Music Banter - View Single Post - Twilight Tales from the Outer Limits of the Darkside

Trollheart · 06-21-2022, 08:45 AM

Title: “The Miraculous Serum”
Series: Tales of Tomorrow
Season: 1
Year: 1952
Writer(s): Theodore Sturgeon, from a story by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Storyline: Dr. Dan Scott, a biochemist, believes he has invented or discovered a serum which, using the human pineal gland as its basis, is able to repair any defect in or damage to the body. He’s been trying it on animals but now he wants a human subject. His boss, head of the hospital in which he works, is dubious; apart from anything else, patients have rights, and Dr. Barker can’t authorise anyone to be used in an unproven clinical trial! When a girl is dying, with no hope, he decides what the hell, might as well. Can’t do any harm. He secures Carol’s permission and the serum is injected into her.

She’s very quickly no longer dying, very much alive and up and about. Hands up anyone who thinks this is not going to go horribly wrong? Of course, Carol has been said to be “adapting”, and she’s adapted all right: to the discarding of morals and manners. She saw someone with money, she needed it, so she stole it. There’s no sense of ethics here, no understanding of the concepts of right and wrong. Not only that, she’s stronger than ever, able to touch Barker’s hot pipe (ooer!) without so much as flinching or sustaining any burns. Barker is afraid that Carol is now progressing, regressing, evolving or devolving towards complete amorality and selfish need, coupled with super strength and no concern for others. This does not sound like a good combination. He wonders if an operation might sort it, but Carol is having none of it, and makes it clear Barker had better not stand in her way. Scott is less worried, and can’t see the danger his boss can.

Carol escapes and we hear that she is getting into the top levels of government in her search for power. She comes back, tries to entice Scott to go with her, help her in her quest for world domination, but he is aghast and she coldly leaves him. The two men discuss knocking her out with gas so that they can take her to their hospital and perform the experiment which will (they hope) return her to normal. And it does. The end.

Comments: I don’t know if they’re all like this, but it’s weird to see the show sponsored by a watch company, and then spend nearly three minutes blatantly advertising their product. Quite annoying actually, very cheap. But I guess that’s how it was back then. I do find it funny that in the very first scene Barker buzzes his intercom and asks his secretary to find Dr. Scott, and literally a second later he bursts in to the office. Later, when the girl is dying, he does the same, this time sending a nurse, and again seconds later he’s there! What, was he waiting outside to be called, serum in hand? I also find it amusing that the serum is injected, and then Barker says he can’t hear her heart, but then he can, and he exclaims “She’s alive!” Well, yes: she was alive a moment ago. It’s not like she’s been brought back from the dead or anything. A little early to be celebrating and congratulating his colleague I think!

I must say, at its heart this is a horribly misogynistic story. Its underlying message - in fact, to hell with underlying: it screams it in hysterical huge red letters ten feet high! - is “don’t let women get any sort of control or they’ll ruin the world!” Nobody considers that what Carol had in mind for the world might have been good? And why had the subject to be a woman? Wouldn't a man, bent on power, have worked just as well? And be more likely to have been affected in that way? Really, quite bloody awful I have to say. Not impressed. As for the experiment to turn her back: they had no idea whether it would work or not, but the unspoken moral is that if it killed her, it would still have been preferable to allowing her to continue to become what she was turning into.

I hope that fucker with the watch company isn’t in every episode or I’ll end up getting very annoyed. THREE god-damn segments with stupid watch adverts: one before the episode, one halfway through and one at the end. Bloody fifties!

Rating: B-

06-21-2022, 08:45 AM	#10 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Title: “The Miraculous Serum” Series: Tales of Tomorrow Season: 1 Year: 1952 Writer(s): Theodore Sturgeon, from a story by Stanley G. Weinbaum Storyline: Dr. Dan Scott, a biochemist, believes he has invented or discovered a serum which, using the human pineal gland as its basis, is able to repair any defect in or damage to the body. He’s been trying it on animals but now he wants a human subject. His boss, head of the hospital in which he works, is dubious; apart from anything else, patients have rights, and Dr. Barker can’t authorise anyone to be used in an unproven clinical trial! When a girl is dying, with no hope, he decides what the hell, might as well. Can’t do any harm. He secures Carol’s permission and the serum is injected into her. She’s very quickly no longer dying, very much alive and up and about. Hands up anyone who thinks this is not going to go horribly wrong? Of course, Carol has been said to be “adapting”, and she’s adapted all right: to the discarding of morals and manners. She saw someone with money, she needed it, so she stole it. There’s no sense of ethics here, no understanding of the concepts of right and wrong. Not only that, she’s stronger than ever, able to touch Barker’s hot pipe (ooer!) without so much as flinching or sustaining any burns. Barker is afraid that Carol is now progressing, regressing, evolving or devolving towards complete amorality and selfish need, coupled with super strength and no concern for others. This does not sound like a good combination. He wonders if an operation might sort it, but Carol is having none of it, and makes it clear Barker had better not stand in her way. Scott is less worried, and can’t see the danger his boss can. Carol escapes and we hear that she is getting into the top levels of government in her search for power. She comes back, tries to entice Scott to go with her, help her in her quest for world domination, but he is aghast and she coldly leaves him. The two men discuss knocking her out with gas so that they can take her to their hospital and perform the experiment which will (they hope) return her to normal. And it does. The end. Comments: I don’t know if they’re all like this, but it’s weird to see the show sponsored by a watch company, and then spend nearly three minutes blatantly advertising their product. Quite annoying actually, very cheap. But I guess that’s how it was back then. I do find it funny that in the very first scene Barker buzzes his intercom and asks his secretary to find Dr. Scott, and literally a second later he bursts in to the office. Later, when the girl is dying, he does the same, this time sending a nurse, and again seconds later he’s there! What, was he waiting outside to be called, serum in hand? I also find it amusing that the serum is injected, and then Barker says he can’t hear her heart, but then he can, and he exclaims “She’s alive!” Well, yes: she was alive a moment ago. It’s not like she’s been brought back from the dead or anything. A little early to be celebrating and congratulating his colleague I think! I must say, at its heart this is a horribly misogynistic story. Its underlying message - in fact, to hell with underlying: it screams it in hysterical huge red letters ten feet high! - is “don’t let women get any sort of control or they’ll ruin the world!” Nobody considers that what Carol had in mind for the world might have been good? And why had the subject to be a woman? Wouldn't a man, bent on power, have worked just as well? And be more likely to have been affected in that way? Really, quite bloody awful I have to say. Not impressed. As for the experiment to turn her back: they had no idea whether it would work or not, but the unspoken moral is that if it killed her, it would still have been preferable to allowing her to continue to become what she was turning into. I hope that fucker with the watch company isn’t in every episode or I’ll end up getting very annoyed. THREE god-damn segments with stupid watch adverts: one before the episode, one halfway through and one at the end. Bloody fifties! Rating: B- __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018