An enemy so invisible it's the size of a dinosaur. What a moronic episode this is.
There's an enormous difference between astronauts and astrodummies, a difference unrecognized by the 50s/60s sci-fi writers of TV and cinema. Astronauts are highly-skilled professionals, while astrodummies are merely clueless morons who infest bad pulp sci-fi.
The extremely undisciplined crew behave like half-witted High School dropouts. Correction: TWO undisciplined crews. Quasi-NASA had learned nothing from the failure of the 1st mission to Mars so they REPEAT their mistake by sending yet another undisciplined crew on the 2nd mission - which is supposed to AVOID the screw-ups of the first one. They'd doubled the number of crew from two astrocretins to four, but aside from that I noticed very little improvement in the planning and management of this inept quasi-NASA. The 1st and then 2nd crew struggle to follow orders; they have a REALLY hard time following very simple instructions such as "stay put" and "don't leave the ship" that any ape could be taught to understand. Instructions which are spelled out for them over and over again - and presumably had been drilled into their empty heads before they'd even left Earth.
Or not? Perhaps quasi-NASA briefs their crews only 5 minutes before deciding to send them off on expensive, dangerous trips halfway round the Solar System. In fact, all of the six astrodimwits combined are so disobedient that Earth base has to keep reminding them over and over to do as they are told, to follow instructions.
Where did they hire these astrodummies? At the local pub? Was a secondary school diploma all it took to get this job? An IQ of 12 and a half already met all requirements?
Astrodummie Buckley in particular treats this trip as a goofy adventure with some buddies. Yup, he is the film's resident comic relief, that obligatory space goofball. Every space crew of the 50s and 60s had to have one of those, and the worst thing is that not one of them was ever funnier than a chair.
The strategy of exploring Mars is pretty dumb too. Why not simply send two astrodummies to inspect the terrain? One to investigate, the other to keep his back from a safe distance. That way they could avoid being killed by invisible dinosaurs. Eventually, finally, quasi-NASA does this, but this approach fails too. Why? You guessed it: lack of discipline; the black guy decides to abandon his post, against orders (so very typical) and predictably gets killed by Nessie.
During the 1st mission there was a 3-minute delay in communication due to the Mars-Earth distance. The 2nd mission has no delay though. So what happened? Did this clown-NASA manage to bend time and space in the meantime? Did they learn to send radio signals faster than light? Or did they simply move Mars right next to Earth?
"Nuclear bazooka" - the weapon of choice for CNASA. Clown-NASA likes to go for the overkill approach.
Adam West keeps SMILING while Buckley and the black guy are out there investigating the triple disappearance. West seems to already be over the murder of his colleague, so he just takes the chill approach, I guess. West's absurd smiles aren't half as bad as Buckley's perpetual apish grinning though: that actor has the face of an amoeba. But to underline even more clearly just how stoopid West is, West calls Earth base to report the mission as successful - despite the fact that Buckley still hadn't returned and he's still in the danger zone!
Buckley returns and West gives him a schoolboy scolding. (So silly.) Only a minute later do their combined three brain-cells finally realize that the black astrodummie is missing. The black guy got ambushed, if we can call it that: the monster was in plain sight, yet somehow the astrodummies manage not to notice it. I guess the writer Jerry Sohl was so passionate about the idea of this monster being invisible, he wanted it so badly, that he had no choice but to make the astrodummies act as utter and complete morons. In fact, the entire episode relies on the astroimbeciles acting as morons. With intelligent crews and competent NASA personnel, there'd be literally no story. Because the monster would have been easily identified and dealt with. I mean, it's just a dumb subterranean monster that uses one attack strategy, over and over. Dumb, but not as dumb as the astrodummies it has for lunch and dinner.
Buckley then discovers some diamonds (well, of course he does; in a Mars as cheesy as this one diamonds and sapphires are lying around for the taking), then argues that it's "debatable whether they belong to the gov't". The greedy dumb pig.
But it gets far dumber than that. He actually sneaks out of the ship (disobeying orders for the 785th time), figures out that the monster isn't invisible after all, but instead of rushing back to the ship to inform West he taunts the monster in what is an incredibly idiotic scene. Dumber still, he forgot to bring along his walkie-talkie so West chooses to step outside and look for him, disobeying orders yet again (a running theme in this laughable quasi-military quasi-NASA).
So Adam West, the astrodope, gets stuck on a rock because he doesn't dare make a run over the quick sand to get to the ship, because that INCREDIBLY fast (I mean of course slow) Loch Ness monster is in there, waiting for its lunch. West has literally NOTHING TO LOSE by trying to make a dash toward safety, because if the rocket took off without him he'd be dead and stranded anyway. So why does the Earth base not order him to at least TRY to make a run for it? Because this CNASA is run like a bad circus sideshow. CNASA couldn't manage a school-play, much less a mission to Mars.
When Buckley devises a stupid decoy plan, he starts tripping unconvincingly on the sand just as West had done minutes earlier. This sand is clearly not deep enough or wet enough to prevent quick movement in it, running even. Yet both Buckley and West seem to clumsily crawl on it, in a way that is pathetically unrealistic.
Literally everything about this episode is dumb and unconvincing. The acting is mostly crap, the characters are cardboard idiots, the dialog is pedestrian, the monster looks stupid, the sand isn't even vaguely insurmountable, the constant lack of discipline is absolutely ridiculous, the decision-making is dubious, and the crew selection obviously beyond laughable... The only thing this idiotic episode has going for it is the nice cheesy space sets and the cute soundtrack.
Check out my TOL list, with reviews of all the episodes.
There's an enormous difference between astronauts and astrodummies, a difference unrecognized by the 50s/60s sci-fi writers of TV and cinema. Astronauts are highly-skilled professionals, while astrodummies are merely clueless morons who infest bad pulp sci-fi.
The extremely undisciplined crew behave like half-witted High School dropouts. Correction: TWO undisciplined crews. Quasi-NASA had learned nothing from the failure of the 1st mission to Mars so they REPEAT their mistake by sending yet another undisciplined crew on the 2nd mission - which is supposed to AVOID the screw-ups of the first one. They'd doubled the number of crew from two astrocretins to four, but aside from that I noticed very little improvement in the planning and management of this inept quasi-NASA. The 1st and then 2nd crew struggle to follow orders; they have a REALLY hard time following very simple instructions such as "stay put" and "don't leave the ship" that any ape could be taught to understand. Instructions which are spelled out for them over and over again - and presumably had been drilled into their empty heads before they'd even left Earth.
Or not? Perhaps quasi-NASA briefs their crews only 5 minutes before deciding to send them off on expensive, dangerous trips halfway round the Solar System. In fact, all of the six astrodimwits combined are so disobedient that Earth base has to keep reminding them over and over to do as they are told, to follow instructions.
Where did they hire these astrodummies? At the local pub? Was a secondary school diploma all it took to get this job? An IQ of 12 and a half already met all requirements?
Astrodummie Buckley in particular treats this trip as a goofy adventure with some buddies. Yup, he is the film's resident comic relief, that obligatory space goofball. Every space crew of the 50s and 60s had to have one of those, and the worst thing is that not one of them was ever funnier than a chair.
The strategy of exploring Mars is pretty dumb too. Why not simply send two astrodummies to inspect the terrain? One to investigate, the other to keep his back from a safe distance. That way they could avoid being killed by invisible dinosaurs. Eventually, finally, quasi-NASA does this, but this approach fails too. Why? You guessed it: lack of discipline; the black guy decides to abandon his post, against orders (so very typical) and predictably gets killed by Nessie.
During the 1st mission there was a 3-minute delay in communication due to the Mars-Earth distance. The 2nd mission has no delay though. So what happened? Did this clown-NASA manage to bend time and space in the meantime? Did they learn to send radio signals faster than light? Or did they simply move Mars right next to Earth?
"Nuclear bazooka" - the weapon of choice for CNASA. Clown-NASA likes to go for the overkill approach.
Adam West keeps SMILING while Buckley and the black guy are out there investigating the triple disappearance. West seems to already be over the murder of his colleague, so he just takes the chill approach, I guess. West's absurd smiles aren't half as bad as Buckley's perpetual apish grinning though: that actor has the face of an amoeba. But to underline even more clearly just how stoopid West is, West calls Earth base to report the mission as successful - despite the fact that Buckley still hadn't returned and he's still in the danger zone!
Buckley returns and West gives him a schoolboy scolding. (So silly.) Only a minute later do their combined three brain-cells finally realize that the black astrodummie is missing. The black guy got ambushed, if we can call it that: the monster was in plain sight, yet somehow the astrodummies manage not to notice it. I guess the writer Jerry Sohl was so passionate about the idea of this monster being invisible, he wanted it so badly, that he had no choice but to make the astrodummies act as utter and complete morons. In fact, the entire episode relies on the astroimbeciles acting as morons. With intelligent crews and competent NASA personnel, there'd be literally no story. Because the monster would have been easily identified and dealt with. I mean, it's just a dumb subterranean monster that uses one attack strategy, over and over. Dumb, but not as dumb as the astrodummies it has for lunch and dinner.
Buckley then discovers some diamonds (well, of course he does; in a Mars as cheesy as this one diamonds and sapphires are lying around for the taking), then argues that it's "debatable whether they belong to the gov't". The greedy dumb pig.
But it gets far dumber than that. He actually sneaks out of the ship (disobeying orders for the 785th time), figures out that the monster isn't invisible after all, but instead of rushing back to the ship to inform West he taunts the monster in what is an incredibly idiotic scene. Dumber still, he forgot to bring along his walkie-talkie so West chooses to step outside and look for him, disobeying orders yet again (a running theme in this laughable quasi-military quasi-NASA).
So Adam West, the astrodope, gets stuck on a rock because he doesn't dare make a run over the quick sand to get to the ship, because that INCREDIBLY fast (I mean of course slow) Loch Ness monster is in there, waiting for its lunch. West has literally NOTHING TO LOSE by trying to make a dash toward safety, because if the rocket took off without him he'd be dead and stranded anyway. So why does the Earth base not order him to at least TRY to make a run for it? Because this CNASA is run like a bad circus sideshow. CNASA couldn't manage a school-play, much less a mission to Mars.
When Buckley devises a stupid decoy plan, he starts tripping unconvincingly on the sand just as West had done minutes earlier. This sand is clearly not deep enough or wet enough to prevent quick movement in it, running even. Yet both Buckley and West seem to clumsily crawl on it, in a way that is pathetically unrealistic.
Literally everything about this episode is dumb and unconvincing. The acting is mostly crap, the characters are cardboard idiots, the dialog is pedestrian, the monster looks stupid, the sand isn't even vaguely insurmountable, the constant lack of discipline is absolutely ridiculous, the decision-making is dubious, and the crew selection obviously beyond laughable... The only thing this idiotic episode has going for it is the nice cheesy space sets and the cute soundtrack.
Check out my TOL list, with reviews of all the episodes.
