Lost in Darkness and Distance

It's December -- guess I'll write a little tale for Christmas.


LOST IN DARKNESS AND DISTANCE

The Monster slogged tirelessly across the pack ice.

"I do not forget my vow to immolate myself, Victor Frankenstein," he muttered, "but firewood is scarce in this frozen clime."

He huffed a thundercloud of breath and marched on, hearing only the crunch of snow and the howl of wind. Here, at the top of the world, he could wander unchallenged and unfeared, but only because no one lived here to object.

"Perhaps it was you, not the Almighty, who made me, Victor," he said to the black sky, "but I prayed for so long that there might be a place for me somewhere in God's creation."

Ahead the jagged peaks of a small island rose over the ice. Tiny flames crackled on the shore. Intrigued, the Monster approached.

Small creatures huddled around the fire. Some resembled animals up on their hind legs. Some resembled children with malformed heads and limbs. Stitches lined their bodies as if each one had been sewn together -- badly.

"Oh!" exclaimed a girl with red yarn for hair. "You're the biggest dolly I've ever seen. You must be a misfit!"

A bear with the incongruous fan-tail of a peacock ambled up.

"If you're a misfit, you're welcome here."

A winged form passed overhead, backlit by the wavering aurorae. It was no bird, but a regal hunting beast.

The Monster smiled.

Another Death

Only three weeks after my father's passing, my uncle (Don's brother) Bruce Winkle died in Eldorado, Kansas, at the age of 73. Although Bruce had suffered a number of strokes, it was cancer that did him in. Ironically, the doctors only discovered he suffered from cancer two weeks before he succumbed.

These exposures to mortality drive home the fact that our time on this globe is finite. If I can glean anything positive out of the past few months, perhaps it will be the desire to work anew on the goals important to me, the projects that have stalled out during the past few years.

The new year is approaching. Perhaps, for 2011, you, too, should review your priorities -- before personal tragedies force them upon you.

Donald W. Winkle, 1930-2010

On October 21, 2010, after years of fighting cancer, congenital heart failure, and Alzheimer's, my father, Donald W. Winkle, passed away.

Don's health problems began nearly a decade ago, when it was determined that he needed triple bypass surgery. He has been in and out of hospitals ever since. Anesthesia and drugs never seemed to affect him as they were supposed to, and he learned to hate the doctors and hospitals stays -- I can't say I blame him. Don's increasing physical and mental problems were hard on everyone close to him, particularly so on his wife of 37 years, Sharon Stewart Winkle.

The end came with shocking swiftness. One weekend he was still quite active and talkative; two weeks later he all but stopped speaking, spending his time simply wandering around the house and yard. A week after that he collapsed, having literally (according to the hospice nurses) forgotten how to walk. A few days later, his pulse, blood pressure, and respiration simply grew weaker and weaker until they ceased altogether.

Donald Winkle was interred in Bixby Cemetery, Bixby, Oklahoma on Monday, October 25, 2010.

Reboot Part One

Today is -- or was, as I'm typing after midnight -- the 36th anniversary of the short-lived TV series, "Kolchak: The Night Stalker." Yep, on September 13, 1974, intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak began his weekly encounters with supernatural and sci-fi terrors.

I thought about watching the series from the beginning, seeing as I have it both on DVD and VHS (those great Columbia House videos), but I can't. I rebooted.

That is to say, I'm pretending I've never seen any movies or TV shows before, and I'm starting off as if from the beginning of things. I'll probably explain that more thoroughly in another post, but it does make old things seem fresh, if you can make yourself believe in the idea.

So what is at the beginning of things? TV-wise I started off with the two oldest genre shows I own, "Twilight Zone" and "One Step Beyond". I'm much too impatient to go through them all to get to later programs, so my idea is that after seeing a few episodes of each I have the "right" to see examples of later series. To me, "One Step Beyond" led to quasi-documentaries like "Unsolved Mysteries." "Zone", however, led to "Outer Limits", "Night Gallery", and even "Star Trek." After a few episodes of all those, I could snatch a couple of "Night Stalkers." Someday I'll even reach "The X-Files" and "Millennium".

But wait -- there are movies, also. Rebooting a lifetime of movies requires a multi-pronged attack: I have several areas I've started into: Classic Horror (Old Universals, serials, even way back to "Nosferatu" and the 1925 "Lost World"); 1950s (and other) SF films (starting with "The Thing" and "Day the Earth Stood Still"); Summer Blockbusters (an era that began with "Jaws", "Star Wars", "Close Encounters," and the like -- backing up to include James Bond); and "Other" (mostly non-genre films).

I just couldn't watch the Night Stalker series without watching the original TV movies, "The Night Stalker" and "The Night Strangler" . . . but the very first "Stalker" was something of an inversion of all previous vampire flicks, with the undead in the bustling metropolis of Las Vegas instead of a Transylvanian forest. So, at the very least, one ought to be familiar with the 1931 "Dracula", with the Lugosi accent and the opera cape and the rubber bats.

. . . But I've been slow in the Classic Horror area. I've seen "Nosferatu" (1922) and "Frankenstein" (1931), and that's about it.

I've got it! I'll do a crash course -- "Dracula", then "The Night Stalker", then "The Night Strangler", then "Kolchak: the Night Stalker"! I hope my nerves can take it.

Just to toot my own horn, my tale "The Curious Adventure of the Jersey Devil" is due to come out in September in Panverse Two, an anthology devoted to the nearly forgotten literary art of the novella (stories between about 15,000 and 50,000 words in length).

To continue publishing, however, Panverse needs your help:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928299198/wonder-story-theyre-back

Meanwhile: I just re-read Ray Bradbury's R is for Rocket, the book that first opened my eyes to the amazing possibilities of language and words back in 3rd or 4th grade. R is for Rocket contains stories that first appeared in other Bradbury paperbacks; some of Ray's best, in my opinion, like "The Fog-Horn," "The Long Rain," "A Sound of Thunder," and the short-short, "The Dragon". The title story, along with four or five others including "The End of the Beginning," are true sense of wonder stories about humanity's need to explore, which must now turn to the universe as our little world is thoroughly mapped.

The strange thing, however . . . I've read or at least flipped through this slim paperback many times, but this time -- there's a story in it I swear I've never read before, "Here There Be Tygers." It's not something they slipped into a new edition; my paperback copy was published about 1967. Perhaps my little brain is turning to mush at last.

Oh, well, it's great to find a Bradburian jewel as if for the first time. In case you've never read it, I won't give away the plot, but it's sort of the opposite of another Bradbury classic, "Mars Is Heaven!"

Bradbury recently celebrated his 90th birthday. If only Mr. Electrico could wave his sparking wand of lightning and restore Ray's youth! But I'm not sure my mind and soul could absorb another near-century of poetic prose from the Master: such ambrosia may be too much for mortal senses.

YouTube is Five

As you can see by the dates, I haven't been able to post in a couple of months. Well, YouTube's recent anniversary gives me a nice excuse to fill space.

Favorites from YouTube:

"Premakes: Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- if the Spielberg/Lucas hit had been made in 1951:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUPDuQq9GsM

"Halloween" theme song -- lyrics that actually fit the music of John Carpenter's original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8VfreZsuPg

"Iron Man vs. the Incredible Hulk": Best mixing of two movies I've seen yet, helped by the fact that Robert Downey, Jr., actually appeared briefly in HULK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Cm31h2NXI

"Dennis DePue Case" from "Unsolved Mysteries" -- I tried to describe this episode in one mof my first posts; at last I know its title. This video shows that the movie "Jeepers Creepers" was inspired by this segment. Guess I'll have to watch that soon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycS_RHbW3o0

"How Terminator Should Have Ended" -- this is the pastiche I was trying to write years ago. Heck, I'd fight to write the novelization now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBw9E2Q_aY

The After-Image Ghost

Keeping to my project of vacuuming up all my writings lost in cyberspace, and hoping to keep "Fiction and Reality" interesting, here's the strange story of:

THE AFTER-IMAGE GHOST

One night when I was seven or eight, I went to bed – or was ordered to bed – as usual. As always, I clicked off the overhead light and dashed across the room before any “boogers” could get me. When I crouched to make this brief run, I sometimes glanced up at the light, which would momentarily blind me. This didn't really matter, as I jumped under the sheets in complete darkness.

That night the light blinded me just as I snapped off the switch. I jumped into bed and closed my eyes as I cocooned myself in the covers.

An after-image hung behind my eyelids, yellow and sharp with purple highlights. Rather than a simple blob of color, this image looked like a woman. The figure startled me, because I didn’t remember anything feminine-looking in my room – certainly not the overhead fixture, of which this was presumably an echo.

The after-image woman in yellow and purple had long, flowing hair and an oval, sallow face. She wore bell-shaped hoopskirts out of the mid-nineteenth century. Her arms seemed to be bare. In this quasi-photo image, she appeared to have just stepped into a room from a doorway on my left. The back of her dress was cut off vertically as if by a door frame, and her right arm stuck out as if she had opened a door wide and now let her hand hang on the knob. No background of wall or door was visible, however.

She had an air of looking for someone or something, though she did not move. Her eyes, mere purple blots in her yellow face, were turned intently upon me.

I opened my eyes in the darkness of my room. The after-image hung before me, only a shapeless mass now. I closed my eyes, and the image returned. Open, featureless blob; closed, ghostly woman in bell skirts.

The After-Image Ghost frightened me, but I did not run off to my parents’ room. It would have been difficult to explain, and, besides, how do you run from an after-image? Any direction you move, it’s already in front of you!

The After-Image Ghost took a long time to fade. I kept expecting it to move or speak, but it did nothing but shimmer and break up, finally becoming no more than those random sparks you see behind your eyelids.

Was the spectral woman just a trick of the light? Possibly, but it was some trick!

The Plastic Blob! A True Tale of Terror -- Sort of

When we were kids, my brother Mark and I made goofy home movies which spoofed James Bond, Superman, "Jaws", and horror movies. One of these teenage epics was called "The Plastic Blob." The Blob was just one of those thin, clear plastic sheathes that dry cleaners slip over suits. It made a perfect blob for several reasons: It was voluminous enough to pass as a large "thing" when shot at the right angle; when wadded up it really looked like a huge ameba, with endoplasmic reticulae and what-have-you; the thin material stayed wadded up, rather than "unfolded" as thick plastic does; it was so light that an off-screen fan would make it ooze along, and if left on the edge of a table or car roof, we could jump out of the way, start filming, and it would "flow" off with a natural-looking movement, like a living creature.

Anyway, we filmed "The Plastic Blob" one year during summer vacation, along with other deathless cinematic efforts like "The Glop Man" and "The Assassin." Then I graduated from high school and went to Oklahoma State University. Our filmmaking efforts ended and "The Plastic Blob" faded from memory.

I found the OSU Library to be a mind-expanding center of learning with its acres of floor space and its million-plus volumes. I would leave my dorm room and stay there until late at night -- often 'til one or two AM.

One night, probably in my Junior year, as I passed a wide parking lot on the way from the library to my dorm, I heard a soft hissing noise. Out in this parking lot, the wind -- which wasn't that strong -- was pushing along a large white mass. I recognized it as a plastic bag of the type put over suits at the cleaners. It made little impression on me, although it was certainly the largest object being pushed by the wind, and it was ghostly white in the darkness (of course, clear objects begin to look white when folded, wadded, or fissured, due to refraction).

Anyway, I was out late most week nights, and I always walked by or through that parking lot on the way back to my dorm. (It was a lot for professors and custodians, so few cars were parked there at night, although vehicles lined it on all four sides.) I kept seeing the plastic sheathe blowing from one side of the lot to the other, sometimes scooting under one side of a car and out the other. Sure, Styrofoam cups and little paper bags blew around too, but the "plastic blob" was large and eye-catching.

I supposed the janitorial services at OSU weren't efficient enough to catch all the detritus around the campus, but I found it odd the bag never blew away. The parking lot opened into another large lot on the west, and onto streets and open land on the north and east, but no matter which way the wind blew, the bag always stayed in this one lot. And the wind varied frequently -- at least, the bag was always sailing from one end to the other.

I reached the point where I watched for the plastic bag at night. I usually spotted it after hearing the hiss it made over the concrete. The way it billowed under or between cars made it look like a shy animal hiding from my approach. When it flowed in the same direction with other wind-blown trash, it looked like it was playing tag with empty paper cups and the like. I wondered why it never snagged on anything or got wedged under someone's tires. A plastic membrane that thin usually only has to touch a branch or something before it gets tangled like old cobwebs.

Finally one night came the culminating horror, or at least a sort of climax. At two AM, the library guardians kicked me out, and I walked through the cold, dark night toward my dorm. I took a short cut through the parking lot, staying near the line of parallel-parked vehicles on the south side.

I heard a hissing, scraping sound that I could not place at first. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I could see through the driver's side window of one parked car, across the front seat, and out the passenger's side. A large mass rose up into view on the passenger's side. It looked like someone had ducked down behind the vehicle and was just lifting their head up for a peek, except the "head" was clear/white. It was the plastic bag, wadded up. After a moment that really gave the impression of it "looking" back, it rolled up the passenger's window and flowed onto the roof with a "crinkly" sound. It flowed over to my side of the car and waited in a half-spread lump, like some predatory animal with its forelegs splayed, ready to pounce.

I wonder how many students were roused from slumber by my cry of "Holy _____! It really is the Plastic Blob!" Then I hurried away -- not quite running -- to my dorm. From then on, I took an alternate route to and from the library.

In these modern times, when plastic bags have essentially won out over paper (they don't even ask "Paper or plastic?" any more in the stores hereabouts), I have seen plenty of bags scooting along in the wind. I have seen small bags blown toward a car, scraping the ground all the way, which looked like they'd just slide under but instead swept up the side of the car high into the air, caught in some errant eddy. I've never seen anything that gave such an impression of deliberate movement, however, as the Plastic Blob. I can't help but wonder, too, if I would have found it so strange -- or even have noticed the bag in the first place -- if my brother and I had not made that short 8mm film. Go figure.

The Shortest Stories Ever

In 2006 WIRED magazine asked a number of SF/fantasy writers to come up with stories only six words in length. Unable to resist a challenge, I had to scribble some of my own:

Cockroaches. Dinosaurs. Mastodons. Humans. Cockroaches again.

Molecules – cells – brains: Universe, Know Thyself.

“We come in peace – AAACHOO!” Genocide.

Nostradamus’ Predictions for 2020: (Blank pages.)

“EXTRA! Hiroshima Destroyed!” “Oy,” said Einstein.

Gollum, falling: “Hey! This is brass!”

"Humans? No such thing," said Bigfoot.

"Holmes!" "Elementary, Watson. Jekyll was Hyde."

Cthulhu groaned. "Again with the Necronomicon?"

“I’ve captured the God Particle!” Silence.

1984 has passed. Big Brother stayed.

“We are the Martians!” “Well, duh.”

Kong wins! (Godzilla took a dive.)

“Don! We forgot Dr. Smith!” “Who?”

“You okay, Mister?” “Shaken, not stirred.”

“Stormtroopers? That’s your answer to everything!”

“Time ended – yesterday!” “Sorry, not original.”

Gaslight Encounters

One thing I've worked on occasionally is a 19th Century/Victorian era world, where the characters and stories of various authors co-exist. There were so many ghost and horror stories published in the 19th and early 20th centuries, you could have a "monster manual" of Gaslight Encounters: monsters, spirits, and villains that might appear in a tale set in the era.

Here is a sample entry from one of the most basic stories of one of the most famous authors:

BLACK CAT (PLUTO)

Pluto began life as a housecat, “a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.” His owner, unfortunately, was a sadistic drunkard who blamed alcohol for his rages, during one of which he cut out one of the animal’s eyes. Later the violent owner killed Pluto by hanging him from a tree in his back yard. Soon thereafter the man’s house burned down, except for a wall on which was, “as if graven in bas-relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat.”

The cruel man and his wife lived in the basement of the burnt house, unable to afford better lodgings. He drank even more and beat his wife frequently. A stray cat appeared in their impoverished lives, to the delight of the woman and the horror of the man – a black cat with one eye missing. This cat, however, bore a white patch on its breast that slowly resolved into a gibbet.

During one drunken rage, the man attempted to slay the cat. His wife intervened only to die in its stead. The killer walled her corpse up in the cellar of the burnt-out house. Like the killer of “The Tell-tale Heart,” he was rather pleased when the police came to search for the missing woman. Suddenly, however, a mournful howl rose from within the walls. The bricks were torn down to reveal that the killer had entombed the second black cat with the dead woman.

Pluto became a spirit of vengeance due to the sadistic nature of his death. His haunting presence can cause misfortune to strike (such as a house fire), as in the traditional view of black cats being “bad luck.” He can possess, influence, or become reincarnated as a similar black cat, missing an eye, and possibly displaying some sort of disturbing symbol made of white fur on his breast. In this form he re-enters the physical world and allies himself with a new master. Although not powerful physically, he can judge circumstances with near human intelligence, especially those that will ruin or destroy people who maltreat him. A kind owner may allay his anger, perhaps even let him know peace at last, but he seems drawn to cruel and sadistic people.

When/Where: Circa 1843 onward; place unknown, possibly New England.

“Black Cat,” Poe

After years of resisting the call of the blog, it may have its uses after all. For instance, I might jot down story ideas, stream-of-consciousness considerations, interesting ideas I've heard or read about, or slices of my (often dull, I admit) life.

Today I think I'll rescue part of my old web-page, which concerned a short article that's haunted me for years:

Under the Ice

Sometimes the best intentions come to naught. Take all the recent fuss over global warming. Even if everyone came together to prevent cars and cows from giving off greenhouse gases, it may not help, due to an interesting fact uncovered in February 1993.

At that time a team of geophysicists led by Donald Blankenship (University of Texas) and Robin Bell (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) were flying over the Antarctic ice sheet south of Marie Byrd Land. Three hundred miles in from the Ross Ice Shelf, they noted a four-mile-wide depression. They flew back, using radar to prenetrate the ice, and discovered a 2,100 foot mountain. They measured the peak's magnetic field and found "the strong signal characteristic of iron-rich volcanic rock." In other words, there was an active volcano beneath the Antarctic ice -- probably more than one, as the area is a rift valley, like the infamous Atlantic Ridge.

Oddly, the problem is not that the icecap might melt. Not even a volcano could do that. But it could melt the lowest layer of ice, which would then mix with the sediment base, which would erode away. The western ice sheet might then collapse into the sea. According to science writer Robert Naeye, "if it did, the global sea level would rise about 20 feet, and coastal cities will be flooded."

This is not to say we should let greenhouse gases spew into the atmosphere at our hearts' desire, but . . . Someday I intend to move from my present apartment, and when I do, it will be to someplace inland. And high.

Naeye, Robert, "The Strangest Volcano," Discover vol. 15, no. 1, January 1994.

The First Post

FICTION & REALITY 2.0



Well, ten years after I joined the Internet, nine years after I created my first crude web-page, it's time for a blog. I resisted for a long time, barely able to think of anything to put on a web-page every month or two, but, when I considered all the remarks I've posted on message boards and the like, some of which I consider halfway interesting, I decided this would be a good place to gather them.


"I" am Michael D. Winkle, author of several published short stories and articles. There's my high school picture to the left, taken when I had a few more strands of hair. If I'm feeling exceptionally cruel, I may post a more recent photo, but I don't want to frighten people off yet.



Anyway, my published works include "Typo" in Cthulhu's Heirs (edited by Thomas Stratman), "Wolfhead" in Tales of the Witch World 3 (edited by Andre Norton), and "Toon-Boy" in Going Postal (edited by Gerard Houarner). Naturally, I'd like the "several" to become "many", and I'd like to add novels to the stories and articles. After several tense and very dry years, the writing machine is puttering away again at last, and my wishes may finally come true!


In the meantime, here's one of those scattered posts I mentioned, this concerning my favorite single television episodes. No, not favorite TV series -- single episodes, if I could remember them. There may be some spoilers here, so read at your own risk:



FAVORITE TV EPISODES



The Twilight Zone: "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" -- They wouldn't let Rod Serling write scripts attacking bigotry, racism, and other issues on "normal" programs, but once he disguised them as fantasy and SF, he slipped them by the network bigwigs. A UFO is seen over Maple Street, USA, and all the power goes out -- except for a few choice people. Are they spies for the invaders? Paranoia mounts, erupting into mob violence.



Jonny Quest: "Terror Island" -- Hey! A killer crab the size of an M1 tank! A freaky, squealing giant spider! Roger "Race" Bannon demonstrates that he could have beaten North Vietnam single-handed! An Asian mad scientist who gets wiped out by Godzilla's ugly cousin! And JADE! What else do you need?!



The Avengers: "The Positive-Negative Man" -- THE AVENGERS began as a take-off on the spy-craze of the '60s, but I think TPNM is one of the best science fiction episodes ever made. It took a concept that's been bandied about since the 1930s (projected power -- electricity reaching homes, cars, airplanes, etc. from towers, just like radio waves) and took it in a totally new direction. The Positive-Negative Man himself, silent and shiny-gray, accompanied by ominous generator hums and electric crackling, capable of knocking people through brick walls with a touch of his finger, is one of the small screen's most memorable "monsters". Then there are John Steed and Emma Peel at their best, exchanging witty lines of dialog.



The Prisoner: "Hammer Into Anvil" -- When the newest Number 2 tortures a woman to the point of suicide, Number 6 shifts his campaign from trying to escape to destroying Number 2. He flashes Morse code out to the empty sea, writes gobblety-gook messages in code, and speaks spy-type "messages" into the ears of Village personnel, all in full view of the hidden cameras. The paranoid Number 2 eventually comes to believe Number 6 was sent to spy on him, and that the Village staff are helping 6! It's interesting to think that The Prisoner (so-called) could outsmart the whole Village if he was fighting for someone else (or their memory); had he put this much effort into his escapes, he would been back in London after a week. The only thing missing from "Hammer Into Anvil" is Rover, the balloon thingy, but, hey, you can't have everything!



Star Trek: "Balance of Terror" -- Sure, it was a WW II submarine movie translated to outer space, but "Balance" is probably the best "battle among the stars" episode ever. After a hundred years of uneasy peace, the Romulans (never before seen by humans) are trying to sneak across the Neutral Zone using their latest invention, the cloaking device. Only the Enterprise is available to stop them before the situation escalates into a galactic war. Rather than just phaser-ing off wildly in all directions, the captains and officers on both sides try to outthink their opponents, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. And no wonder that one guy is suspicious of Spock -- the Romulan commander looks just like his father!



Monty Python: "Full Frontal Nudity" -- This episode features the Colonel, the stuffy military officer who hates all things silly. It contains the infamous "Parrot Sketch," as well as "Hell's Grannies," and the hymn that essentially became the show's theme song ("England's Mountains Green"). The only slow part is some bit with hermits living on a mountainside. Otherwise it is the quintessential Python show. Except that it's too silly.



Kolchak: the Night Stalker: "The Ripper" -- Robert Bloch's most famous short story was "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper," in which we learn that the infamous London killer has become immortal by making blood sacrifices to "the dark gods." In later years Bloch complained that other writers, movies, and TV shows were stealing his concept of an immortal Jack. But the Ripper has become "immortal" on his own, a dark apotheosis like Vlad the Impaler forever with us as Dracula. While Bloch's Ripper was a chameleon who hid among us, Kolchak's Saucy Jack is an over-the-top super-villain who parades around in front of God and the world in Victorian finery and wades through armies of cops sent to stop him. He's as arrogant in his own way as the pun-slinging Freddy Krueger, yet he doesn't receive a word of dialogue. "The Ripper" has the most amazing cops vs. monster fights of the series -- outdoing the two TV movies as well, and possibly outdoing any other hand-to-hand battles I've ever seen on the small screen. At the end there's the oddest hero-confronting-villain bit of all time -- Kolchak hiding in the Ripper's closet, a scene terrifying and hilarious at the same time.



Connections: "The Trigger Effect" -- James Burke's show started off with a bang, using the 1965 New England power blackout to show how dependent we have become on technology. And he piles it on: If the power went out permanently, what would you do? Flee the city? Do you have enough gas? Can you beat the streaming millions? If you reach the country, could you find shelter? Food? If you staked out land, doesn't someone probably own it already? If farmhouses are the only shelter, will you take one by force? Burke goes on and on about what a delicate mechanism our modern society is. Really makes you think.



Sherlock Holmes: "A Scandal in Bohemia" -- The first episode of the Jeremy Brett series. Brett made people forget Basil Rathbone. At last Dr. Watson is shown to be fairly intelligent and capable. And in Irene Adler, we are introduced to "the Woman", a "villain" who stalemates Holmes and comes as close to stealing his heart as any female. (And in various Holmes pastiches, she does, but that's another story.)



Unsolved Mysteries: That one where the old couple go on a Sunday drive in the country and see a mysterious van wherever they go -- and its driver, who tosses out a blood-covered sheet. We find out he killed his wife, and the update shows him with his new wife, watching his own segment on Unsolved Mysteries! He flees, gets chased by the cops, runs a roadblock, and, after a pitched gun battle, he shoots himself. A Hitchcockian beginning, a nasty villain, a sequel that folds the show itself into the plot, a police chase and gunfight as good as any cop show, and eye-for-an-eye closure to what had been a -- well -- an unsolved mystery!



Batman: the Animated Series: "Heart of Ice" -- This, the third episode of B:TAS to be aired, introduced Victor Fries, aka Mr. Freeze, formerly a very minor villain, and made of him an epic, tragic figure. Freeze, who looks like something out of an old issue of AMAZING STORIES, is cold, calculating, and terrifying when out for revenge on the man who put his wife in a coma. However, he is driven by his love for his wife, and in future appearances he goes to any length to cure her. One might make parallels between Bruce Wayne and the Joker, but I think Fries, with his tragic origin story, is an even closer "shadow" of Batman.



The X-Files: "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" -- Just the teaser to this one made me think I was in for one of the great audio/visual experiences of my life, and I was right: A young couple driving down a country road is abducted by Grays -- who are themselves attacked by a monstrous Cyclopean creature from a second spaceship! This episode was like the whole series rolled into 46 minutes -- conspiracies, hoaxes, abductions, Men-in-Black, a shaggy monster, an alien autopsy, all seen from the point of view of a writer, Jose Chung (Charles Nelson Riley), who has the uneviable job of trying to make sense of it all. There's even a cameo by The Amazing Yappi (from "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"). And, like the UFO buff in "Jose Chung . . .", I often find myself shouting, "You can't hide the truth forever! Roswell! Roswell!"