Thus, we welcome the work of Boris Karloff to our little website here.

Most people don't need to be told that Boris Karloff is a fine actor, and quite an important part of the modern horror film.  He played the Monster in 'Frankenstein' which opened many doors to stardom and which showed the world how versatile he was.  With lines, without lines, Karloff could definitely hold his own and remained popular until his death in the late '60s in "Targets" and four Mexican horror films which will be visited upon this site eventually.  Yet today, we shall examine a bit of his TV work in the very first serious sci-fi show which regular visitors will recognize as "Tales of Tomorrow."

The show starts off with a hospital in the year 1910, where a mysterious man lies dying.  Flashforward to 1953 (the present for simplicity's sake) where the mysterious man, a doctor, is building a time machine in order to go back in time in order to make more money for his wife who could care less.  The machine works, and the doctor ends up going back to a clinic to sell them penicillin as a sort of miracle cure.  The Head of the Hospital refuses, but another youthful Doctor gives into the Future Doctor's request and gives him a dying patient to prove his claim.  Despite loading the poor patient up on penicillin, the patient dies.

The Future Doctor (Karloff) returns back to his present and tells his wife of his time machine.  Still feeling slighted by the two doctors of the past, FD decides to go back further to 1910 to sell his medicine.  However, this time, he is caught by a younger version of the past Doctors and is sent into an asylum, where he dies of pneumonia....something that could be cured by something in the future.....like PENICILLIN!!!

Don't worry, if you don't catch the broadly drawn irony, the blast of organ music will tell you.

Now, let's list off the plot holes:

1) Why doesn't the Future Doctor sell his time machine???
2) Why does the Future Doctor still go back to the same clinic??  Why can't he simply stay in 1938 or something and just go to another clinic??
3) Why does the Future Doctor take what he has of the penicillin when he catches his pneumonia, instead of just dying?
4) Why didn't the two past Doctors check out the FD's references in the first place back in 1938???

Irony works better when all the bases are covered like so.   Hell, an easy way would to have the FD go back to 1938 on his second jaunt through time and space and visit a competitor of the original clinic, then have them commit him then he could die.  Why go to 1910 at all?  It makes little to no sense.

Anyway, Karloff is brilliant in it.  In fact, he's the only reason to watch this mess of a show.  Luckily, he would find more work ranging from excellent (I Spy's "Mainly on the Plains") to the worse (Girl from U.N.C.L.E. "Mother Muffin Affair.").

RATING: Interesting as how one good actor can come out of a shitpile smelling like a rose.  One and a half Stars out of Four, and without Karloff it would be two stars less.  Sadly, one of the twelve episodes in release from Englewood Entertainment.