Post by niecie on Aug 2, 2013 15:52:54 GMT -5
Pay attention to the nurse at the beginning. That's not the last we see of her. (Something I didn't notice the first time I watched this after getting the DVDs.)
(Silly thing to notice, but right after Jim enters the room and is talking with the doctor, the way Jim is standing, I could see the rattlesnake motif on his revolver particularly clearly.)
I'm rather fond of this scene and how well Robert Conrad handled it. Being told his partner is gravely injured and then seeing the doctor pull the sheet over the head of the man on the table signaling he's dead -- and then being asked to identify the dead man. Jim's hairline bobs on his forehead then. But it isn't Artie!
And then the sleep powder sprayed in his face and how Jim's reacts, slamming into one set of furniture, then drawing his gun, then falling like a log against the table the dead man is on and out on the floor! Wow!
I think this is the only time I've ever seen a basket the size and shape of a coffin.
Jim managed to cock the gun before he dropped it and collapsed. The nurse hands the gun to the doctor, who uncocks the gun just as the teaser closes.
Artie's guest sure has a huge chip on his shoulder, doesn't he? Artie compliments him on his shooting; Ahkeema makes a snide comment about bow & arrow or tomahawk. Artie offers him a drink; Ahkeema gives him a lecture on how it's against the law to provide liquor to an Indian. The guy just keeps going on and on till finally Artie lets him know he's very rude. The guy then puts a gun to Artie's head (!?!?!) and quotes him an Indian proverb. Artie, not showing a moment's fear (but tons of contempt) quotes back the saying that fish and bad-tempered guests stink after a while.
Yuck -- Ahkeema zoomed to the top of my Do Not Like list even before he joined the Point-a-Gun-at-Artie club!
Well here's the question though -- did Ahkeema reload his gun before he poked Artie in the back of the head with it?
So... who shoots up the train? And why doesn't Ahkeema shoot at them with the gun in his hand? Or did he never reload after all?
I do like the sword cane! Why do we never get to see Artie actually use it? Yes, he pins that one guy with it, but apparently with the sword still in its sheath.
Dr Arcularis. And later there will be Dr Articulus and the two Drs Occularis. Someone was fond of names of that sound.
Indra was the nurse. I like her.
I find it a bit strange that they let us in on who hired Dr Arcularis so early in the episode.
I dislike Dr Arcularis intensely, btw.
Now contrasted to the despicable doctor is one of my favorite one-off characters, mad Madame La Farge. The whole sequence with her is a delight -- including the tilted camera angle in her room that has me thinking her wheelchair will roll toward the door on its own.
But seriously, why on earth did her doctor permit her to have a toy guillotine in her bedroom??
I love the bit with Artie promising her bonbons, and I certainly hope he followed through on his promise to her!
Man, that doctor is just pure evil! The light, the bells! I love Jim's bravado of 'I almost like them.' There's another line that irks me to no end though, the line of 'Shoot the bad bad Indian.' Argh, like Jim's a two year old!
The scene between Jim and Indra is so sweet, with her trying to convince Jim to give in so the doctor will stop hurting Jim, and Jim trying to convince her she can fight against the doctor's conditioning. And Jim kisses her.
Jim kissing a girl is followed by Jim shirtless! Jim fakes out the henchies, pretending to be dazed, then thumps 'em both and shoves them out the door, then uses the light in the lighthouse to send a blinker signal asking for help. A 'blinker SOS' says the man on the ship who spots it. Well, that's somewhat anachronistic. The SOS signal wasn't in use yet back then; I happened to learn that while doing some research. What signal was in common use back in the 1870's I wasn't able to find out.
It's a bit strange that the men who come to the lighthouse in response to Jim's signal don't find the lighthouse-keeper's behavior disturbing, the way he stares and keeps silent, nor do they question the fact that the doctor acts like he's in charge. Pity Jim's escape plan failed!
When the doctor opens the door to reveal Jim bound and gagged in the chair, I can't help thinking 'If looks could kill...'
Now here's one thing: in the following scene when Jim is being tortured by the light and there's the gun in his hand, Ahkeema is right there, ok? And the doctor says, 'Kill the bad Indian and it will all be over.' How could he be sure Jim wouldn't shoot Ahkeema? The statue of Ho-Tami isn't the only Indian present!
Plexiglass? in the 1870's? Oh, and what is the light source that's reflecting off Ahkeema's tie jewel into Jim's eyes?
Well, I'm an Artie fangirl, so I love the next scene, the one on the docks where Artie interrogates Sikes. The exploding bag of 'money,' the cane pinning Sikes to the wall, the line 'I'll kill you now!' *megagrin*
Canon or not, I still find it hard to believe that James West can be hypnotized, especially into committing a murder.
Hey, the vase Jim breaks is the same one from Torture Chamber! I guess those things really were a dime a dozen!
My dad taught me that in a knife fight you hold the knife so that the blade is on the thumb side of your hand, not the pinky side.
Dying man finds his conscious and tells the truth. Well, it explains a lot, but doesn't sound real.
Unfortunately, the bad guy is right about what was going to happen to his people.
Ok, so it took the doctor a week to condition Jim, right? I don't know how long it took Jim to return to the lighthouse, but Artie had showed up there about the time Ahkeema took Jim away. And the doctor said Artie was difficult to condition too, but there's no way the doctor had a week in which to break Artie. And as with Jim, so here, I find it hard to believe the doctor could hypnotize Artie at all, much less condition him to try to kill his best friend. So while this is one of my favorite episodes for many reasons, it stretches my credulity a bit too far.
Artie didn't see Jim slide off the edge of the walkway and hang there? It's a circular staircase; how did he miss seeing that?
Jim gets through to the doctor's people. I like that so much, how they start walking down the stairs toward Jim, and just keep going right past him, heading for the doctor! Oh, and Indra's eyes as she watches the men just keep coming toward the doctor -- heh heh.
Ah, but I'll just skip commenting on Artie's lines about women, thank you.
(Silly thing to notice, but right after Jim enters the room and is talking with the doctor, the way Jim is standing, I could see the rattlesnake motif on his revolver particularly clearly.)
I'm rather fond of this scene and how well Robert Conrad handled it. Being told his partner is gravely injured and then seeing the doctor pull the sheet over the head of the man on the table signaling he's dead -- and then being asked to identify the dead man. Jim's hairline bobs on his forehead then. But it isn't Artie!
And then the sleep powder sprayed in his face and how Jim's reacts, slamming into one set of furniture, then drawing his gun, then falling like a log against the table the dead man is on and out on the floor! Wow!
I think this is the only time I've ever seen a basket the size and shape of a coffin.
Jim managed to cock the gun before he dropped it and collapsed. The nurse hands the gun to the doctor, who uncocks the gun just as the teaser closes.
Artie's guest sure has a huge chip on his shoulder, doesn't he? Artie compliments him on his shooting; Ahkeema makes a snide comment about bow & arrow or tomahawk. Artie offers him a drink; Ahkeema gives him a lecture on how it's against the law to provide liquor to an Indian. The guy just keeps going on and on till finally Artie lets him know he's very rude. The guy then puts a gun to Artie's head (!?!?!) and quotes him an Indian proverb. Artie, not showing a moment's fear (but tons of contempt) quotes back the saying that fish and bad-tempered guests stink after a while.
Yuck -- Ahkeema zoomed to the top of my Do Not Like list even before he joined the Point-a-Gun-at-Artie club!
Well here's the question though -- did Ahkeema reload his gun before he poked Artie in the back of the head with it?
So... who shoots up the train? And why doesn't Ahkeema shoot at them with the gun in his hand? Or did he never reload after all?
I do like the sword cane! Why do we never get to see Artie actually use it? Yes, he pins that one guy with it, but apparently with the sword still in its sheath.
Dr Arcularis. And later there will be Dr Articulus and the two Drs Occularis. Someone was fond of names of that sound.
Indra was the nurse. I like her.
I find it a bit strange that they let us in on who hired Dr Arcularis so early in the episode.
I dislike Dr Arcularis intensely, btw.
Now contrasted to the despicable doctor is one of my favorite one-off characters, mad Madame La Farge. The whole sequence with her is a delight -- including the tilted camera angle in her room that has me thinking her wheelchair will roll toward the door on its own.
But seriously, why on earth did her doctor permit her to have a toy guillotine in her bedroom??
I love the bit with Artie promising her bonbons, and I certainly hope he followed through on his promise to her!
Man, that doctor is just pure evil! The light, the bells! I love Jim's bravado of 'I almost like them.' There's another line that irks me to no end though, the line of 'Shoot the bad bad Indian.' Argh, like Jim's a two year old!
The scene between Jim and Indra is so sweet, with her trying to convince Jim to give in so the doctor will stop hurting Jim, and Jim trying to convince her she can fight against the doctor's conditioning. And Jim kisses her.
Jim kissing a girl is followed by Jim shirtless! Jim fakes out the henchies, pretending to be dazed, then thumps 'em both and shoves them out the door, then uses the light in the lighthouse to send a blinker signal asking for help. A 'blinker SOS' says the man on the ship who spots it. Well, that's somewhat anachronistic. The SOS signal wasn't in use yet back then; I happened to learn that while doing some research. What signal was in common use back in the 1870's I wasn't able to find out.
It's a bit strange that the men who come to the lighthouse in response to Jim's signal don't find the lighthouse-keeper's behavior disturbing, the way he stares and keeps silent, nor do they question the fact that the doctor acts like he's in charge. Pity Jim's escape plan failed!
When the doctor opens the door to reveal Jim bound and gagged in the chair, I can't help thinking 'If looks could kill...'
Now here's one thing: in the following scene when Jim is being tortured by the light and there's the gun in his hand, Ahkeema is right there, ok? And the doctor says, 'Kill the bad Indian and it will all be over.' How could he be sure Jim wouldn't shoot Ahkeema? The statue of Ho-Tami isn't the only Indian present!
Plexiglass? in the 1870's? Oh, and what is the light source that's reflecting off Ahkeema's tie jewel into Jim's eyes?
Well, I'm an Artie fangirl, so I love the next scene, the one on the docks where Artie interrogates Sikes. The exploding bag of 'money,' the cane pinning Sikes to the wall, the line 'I'll kill you now!' *megagrin*
Canon or not, I still find it hard to believe that James West can be hypnotized, especially into committing a murder.
Hey, the vase Jim breaks is the same one from Torture Chamber! I guess those things really were a dime a dozen!
My dad taught me that in a knife fight you hold the knife so that the blade is on the thumb side of your hand, not the pinky side.
Dying man finds his conscious and tells the truth. Well, it explains a lot, but doesn't sound real.
Unfortunately, the bad guy is right about what was going to happen to his people.
Ok, so it took the doctor a week to condition Jim, right? I don't know how long it took Jim to return to the lighthouse, but Artie had showed up there about the time Ahkeema took Jim away. And the doctor said Artie was difficult to condition too, but there's no way the doctor had a week in which to break Artie. And as with Jim, so here, I find it hard to believe the doctor could hypnotize Artie at all, much less condition him to try to kill his best friend. So while this is one of my favorite episodes for many reasons, it stretches my credulity a bit too far.
Artie didn't see Jim slide off the edge of the walkway and hang there? It's a circular staircase; how did he miss seeing that?
Jim gets through to the doctor's people. I like that so much, how they start walking down the stairs toward Jim, and just keep going right past him, heading for the doctor! Oh, and Indra's eyes as she watches the men just keep coming toward the doctor -- heh heh.
Ah, but I'll just skip commenting on Artie's lines about women, thank you.