making it all come crashing down.

EPISODE RATING: 4/10

FULL EPISODE