Post by zimmerman on Dec 17, 2013 18:56:48 GMT -5
James West: I was a shot by a puppet.
Artemus Gordon: I'm sorry I asked.
"(If You'll) look closely enough, you'll find that everything in life is mutilated, flawed, corrupt, except for Vivid." --Zechariah Skull, in response to James West's question that all of his puppets are deformed.
It seems kind of ironic that the two episodes of The Wild Wild West that could quite possibly qualify as Christmas-themed episodes aired back-to-back on two consecutive weeks and that the same production team behind The Night of the Whirring Death is also involved with the production of this episode, produced during John Mantley's brief tenure as producer of the series before he literally moved over to Dodge City and went on to produce several seasons of CBS' hit Western series Gunsmoke, whose sets made many an appearance in a Wild Wild West episode. .
This rather interesting episode for once has James West actually carrying out an assingment and not failing at it, as he assigned to protect a Supreme Court judge who received a rather interesting present of a small coffin in the mail--the same present that two other judges on his board received in the mail and had deadly consequences involved for them. Yet for this particular judge, a justice Vincent Chayne, masterfully played by John Hoyt, he gets a rather interesting twist for his supposed "Execution"--an impromptu puppet show wherein a likeness of the sender, Zechariah Skull, decides to kill Judge Chayne, and almost did had not James West intervened.
After a brief recovery, James West decides to take a brief trip over to Triton's Locker in search of the elusive Zachariah Skull, a man, who in the words of Judge Chayne, is "a sculptor...(a) brilliant man, convicted of murder a few years ago (and) was sentenced to hang. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court." After refusing to take his case, Skull, in his own words later in the program, was "pushed out of a train travelling at a higher rate of Speed. (He was) jumped because (he) was condemned by a verdict that blind to the truth to a shameful death for a murder I never committed. I was pushed." The result of this violent shove was "half a hundred broken bones" plus "terrible internal injuries", in addition to "irreparable damage to (his) body metabolism." To retaliate, he is determined to kill off all of the judges that caused him to be in his present condition--"In the days to come, one by one, I shall snuff out the remaining ugly graceless lives until the court and my honor are finally free of stain."
At the basement of the tavern, he creates his own imperfect universe of deformed puppets, people who are in the same condition as he is--"puppets with the brute force of a steam locomotive"--with a very heavy amount of steampower to cause some major damage to people who deal with them, as James West learned the hard way when his right shoulder was knicked by a clown puppet. In a sense, the puppets almost come across as real people! Skull's grudges are so deep, according to James West in one of his conversations with him, "The world of people offend you, so create your own world--of puppets."
Before meeting Mr. Skull, James West called him "A Man of style and arrogance." , and that perfectly describes him AND the way that Lloyd Bochner classily interprets this rather interesting Wild Wild West villian. He really gets into the twisted crazy demented mind of this character, giving him a kind of a British elegance that could be found in UK shows past and present like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey.
Also worth note among Mr. Skulls twisted "Cast of thousands" (to quote Rigmaster Ned Locke on the old Chicago-based Bozo's Circus) is Vivid--the only other flesh-and-blood human being in amongst all the dangerous puppets, a young lady whom Mr. Skull rescued from a crushing carriage and nursed her injured legs and taught her to dance in the process. Masterfully played by Imelade Martin, she brings a lot of great elegance and class to this rather interesting episode of WIld Wild West , pariculary when she and James West have their special dance together. However, James West fans had to wait for the tag for the two of them to have that elusive kiss that you knew would be coming sooner or later . Ms. Martin has a lot of dance experience on her belt, including several Broadway musicals, which helps to bring a lot of realism to this episode.
In this particular episode, Artie doesn't have any major disguises por se, being that he gets to go undercover sans makeup and only changes his voice slightly so he can be a very good drunk so he can find where James is hiding. He does have some very enjoyable moments, when he is overjoyed that the guy holding the billboard gives him the answer that he needs as to which tavern James West is hiding at and gives him a very generous tip in the process. He also has great conversation with the female waitress (played by Janis Hansen, better known in the '70's as Gloria Unger, Felix's ex-wife on The Odd Couple). Also worth noting is Artie is wearing the evening outfit that he would later wear in The Night of the Lord of Limbo and also gives us another glimpse of the brotherly friendship between him and James West when Artie tells the waitress that he "Lost the best pal he ever had, good old James West." Later, when he finds James, we are treated to a small-scale form of a fight between the two of them that would really come into fruition in the teaser for The Night of the Skulls .
There are not many fights for James West in this particular episode, with the best one being in the bar when "he tried to take down the whole North Pointe Dragon Fleet single-handed." wherein he gets to show us several really good fighting moves.
Aside from not having a really good Artie disguise, just a drunk accent, other neagative qualites in this episode include not a lot of Jim and Artie interaction, the mock trail between James and Mr. Skull that seems to take too much time, especially considering that James was still going to lose no matter what, and not any really good fights.
At least one good aspect of this episode is the music, which is very well-done. Considering that this is sometimes considered a Christmas episode, it is rather appropriate that someone who worked for "Mr. Christmas" himself, Andy Williams, would be called upon to do the music. Future Jazz-Pop legend Dave Grusin does an excellent job creating the keyboard sounds that come up when Skull activates his puppets. it was not his last excursion into TV scoring either: he would later compose the funky theme music for the Tony Franciosa-Gene Barry-Robert Stack series The Name of the Game, now airing occaisonally on Cozi TV.
Overall, an interesting episode to watch. Not an excellent episode of Wild Wild West, but a good episode that garners a......
7 out of 10 from me. .
Artemus Gordon: I'm sorry I asked.
"(If You'll) look closely enough, you'll find that everything in life is mutilated, flawed, corrupt, except for Vivid." --Zechariah Skull, in response to James West's question that all of his puppets are deformed.
It seems kind of ironic that the two episodes of The Wild Wild West that could quite possibly qualify as Christmas-themed episodes aired back-to-back on two consecutive weeks and that the same production team behind The Night of the Whirring Death is also involved with the production of this episode, produced during John Mantley's brief tenure as producer of the series before he literally moved over to Dodge City and went on to produce several seasons of CBS' hit Western series Gunsmoke, whose sets made many an appearance in a Wild Wild West episode. .
This rather interesting episode for once has James West actually carrying out an assingment and not failing at it, as he assigned to protect a Supreme Court judge who received a rather interesting present of a small coffin in the mail--the same present that two other judges on his board received in the mail and had deadly consequences involved for them. Yet for this particular judge, a justice Vincent Chayne, masterfully played by John Hoyt, he gets a rather interesting twist for his supposed "Execution"--an impromptu puppet show wherein a likeness of the sender, Zechariah Skull, decides to kill Judge Chayne, and almost did had not James West intervened.
After a brief recovery, James West decides to take a brief trip over to Triton's Locker in search of the elusive Zachariah Skull, a man, who in the words of Judge Chayne, is "a sculptor...(a) brilliant man, convicted of murder a few years ago (and) was sentenced to hang. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court." After refusing to take his case, Skull, in his own words later in the program, was "pushed out of a train travelling at a higher rate of Speed. (He was) jumped because (he) was condemned by a verdict that blind to the truth to a shameful death for a murder I never committed. I was pushed." The result of this violent shove was "half a hundred broken bones" plus "terrible internal injuries", in addition to "irreparable damage to (his) body metabolism." To retaliate, he is determined to kill off all of the judges that caused him to be in his present condition--"In the days to come, one by one, I shall snuff out the remaining ugly graceless lives until the court and my honor are finally free of stain."
At the basement of the tavern, he creates his own imperfect universe of deformed puppets, people who are in the same condition as he is--"puppets with the brute force of a steam locomotive"--with a very heavy amount of steampower to cause some major damage to people who deal with them, as James West learned the hard way when his right shoulder was knicked by a clown puppet. In a sense, the puppets almost come across as real people! Skull's grudges are so deep, according to James West in one of his conversations with him, "The world of people offend you, so create your own world--of puppets."
Before meeting Mr. Skull, James West called him "A Man of style and arrogance." , and that perfectly describes him AND the way that Lloyd Bochner classily interprets this rather interesting Wild Wild West villian. He really gets into the twisted crazy demented mind of this character, giving him a kind of a British elegance that could be found in UK shows past and present like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey.
Also worth note among Mr. Skulls twisted "Cast of thousands" (to quote Rigmaster Ned Locke on the old Chicago-based Bozo's Circus) is Vivid--the only other flesh-and-blood human being in amongst all the dangerous puppets, a young lady whom Mr. Skull rescued from a crushing carriage and nursed her injured legs and taught her to dance in the process. Masterfully played by Imelade Martin, she brings a lot of great elegance and class to this rather interesting episode of WIld Wild West , pariculary when she and James West have their special dance together. However, James West fans had to wait for the tag for the two of them to have that elusive kiss that you knew would be coming sooner or later . Ms. Martin has a lot of dance experience on her belt, including several Broadway musicals, which helps to bring a lot of realism to this episode.
In this particular episode, Artie doesn't have any major disguises por se, being that he gets to go undercover sans makeup and only changes his voice slightly so he can be a very good drunk so he can find where James is hiding. He does have some very enjoyable moments, when he is overjoyed that the guy holding the billboard gives him the answer that he needs as to which tavern James West is hiding at and gives him a very generous tip in the process. He also has great conversation with the female waitress (played by Janis Hansen, better known in the '70's as Gloria Unger, Felix's ex-wife on The Odd Couple). Also worth noting is Artie is wearing the evening outfit that he would later wear in The Night of the Lord of Limbo and also gives us another glimpse of the brotherly friendship between him and James West when Artie tells the waitress that he "Lost the best pal he ever had, good old James West." Later, when he finds James, we are treated to a small-scale form of a fight between the two of them that would really come into fruition in the teaser for The Night of the Skulls .
There are not many fights for James West in this particular episode, with the best one being in the bar when "he tried to take down the whole North Pointe Dragon Fleet single-handed." wherein he gets to show us several really good fighting moves.
Aside from not having a really good Artie disguise, just a drunk accent, other neagative qualites in this episode include not a lot of Jim and Artie interaction, the mock trail between James and Mr. Skull that seems to take too much time, especially considering that James was still going to lose no matter what, and not any really good fights.
At least one good aspect of this episode is the music, which is very well-done. Considering that this is sometimes considered a Christmas episode, it is rather appropriate that someone who worked for "Mr. Christmas" himself, Andy Williams, would be called upon to do the music. Future Jazz-Pop legend Dave Grusin does an excellent job creating the keyboard sounds that come up when Skull activates his puppets. it was not his last excursion into TV scoring either: he would later compose the funky theme music for the Tony Franciosa-Gene Barry-Robert Stack series The Name of the Game, now airing occaisonally on Cozi TV.
Overall, an interesting episode to watch. Not an excellent episode of Wild Wild West, but a good episode that garners a......
7 out of 10 from me. .