"Don't Open Till Doomsday" – The Outer Limits S01E17 Retro Review

My stepson has been working through my DVD collection of the original Outer Limits. I've been watching along with him, but most of the episodes he's watching are ones I've been holding off on because they're pretty bland. "Specimen: Unknown" and "Moonstone" are two of those. They were held back in the original airing schedule because for the same reason.

As he goes chronologically through the episodes, it also means some of the episodes that come later in the season are also some of the stranger ones, since the creative team had gone through the obvious ideas. And some of the boring ones, like above. And that brings us to "Don't Open Till Doomsday", an episode so strange it begs review.

"Don't Open" is written by Joseph Stefano, the series producer. And as he's quoted in The Outer Limits Companion by David Schow, Stefano was exorcising some of his personal demons in therapy at the time. It shows. "Don't Open" is a non-linear dream-like episode that doesn't make any sense whatsoever if you view it in a linear fashion.

But let's try. In 1929, Harvey Kry Jr.(David Frankham) is getting married. On the night of the wedding party, a scientist shows up at his doorstep and leaves off a present with a note: "Don't Open Till Doomsday". Harvey is preparing to elope with his new wife Mary and goes to get dressed. He opens the present and finds a box with a peephole. He peers into the box and screams.

Cut to 1964, and two underage lovers, Gard Hayden (Buck Taylor) and Vivia Balfiour (Melinda Plowman) go to a justice of the peace to get married. When they mention they don't want Vivia's father Emmett (HITG John Hoyt) to find about their marriage because he wouldn't approve, the justice's wife (Nellie Burt) directs them to Mary's manor because she has a bridal suite. They go there and find Mary (Miriam Hopkins) is a middle-aged, seemingly senile, woman who lives alone in a ruined manor. Mary is overly enthusiastic about them staying and also subtly threatens to call Emmett if they don't.

The bridal suite is just like it was in '29, and Vivia peers into the box. Gard soon finds her gone and assumes she has cold feet and backed out. He leaves, even though Mary begs him to stay. Meanwhile, Emmett has gone to the justice and bribed him and his wife to tell him where Vivia is. He shows up at the manor and peers into the box, and gets teleported inside like Vivia and Harvey Jr. did. There's a miniaturized alien (voice of Bob Johnson) inside that looks like feces mixed in with male and female genitalia.

Vivia and Harvey Jr. are there, and the creature (affectionately nicknamed "Turdo" by some reviewers: it's never named onscreen) tells them in the last five minutes it came to Earth from another dimension to destroy the universe with sonic frequencies. Turdo possesses the key frequency, and was separated and trapped in the box. It's agreed to release Harvey Jr. if he agrees to release it, but Harvey Jr. has refused even though Mary has been waiting 39 years to get him out and consummate her marriage. She tried to send Gard into the box so Turdo would release her hubby, because she's tired of living in hell and figures the destruction of the universe couldn't be any worse.

Emmett agrees to free Turdo, but it's a ruse to get Vivia out. When Turdo realizes it's been tricked, it teleports Emmett back inside. Gard comes back and gets Vivia out of the manor. Turdo realizes he's never going to escape and blow up itself, the manor, Harvey Jr., Mary, and Emmett. The end.

Like I said, the episode doesn't make any sense as a linear plot. How did the scientist (Spazman: say it with a long A to get the joke) trap the creature in the box? Why did he give it to the Krys? Apparently to get revenge on Harvey Sr., a scientist who had Spazman banished from the scientific community because of his wild theories about invading aliens, but that's never stated. Harvey Sr. is referred to as a jerk throughout the episode who planned to dominate Harvey Jr. and Mary, but we never see him.

Conveniently, Turdo is the key component in the destruction of the universe but he's the one who gets imprisoned. It blows itself up at the end for no particular reason, but it's so alien who knows why it does anything? Maybe that's what its race does when they get closer to escape than in the last 39 years of imprisonment. And why does the justice's wife send the newlyweds to Mary? Does she know about Turdo? Or that Mary's is basically nuts? Is she just a troublemaker or something more sinister?

But if you look at the episode as Stefano's dream, it makes perfect sense as much as a dream can make sense. It's filled with symbolism: you have characters with names like Gard ("Guard"), Kry, Mary ("Marry"), and Vivia (derived from the Latin: "alive"). It's also filled with sexual symbolism: beyond Turdo itself and the episode ending in a climactic explosion, the plot revolves around Mary being driven insane by her virginity, since she wasn't able to sexually consummate her marriage with Harvey Jr. since he disappeared on their marriage night. She would literally let the universe be destroyed as long as she can have sex one time.

Gard and Vivia engage in what passed in 1964 for TV sexual talk. They talk about how Gard's nose was broken in a football game against a rival for Vivia's affection. At one point he tells Vivia to "kiss it".

There are repeating cycles: the present is a box within a box (the Kry manor) within a box (Harvey Sr. attempting to box up his son and daughter-in-law). Harvey Jr. & Mary, and Gard & Vivia, are both pairs of young newlyweds who haven't lost their virginity. Harvey Sr. and Emmett are both domineering fathers, and the justice's wife appears to dominate her husband. She sits in a wheelchair which she may not need, and her husband looks nervously at her before doing anything significant.

Finally, the men in the episode all take a stand against the alien. Harvey Jr. refuses to give into Turdo and earn his release by releasing the alien. Emmett gives up his life to save Vivia. Gard comes back for Vivia. Even the justice refuses Emmett's bribe in the end and advises Gard to stand up for Emmett and come back for Vivia.

Overall, "Don't Open" defies rational description. You have to see it to believe it, and I can tell you--or warn you--that it's nothing you're likely to see on television now, much less back in 1964. It's gothic rather than science fiction, even though it has the trapping of s.f. with an alien and a teleportation beam and sonic frequencies. It's more like the movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, as it dwells on a woman's insanity. Miriam Hopkins plays it up as a nutcase who we never see in 1929 but probably wasn't particularly stable even before her husband disappeared. Hopkins had pretty much retired by 1964 after an extensive movie career. She appeared in only handful of TV shows, and many of those during the first days of the medium. The Outer Limits was one of her last performances before her death in 1972.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?

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Check it out if you get the chance. Like most Outer Limits, the episode is available on Dailymotion and sometimes airs on retro channels.