Tales of Tomorrow: "The Duplicates."

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 The time was 1951. The Cold War was heating up. Russia had the bomb.
 Flying saucers invaded the skies over New Mexico. Network television was only five
 years old and a new ground-breaking science fiction series, TALES OF
 TOMORROW, premiered on ABC-TV.

 Science fiction was entering its renaissance, with such visionary films as
 ROCKETSHIP X-M and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. From out of these
 turbulent times was born television's first sci-fi anthology series: TALES OF
 TOMORROW, a thought-provoking, character-driven TV series that set the stage for
 other thriller anthology series, such as THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER
 LIMITS. Not to be missed!

Define irony:

As I write this statement, we will celebrate Independence Day 2000 within four short hours.   And my THIRD review for today will focus on an episode that was aired on this exact date, a mere forty-eight years ago.  Forty-eight YEARS.  1952, to be exact.  Hard to believe that television has been along for that long.

But our subject today is important for another fact:  "Tales of Tomorrow's" competition was the likes of "Space Patrol," "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet," and "Commando Cody."  All of the latter three were basically what you see paradied as Sci-Fi of the '50s, aside from giant rubber monsters and bulky impractical robots.  "Tales" was the very first show to take Sci-Fi seriously, and show some interesting plot twists that would (subliminally) set the pace for other shows to come.  The Twilight Zone.  The Outer Limits.  Star Trek.  The list goes on and on.

This is what brought serious, adult-minded Sci-Fi to television.

"The Duplicates" begins with our protogonist, your Everyday Working White Male (Darren McGavin in a very early performance) taking a job at your local lab to make some bucks.  Said lab has found that a parallel universe has been found to exist, one exactly like ours.  Since this is a paranoid Cold War time we're talking about, all the scientists could think of this parallel universe is that it poses a threat!  Imagine if Duplicates could invade our reality and take over??  Of course, the reason WHY is left unanswered.

So, our hero is sent into that reality with a particular mission:  kill his duplicate which will somehow give the scientists all the info they need to prepare against this deadly threat.   The plan is set:  the hero is supposed to sneak inside his own duplicate's house and poison his drink, then get out of there.  Which, in a sequence designed to add suspense, he does.  Oddly, his duplicate is elsewhere.  So, our hero comes back home, collects his paycheck, and goes home to his wife and a nice glass of whiskey.   After some chatter with his wife about his newfound money, he gets a call:  it's the scientists.  Apparently, the Duplicate reality was thinking the very same thing that they were thinking, so while Our Hero was poisoning his Duplicate's drink, the Duplicate was poisoning HIS drink.  The Hero hangs up, realizes that he had just poisoned himself, and goes mad.

Finally, our hero collapses near the living room mirror.  Looking into his own reflection, he roars and with his last burst of life, smashes the mirror.  We don't see the final act of smashing the mirror, we only see the scene go to black before we hear the breaking of the mirror.  An effective, downbeat ending to what is really a half hour spread out by the sheer idea of parallel universes.

And that is what "Tales" truly is:  a half hour show, in anthology format, dedicated to an scientific idea per week.   Each week, the audience would see something new, something that was for children, designed for an adult audience.  Each show was filmed LIVE (which makes it more remarkable that these were saved on tape) and eventually brought intelligent science fiction into your house.

Forty-eight years.  Hard to believe, but grateful that it's still here.

RATING:  A bit simple but it's an idea-driven show.  Three Stars out of Four.