Classic Horrors Club

Written by | E.H. Frank
Director | Don Medford
Air Date | Aug. 8, 1952

Our story opens on a military base with Major Dozier (Edmon Ryan) and Congressman Burns (Raymond Bailey) arguing about the fate of the AR-76 rocket that launched two days ago and has since disappeared. They agree on one thing:

That rocket must come down… but when?

Otherwise, Dozier believes in patience and science while Burns believes in urgency and cost. Dozier also apparently has big shoes to fill as Burns keeps needling him about his father, who would have known what to do.

Please stop telling me how my father would have fixed things!

The rocket comes back down to Earth and lands on a farm 10 miles away from the base. Members of the crew, test mice, are found frozen inside a block of ice. Over time, the effect of the ice reaches beyond the barn that it houses and the desert becomes frozen. It continues to expand (and accelerate) and if the Major and Congressman don’t do something, how long will it be before total destruction of the planet?

Two more times, Burns mentions Dozier’s father and Dr. Meshkoff (Michael Gorrin) tells him that he’s riding Dozier awfully hard. It becomes obvious that Dozier will attempt to do something that exceeds his father’s reputation as well as stands on its own as a crowning achievement: save the world. Tales of Tomorrow has given us happy and sad endings. No spoilers here on which route “Ice from Space” takes. Perhaps it’s both.

This episode is “fine.” What stands out for me is an early performance by Paul Newman. In fact, at 27 years old, this was only his second appearance ever in a movie or television show. (Hs was a “Occasional Cast Member” on the final season of a series called The Aldrich Family that ran between 1949 and 1953.

We haven’t talked much about the young stars of tomorrow that appeared on episodes of Tales of Tomorrow. There have been some that we haven’t mentioned, but there will be more to come…

Writer | Michael Blair
Director | Don Medford
Air Date | Sept. 5, 1952

As Seeing-Eye Surgeon opens, we seem to witness another version of the arguing men from Ice from Space. Here, Dr. Foyle (Edwin Jerome) scolds the younger Dr. Tyrell (Bruce Cabot) for his methods. Nurse Martha (Constance Towers) later suggests Foyle may be suffering from some personal jealousy. Then again, he does have a big surgery tomorrow, not on only a patient, but an “important” patient. 

Tyrell is later visited by Dr. Xenon (Joseph Holland) from Europe who offers him a pair of glasses that he’s processed in a special way to assist in the surgery. He offers them to Tyrell for one operation only. To get him to leave his office, Tyrell promises to use the glasses. He then learns that, as Xenon predicted, Tyrell will be performing the surgery by himself; Foyle has taken ill.

We don’t know much about the important patient, Dr. Ross, other than the fact that he’s a physicist and if he dies, so will the planet. Someone, somewhere wants to ensure his survival. Therefore, when Tyrell is afraid he’s going to have to give Ross a lobotomy, he remembers the glasses and has Martha retrieve them.

We’re never led to believe the operation won’t succeed, but the suddenly-recovered Foyle challenges Tyrell over a surgical report that reads more like something out of a comic book. The episode ends as it begins, with Foyle berating Tyrell over a foolish superstition. Neither learns a personal lesson here, which means it’s not one of the stronger episodes of Tales of Tomorrow, but the experience causes Tyrell to ask:

The real and the unreal. Where does one stop and the other begin?