ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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This is a fun episode — for a variety of reasons, some of which are unintentionally funny.

The premise is imaginative: a queen bee turns herself into a human (a sexy gal), and then she is hired as an assistant to an entomologist who studies bees.

We see some unusual special effects in an early scene which shows the queen bee’s transformation into a sexpot brunette — complete with clothing and shoes.

Nice trick, eh?

After completing her transformation, she immediately faints and lays down on the lawn until the scientist finds her a few moments later.

But the scene is unintentionally funny because actress is laying on her back — and her breast are twice as large as they appear throughout the rest of the episode!

Think I’m kiddin’? Here’s a screen shot. I cracked up when I saw this!





Throughout the rest of the episode, the woman is practically flat-chested by comparison!





Did the wardrobe department put the poor woman into an outrageously padded bra just for that scene?

Why!

And then, halfway through the episode, this Bee Girl strolls through a garden one night and doesn't realize that the scientist's devoted wife is watching her from a second floor window. The girl sniffs the flowers . . . and suddenly reverts to her bee form!

The horrified wife runs screaming into house, calling to her husband.

The next morning we see a friendly scene with the scientist chatting over coffee with Queen Honeycomb — and for some damn reason he thinks his wife went a bit nutty the night before when she told him his hot young assistant was a monster insect!

Guys, while your jaw is still dropped from this perfect example of really bad writing, we see a scene of the Dolly Pardon of Queen Bees chatting in the scientist's lab with his captive beehive on the scientist's "English-to-insect" translator.

We learn from this conversation that the bees engineered the woman's human transformation so she could produce a human-bee hybrid. The bees want these hybrids to take over the world!

And then the episode gets even weirder when the story completely degenerates into Soap Opera. The insect lady wants the scientist to love her and leave his wife. But the wife senses that the hot honey is a threat,

Meanwhile the clueless scientist doesn't get what's going on.

And just when you think things can't get any stranger, the scientist's loving wife happens to hear Miss Honeycomb chatting with the hive-mind in the laboratory with the scientist's man-to-bee translator.

They discuss how well their devious plan is working!

All of sudden, the bees in the hive (which is contained in the scientist lab) somehow get out and swarm after the horrified wife! (ummm . . . What? )

From their on until the last few minutes of this misguided episode, things go from bad to worse. The problem here is not a lack of imagination — it's a poor understanding of what makes a good story, as well as with what will satisfy an intelligent audience.

I won't spoil the ending, so here's the episode on YouTube. Watch it and tell me what you think! But don't expect too much from the climax. I didn't like it at all.

________________ ZZZZZ - The Outer Limits


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

"ZZZZZ" Broadcast 27 January 1964.
Written by Meyer Dolinsky. Additional material by Joseph Stefano.
Directed by John Brahm.

"I commissioned 'ZZZZZ' because of Joanna Frank," said Joseph Stefano. There was something about her face I thought would photograph beautifully, and so I had Meyer Dolinsky do the script, it worked even though there was nothing terribly original about the story." Dolinsky admitted that it was his least favorite episode.

Dolinsky's script dealt in matriarchal power, Stefano's in simple fidelity. Dolinsky said, "I had a high degree of temptation going, with Ben having the hots for this young chick. Stefano reversed all that. My own thinking was it was because he was married, and I wasn't. I did not agree with his ending; in fact, I tried to get him to cut it. It went on interminably, this long moral speech which I felt was unnecessary. It slows it down, and I don't believe it!"

Another theme that crops up in Stefano's revision is the idea that Regina is just too wrong, too different both biologically and ideologically, for the super-bees' plan of world conquest to succeed.

To director John Brahm, "ZZZZZ was memorable for one reason only: "During filming, President Kennedy was assassinated."

The Outer Limits: The Official Companion.

Sidebar: As I recall this episode, the title was apt, it was a real snoozer.