AS SEEN ON TV: FATHER PEREGRINE II

Transcribed by Ralph Dumain:

The door to the church opens. Father Peregrine is at the altar. He hears something, goes to close the door. Father Peregrine returns to kneel and pray at the altar, then turns around and looks for an intruder.

"Someone there?"

He approaches a water basin in the center of the room, sees blood dripping into the water. He sees a hand bearing the stigmata, then the other, and begins to pray intensely with eyes clenched shut.

"Enough." Father Peregrine covers his face with his hands.

'Jesus' appears, in a robe, with arms crossed and folded, with a crown of thorns. Father Peregrine reaches out his hand. Then he mutters "You're trembling ..."

'Jesus' says: "Let me go."

Peregrine: "Let you go? But no one keeps you here."

'Jesus': "Yes …. you do."

'Jesus': "Avert your gaze. The more you look, the more I become this. I am not what I seem. I'm not that vision. I didn't mean to come here. I was in the town square. One thing: I lost hold … and suddenly I was many things to many people. I ran and they followed. I fled in here. Then you came in. And I was trapped."

Peregrine: "No…. no…."

Martian Jesus: "Yes … trapped!"

Peregrine: "But … you're not what you seem?"

Martian Jesus: "Forgive me. I wish that I might be but I cannot."

Peregrine: "I'm going mad."

Martian Jesus: "No … or I go down in madness with you. Release me!"

Peregrine: "I can't. Not when you've finally come. 2000 years we waited for your return. And now I am the one who sees you, and hears you speaking."

Martian Jesus: "You see nothing but your own dream ... your own needs. Beneath all this I am another thing."

Peregrine: "What am I to do?"

Martian Jesus: "Look away from me, and in that moment I'll be gone. Halt, or you'll kill me!"
Peregrine: "Or I'll kill you?"

Martian Jesus: "If you force me into this guise much longer, I will die. This is more than I can hold."

Father Peregrine and 'Jesus' exchange inaudible whispers.

Martian Jesus: "No … You know that …

Peregrine: "That …"

Martian Jesus: "No more, no less."

Peregrine: "And I have made you like this with my thoughts."

Martian Jesus: "You came into the church. You looked at the crucifix. Your old dream of meeting him seized you once again. Seized me. My body still bleeds from the wounds you gave me with your secret mind."

Peregrine: "…Oh, my sweet God …. Go, before I keep you here forever."

Father Peregrine turns away. The door opens; the wind blows. 'Jesus' is gone. The priest turns back around: no one is there.

From Ralph Dumain:

When I transcribed the scene above, I erroneously assumed that this scene must have been [Richard] Matheson's own creation, and that there was no way to obtain this story in print, as screenplays can be very hard to come by. Thanks to Ray Bradbury fans, I have learned that the scene above was indeed based on a short story by Bradbury, though not part of "The Martian Chronicles". Apparently, there are enough other Martian stories to make up another volume. The basis for this scene is evidently Bradbury's story "The Messiah", which appears in the collection "Long After Midnight" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976; pp. 55-66). The story begins with a theological dialogue between Father Niven and Bishop Kelley. Father Niven has the encounter with the Martian 'Jesus' in the wee hours. There is more to the dialogue here than in the screenplay, as Father Niven exacts a promise from the Martian Jesus to return once a year, on Easter. I think this ending derogates from the story. I do not know how Richard Matheson came to include this story in his teleplay. One of my informants claims that Bradbury wrote some of the additional scenes and dialogue for the miniseries, but I have not as yet been able to verify Bradbury's direct input. The miniseries is available as a three-volume VHS video, and can easily be found via online auction web sites. (Ralph Dumain, 17 May 2003)

"CHIEFLY O'HARAS" - HELEN & KATE

"CHIEFLY O'HARAS"

[EPISODE FIVE]

"UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE"

One thing could be said about the men and women in this particular branch of the O'Hara Family Tree in Toobworld - the men always found the most beautiful women to marry, and the women were always as beautiful as their mothers.

Helen Juliet O'Hara was the apple of her father's eye, and she idolized him as well. When it came time to go to college, Helen chose to study criminology in order to follow in her father's footsteps. Chief O'Hara offered to pay her tuition and living expenses, but Helen was determined to make it on her own.

Accepted by the University of Metropolis, Helen moved away from her parents in Nebraska to live on campus at UMetro where she also pledged to the "Tri-Psi" sorority.

But Helen was not completely cut off from her family in another state - her second cousin Kate McShane, born in the same year, came to the University of Metropolis from New York City in order to get her pre-law undergraduate degree.

(Helen's grandfather and Kate's grandmother were siblings. In fact, Kate's Dad, Pat McShane [another cop in the family!] was an identical cousin to Helen's Uncle Seamus. Grandfather McShane and Grandmother O'Hara were both right off the boat from Ireland, which was why Pat McShane, Uncle Seamus O'Hara, Timothy O'Hara, Sr., and Police Chief Miles O'Hara all had a touch of the Brogue their own selves.)

When Helen failed to secure a scholarship, it was Cousin Kate who suggested that Helen could make money by modeling. She had seen a want ad in the Daily Planet submitted by the local department store in the Winfred-Louder chain.  They were looking for some young lovely to be the face of the store in their advertising.

(Helen always trusted in Kate's advice because she knew her cousin had no reason to betray her in any way. Kate - who was named after an Aunt Katherine who later served in the Navy during World War II - certainly was never going to be chasing after the same boys Helen might be interested in, since her... inclinations lay in a different direction.)

TOOBWORLD NOTE: The pictures of the University of Metropolis come from the TV dimension in which 'The West Wing' and 'Smallville' resided.  But this does not mean the University couldn't also exist in the main Toobworld of Earth Prime-Time.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'The Adventures Of Superman'
• 'Batman'
• 'The Drew Carey Show'
• 'Kate McShane'
• 'The L Word' (j/k)
• 'My Favorite Martian'
• 'Operation Petticoat'
• 'Smallville'

Coming up next: "A Model Life"

BCnU!

SWEDEN LOW-DOWN

I think Rob Buckley of "The Medium Is Not Enough" (The link to the UK's fourth most popular TV blog is to the left, Team Toobworld!) should be considered Toobworld Central's news correspondent. Just about every day he provides links to news stories that could have an impact on Earth Prime-Time, many of which I never would have found otherwise.

And it fills me with dread every time he announces that he's taking a vacation or bank holiday......

Thanks to Rob, we can now add a little more "world" to Toobworld......

TV4, which is a Swedish TV network, will be presenting a sitcom about a fictional Swedish royal family in 2013. It will be called "Familjen Holstein-Gottorp".

In this show, Sweden is ruled by King Erik XV (one of the 'Lost' numbers!) and his Queen, Ulrika. The rest of the family are described as loveable but self-centered. (I'm getting a 'Soap' vibe.....) There will also be a press officer doing her best to present the best possible image of the royal family to the public, and a hopeless bodyguard (good for slapstick value, I guess.)

Here's the press release description of the Holstein-Gottorp Royal Family. (Warning - it's via the Google translator):

Holstein-Gottorps head - King Eric XV - played by John Ulveson. The king is nice but a bit clueless and doesn't have much confidence in his ability to improvise in new situations.

His wife, Queen Ulrika, played by Sissela Kyle, have complex [has contempt?] for their petty nobles background and would rather be queen in the 1700s when the subjects were treated little as one pleased.

The royal couple have children Crown Prince Oscar (Robin Stegmar) and Princess Louisa (Cecilia Forss).

The Crown Prince feels trapped in his role and is really not interested in taking over the throne. He had rather busy with music or movies instead of having to look for Sweden's next queen. 

Louisa is a very kind-hearted but not very "street smart" princess who wants to save the rain forests and all the animals of the world - but preferably without making any effort.

The family's immediate vicinity are also their competent but long-suffering press officer Tova Unger (Lisa Linnertorp). She is constantly putting out fires and struggling to maintain the image of the perfect royal family.

Together with the hopeless bodyguard Torbjörn (Ola Norén) and King's best friend, Philip "Foffe" von Fersen (Christer Fant), they form the core of humor series family of Holstein-Gottorp.

I'll probably never get the chance to see the show, unless Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube load it up, but I can't wait to welcome it into the general TV Universe (but definitely NOT Earth Prime-Time!)

There's an O'Bvious home for "Familjen Holstein-Gottorp": in the TV dimension of fictional sitcom American Presidents, currently represented on HBO with 'Veep'. (I don't really have a name for that dimension as of yet.)

'Veep' follows a long tradition of POTUS sitcoms:

• 'Nancy'
• 'Hail To The Chief'
• 'Mr. President'
• 'DAG'
• 'Cory In The House'

There are ancillary sitcoms that would exist in this TV dimension as well, including 'Spin City', which had Randall Winston as the mayor of New York City at the same time as Rudy Giuliani was the mayor in the real world as well as in Toobworld. ('Seinfeld', 'Mad About You', 'Cosby', and 'Law & Order')

Because 'Veep' was created by Armando Iannucci, I'd like to think that also brings in 'The Thick Of It' and its Cineverse sequel "In The Loop". I think 'Yes, Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister' also belong in this TV dimension.

(Just because 'Cory In The House' was a spin-off from 'That's So Raven', that doesn't mean that sitcom is also in the same TV dimension. It probably is, but it could likely be still kept in the main Toobworld at the same time.)

I mentioned that this is a dimension of fictional sitcom presidents. The TV dimension for sitcom presidents based on our line of succession would be Earth Prime-Time/Doofus, which includes 'The Secret Files Of Desmond Pfeiffer' and 'That's My Bush!'

So here's a head's-up to my friends Carola & Henry and all the Swedish visitors to my blog (which according to my blog stats has been a total of... none? There's a fan base in Norway, but not in Sweden.... That can't be right. I see Taiwan isn't listed either and I KNOW I have the father of my god-daughter reading it daily!  At least, I hope so.....)

Well, anyway, here's to the continued global expansion of the TV dimension for fictional sitcom presidents......

Vi ses!

AS SEEN ON TV: FATHER PEREGRINE

FATHER PEREGRINE

"CREATED BY":

Ray Bradbury

PORTRAYED BY:

Fritz Weaver

AS SEEN IN:

'The Martian Chronicles'

TV STATUS:

Adapted from another source

TV DIMENSION:

An alternate Toobworld

According to Ralph Dumain of "AutoDidact":

The tale of the priests is based upon Bradbury’s short story “The Fire Balloons”, excised from the original edition of "The Martian Chronicles" and restored for the first time in the 40th anniversary edition (New York: Doubleday, 1990; pp. 90-108), and anthologized again thereafter.

Upon introduction to Col. Wilder, Fr. Peregrine explains his mission, but he also harbors a personal curiosity about the Martians. He enquires concerning a rumor about blue spheres, but no substantiation is forthcoming. Peregrine wants to exchange ideas with Martians if any can be found. He wants to see the old Martian cities. Wilder compares Mars to the Wild West: colonization is proceeding too abruptly, there is too much corruption, and spiritual guidance is needed. Wilder confides in the priests: he wonders if the Spender who attacked his fellow members of the third expedition was the real Spender. Perhaps there are still Martians afoot. Wilder shows them the ruins of a Martian city. Pieces of it are being dismantled to be sent back to Earth. While others drive back to the Earth settlement, the priests stay behind, choosing to walk back on their own. Fr. Peregrine is actually the one who takes charge.

The two priests debate theological issues as they hike back to home base. By dusk they are lost. Three blue spheres appear. Stone is afraid, convinced it’s the devil’s work. Peregrine is unafraid; he tries to communicate, showing his cross. The spheres depart.

But Peregrine’s shouting appears to provoke an avalanche. As rocks rain down from the mountainside, the priests prostrate themselves on the ground, fearing the worst. But a blue sphere descends from the sky, picks them up, and moves them to a safe spot. Peregrine is elated: this proves that the spheres have souls and free will. Stone as usual wants to limit his attention to Earth souls that need saving; he is averse to non-human creatures. Peregrine asks: “Can’t you recognize the human in the inhuman?” Stone replies: “I would rather recognize the inhuman in the human.”

This exchange typifies their contrasting attitudes. They camp for the night. Peregrine argues that the blue spheres know sin and moral life and have free will. He argues that saving Earthmen is the Martians’ atonement for their original sin of killing the members of the first expeditions. Stone thinks Peregrine has his own interests at heart, committing the sin of pride. Peregrine confesses that his initial motivation to become a priest was to meet Christ in person.

This confession sets up the assumptions behind Peregrine’s later encounter with the Martian changeling.

Wilder... sends out a search party for the missing priests.

The priests spend the night on the cliff. Around dawn the blue spheres descend, and Peregrine awakens. While Stone sleeps, Peregrine sets out to prove that the spheres are intelligent. He jumps off the cliff, but instead of plunging to his death, he is saved in mid-fall by a sphere, as he anticipated. Overjoyed, Peregrine tells the sphere he will build a church for the Martians with a blue sphere instead of a cross. The sphere identifies itself and its fellows as the Old Ones, who have no bodies and are immortal, living in grace, each a temple unto itself, and having no need of any church or salvation, unlike Earthmen.

Afterwards, Peregrine awakens Stone and tells him the story, emphasizing that he heard His voice. The voice-over narration concludes that there is a truth on every planet and that the priests’ Christianity is a partial truth in the mosaic of a larger truth to be discovered.

The contrast between Peregrine’s affirmative, expansive attitude and Stone’s narrowed, negative attitude gives this tale a large part of its interest. I find Peregrine’s expression of faith noteworthy. For all the talk of sin and seeking after Christ, he has a positive attitude toward the Martian spheres, derived, I would say, not from any faith in God apart from people but from faith in his fellow intelligent creatures. In effect, Peregrine jumps off the cliff placing his faith in the good will of the spheres.

DVD Verdict:
Fritz Weaver as the thoughtful priest is interesting as well. Fathers Peregrine (Fritz Weaver) and Stone (Roddy McDowell) have come to bring the word of God to Mars. Father Peregrine becomes obsessed with meeting the Martians, whom he suspects still live somewhere in the hills. He's willing to go to extreme lengths to find them, too. Eventually, he gets a bit more than he suspected out of the process.

Wikipedia:
A group of missionaries (Father Peregrine and Father Stone) are rescued from a landslide by a group of mysterious lights who claim to be the "Old Ones"; immortal non-corporeal Martians from over 250 million years ago who now live in the hills.

DVD Verdict
[The Martian changeling] flees to the local church, where he runs across Father Peregrine. Who almost kills him…not out of spite or anger, but because his deeply-held vision is that of Jesus, complete with wounds and pierced side.

Wikipedia:
Father Peregrine later sees a vision of Jesus Christ in his church in First Town, but the vision requests him to go away with words "I am not what I seem! I am not that vision!" Peregrine concludes that the vision in fact is a Martian who involuntarily looks like anybody other people have in mind: David Lustig, Jesus or anybody else. 

DVD Verdict
The story of Father Peregrine is original to this version.

(More on the true story behind the story coming in the next post.)

BCnU!

HOW DO YOU SAY "BITCH SLAP" IN GREEK?

During a round-table discussion live on the air in the Greek TV show "Golden Dawn", a member of the extreme right-wing party named Ilias Kasidiaris physically attacked his opponent, a woman in Parliament from the left wing named Liana Kanelli.

Not something we'll ever be lucky enough to see happen on 'The McLaughlin Group'!

BCnU!

SKED ALERT! "COPPER"

Here's another TV preview, for a new series that will be premiering on BBC-America this August. It takes place in New York's Five Points in 1864. (Shades of "Gangs Of New York"!)

BCnU!

"MY NAME IS DON. NAME'S DON."

In this year's season finale of 'Mad Men', Don Draper bumped into Peggy Olsen at the movie theater; both of them were playing hooky from their respective ad companies. As the scene ended we heard the theme music begin.

Here are the opening credits from that movie:

At the end of the episode, the theme song from another James Bond movie played over a montage of scenes showing where various characters stood at the end of the season.....

Both "Casino Royale" and "You Only Live Twice" came out in 1967, and each had different actors playing 007 - with different thematic attitudes: one serious, one comic.

In a way, and I think this was the intent of the use of these two movie themes, they represented the fact that Don Draper was two different men. Not just in the fact that he was originally Dick Whitman, but that his lives at home and at work could never be reconciled.

BCnU!

PS:

Even though the movie doesn't hold up at all after all these years, I still have fond memories of several scenes in "Casino Royale" and the entire score can not be beat!  I much prefer that theme song over "You Only Live Twice".

"THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES" - HOW ABOUT A RECAP?

This opening to the third night of 'The Martian Chronicles' gives a preview of what's to come plus a recap of events from the previous two nights. Included in here will be the story of Jeff Spender - in this version played by Bernie Casey - which were depicted in the video from yesterday, "And The Moon Be Still As Bright".....

BCnU!

"THE RAY BRADBURY THEATER - THE LONG YEARS"

Here is the second adaptation of this Ray Bradbury story from "The Martian Chronicles".....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: FATHER'S DAY EDITION

With Mother's Day, I knew early on which literary character (as seen on TV) would grace the "ASOTV" showcase. But inspiration eluded me for a Father's Day choice. I knew eventually I would think of a good example, but I never dreamt that it would take the death of Ray Bradbury for me to find that inspiration.....

PETER HATHAWAY

CREATED BY:

Ray Bradbury

PORTRAYED BY:

Barry Morse

AS SEEN IN:

'The Martian Chronicles'

TV STATUS:

Recastaway

TV DIMENSION:

Alternate Toobworld

From Wikipedia:

Peter Hathaway is living retired on Mars with his wife Alice and daughter Margarite, even though everyone else has departed. Hathaway is a mechanical tinkerer, who has wired an abandoned town below their house to sound alive at night with noise and phone calls. 

One night, he sees a rocket in orbit, and puts on a laser light show to signal the rocket. It turns out to be Father Stone and Wilder, who have just returned from Earth. They land and have a reunion with Hathaway, who is troubled by his heart. Undeterred, Hathaway brings the crew to his house for breakfast. Wilder remarks that Hathaway's wife looks exactly as she did many years ago when they got married, as he knows her real age and was present at their wedding. Wilder goes off to check some headstones that he saw earlier. He returns, pale, and says that the adults now before them died in July 2000.

The Hathaways give Wilder and Father Stone a toast, but Peter Hathaway's heart fails and he dies, begging Wilder not to call his family because they "would not understand." Wilder then confirms that Alice and Margarite were made by Peter Hathaway. The android family continues on with its meaningless daily life, alone. Ben Driscoll lands shortly after the rocket has departed. The Hathaways are relieved when Driscoll asks if he can stay with them.

Even though he worked on the script, Ray Bradbury wasn't too thrilled with 'The Martian Chronicles', calling it "boring". So when he got the chance to play Rod Serling with his own anthology series, he set out to re-do several of the stories. ("Mars Is Heaven", "And The Moon Be Still As Bright", "The Martian", and this tale.......)

JOHN HATHAWAY

CREATED BY:

Ray Bradbury

PORTRAYED BY:

Robert Culp

AS SEEN IN:

'The Ray Bradbury Theater'

("The Long Years")

TV STATUS:

Recastaway

TV DIMENSION:

Yet another alternate Toobworld

The more O'Bvious changes made by Bradbury begin with the father's name - from Peter to John. And because he wasn't telling the whole story of "The Martian Chronicles", characters like Ben Driscoll and Father Stone were dropped. Also, Hathaway now has a son as well - Tom.

As I mentioned previously, because Mr. Bradbury stuck with his timeline in which this story took place in the first decade of the new millennium, it had to be placed in an alternate TV dimension, just as 'The Martian Chronicles' had to be.

The ending on each story was different as well. Without a Ben Driscoll to come in and replace Peter Hathaway as the paterfamilias, "The Long Years" came up with a new solution which would give the Hathaway androids a reason to continue. (As you'll see with the next post.)

BCnU!