“The Town Where No One Gets Off” (1986)
Ray Bradbury Theater S2E4
Bekkah:
Was this what passed for scary in 1986? I was one year old in 1986, so I think I was scared of a lot of things, so maybe this would have been scary, too? Ten minutes into this 30 minute TV episode, Jeff was still wandering around a sleepy town doing nothing. I mean, maybe this was thrilling as a short story, but even Jeff’s sensuous tooth-licks did not do this for me. This was a slow-ass burn that never really actually burned. It took me literally until halfway through to understand that the title was about no one getting off a train, despite that probably being very obvious in the first scene (but I drank a bottle of wine before we started, so my thought process might not be great) (and look, I knew it wasn’t about sex, but that would have been way more interesting).
Danya:
We did a tele cheese tasting before this spooky 1980s TV show. Did the gouda pair well with this relic? I would say, that the sweetness of the cheese did help the slow plod of the show. The show was suspenseful in a slow-burn way. Lots of stone faced White people being rude, which maybe doesn’t age well. Not as well as the cheese. I kept waiting for some sort of supernatural element, but no, it was just the banality of human darkness. A couple of extra points for baby Jeff. Murdery sad-bois too sad to murder each other.
Chris (guest review):
I don’t have much to say about this, except that whatever the opposite of Checkov’s gun is, this is it.
4/10 Goldboooos
The Town Where No One Gets Off on IMDB
Provoked by the snobbish attitude of a city slicker towards the people from the countryside, a man gets off his train at a random village to confirm his positive attitude about the country folk. He's in for a surprise - but so are they.
Director: Don McBrearty
Writers: Ray Bradbury (screenplay), Ray Bradbury (story)
Stars: Jeff Goldblum, Ed McNamara, Cec Linder
