Once
upon a time, there was ``The Twilight Zone,'' a potent blend of irony and
sci-fi morality play that remains the pinnacle of TV anthology. Many variations
followed suit - ``The Outer Limits,'' ``Night Gallery,'' even a revamped
'80s updating of the ``Zone'' - but none could quite capture the same level
of literary magic.
Then
HBO got in on the act, first with ``The Hitchhiker'' in 1983, more famously
with ``Tales From the Crypt'' in 1991 (which both later moved to other
networks in edited form). The stories were generally paper-thin, but imagination
could afford to take a back seat to pay cable's penchant for blood and
breasts.
The
new rules remain firmly in place for ``Perversions of Science,'' HBO's
new 10-part ``adult anthology'' series cribbed largely from William Gaines'
old sci-fi mag Weird Science. After making its debut June 7 with three
30-minute episodes, ``Perversions,'' from Crypt producer Joel Silver, is
now airing a new installment each Wednesday.
For
those unfamiliar with the formula, it goes something like this: Take liberties
with sex and psychopaths whenever possible and let the plot chips fall
where they may.
Unfortunately,
they tend to fall in big, ungainly heaps. No one expects Serling-esque
profundity from an after-hours HBO fantasy. But with only one of the first
four episodes transcending the series' comic-book source material, the
future of ``Science'' looks dim.
Some
past ``Perversion'' highlights:
-Kevin
Pollak's space pilot tests his fidelity in the presence of a bodacious
``sex droid'' in ``Boxed In.'' The height of the action finds him kicking
a lovely blond head around his apartment. William Shatner hams it up as
a blowhard admiral.
-Jeremy
London plays the shallowest sociopath in recent memory in ``Anatomy Lesson,''
featuring the most ridiculous deus ex machina in recent memory.
-Mass
murderer Jeffrey (``Re-Animator'') Combs undergoes societal rehabilitation
in ``The Exile,'' a generally mirthless ``Clockwork Orange'' rip-off with
an admittedly tasty punch line.
The
one stomachable installment came courtesy of Hollywood vet Walter Hill.
``Dream of Doom'' is a snappy, visually appealing nightmare about an English
professor (Keith Carradine) doomed to hop from dream to dream. It's no
deeper than the rest, but Hill does a fine job capturing the jarring, ephemeral
quality of the subconscious at work. If anything, the segment does too
good a job of blurring the lines between fantasy and reality: With everything
reduced to dreamscape, finding a frame of reference becomes tantalizingly
impossible.
It's
a shame these ``Perversions'' don't aim a little higher, because it looks
as if these folks have some money to play with. The new variation on ``Tales'''
skeletal Cryptkeeper is a computer animated, cybernetic seductress named
Chrome. Tossing off not-so-veiled double entendres (``Perfection like mine
doesn't come easy. Of course, I don't like it when things come easy''),
and accessing story files from her breast plate, she's the cheekiest element
of a package that takes itself far too seriously.
When
you get past the surface, ``Perversions of Science'' is exactly what it
seems: an anthologized male adolescent fantasy dressed up with some sharp
special effects. Perhaps that's the biggest difference between ``The Twilight
Zone'' and its comics-inspired progeny. Even the worst of the old stuff
swung a mean literary bat. ``Perversions'' and its ilk are for 14-year-olds
up past their bedtime.
