Nightmares and Dreamscapes - Episode 7
Hey there, it's time for a new review. Same spiel as usual.
Summary: We start off the episode with our main character, a stockbroker called Howard “the conqueror” Cottrell, in an inner monologue what is happening around him. He’s in a body bag and transported into an autopsy room. At first he thinks he might have died and this is the afterlife, but soon realises that he is simply paralysed and thought of dead. And now Dr. Katie Arlen and her two assistants Peter and Rusty are going to cut him up while he’s still alive!
It came to be this way when he was playing golf with his buddy Ed. When Howard went looking for his ball in the bushes, he was bitten by a snake. Ed came looking for him and found him on the ground, he got another golf player, who’s a doctor, to look at Howard. This old doctor then pronounced Howard dead when he couldn’t detect any breathing or pulse.
So now while Howard is alternately cursing the doctors to hell or praising them to high heavens (depending on what they do to might discover that he’s still alive), his friend Ed and his girlfriend Angela are sitting in the hospitals waiting area. Dr. Arlen and Peter (while flirting back and forth) try to find out what killed Howard since a heart attack becomes more and more unlikely, so they start assuming that he might have been hit by lightning since a storm was brewing while he was playing golf.
Rusty meanwhile is checking out Howard’s golf bag with some other guy from the hospital staff called Mike. While in the elevator, the snake that bit Howard, comes out of the bag with a golf club and bits Mike while Rusty tries to kill it. When the doors open again, the medical staff immediately knows that Mike isn’t dead, just paralysed. Rusty catches on what happened to Howard and rushes to the autopsy room, after informing the docs to follow him. Angela is also running towards the autopsy room, because she wants to see Howard. They all rush in just as Dr. Arlen was checking out some old war scars on Howard’s groin, which causes him to get an erection. So now there is no doubt that he’s alive. After getting some oxygen, he and Angela embrace and Peter faints since he was about to cut open a living person.
My opinion: The tone of this episode is a lot less serious than the other ones and it certainly doesn’t have the dread from the short story. But you know what, screw it, I loved this episode and together with Battle Ground it’s the best of the series. Howard’s inner voice over what’s going on around him is just hilarious. Even the newly added characters don’t bother me.
Comparison with the original short story: The overall plot is exactly the same as in the story, but they added some new characters like Angela and Howard’s friend. They also amplified the sexual tension between Dr. Arlen and Peter and added some scenes, like one of Howard and Angela or the one with Rusty and the snake in the elevator. But I really would like to know why they keep adding female love interests for the main characters. In the story’s epilogue we find out that Howard and Dr. Arlen dated for a while, but broke it off because he could only get it up when she was wearing rubber gloves.
Rating: Great
Summary: We start off the episode with our main character, a stockbroker called Howard “the conqueror” Cottrell, in an inner monologue what is happening around him. He’s in a body bag and transported into an autopsy room. At first he thinks he might have died and this is the afterlife, but soon realises that he is simply paralysed and thought of dead. And now Dr. Katie Arlen and her two assistants Peter and Rusty are going to cut him up while he’s still alive!
It came to be this way when he was playing golf with his buddy Ed. When Howard went looking for his ball in the bushes, he was bitten by a snake. Ed came looking for him and found him on the ground, he got another golf player, who’s a doctor, to look at Howard. This old doctor then pronounced Howard dead when he couldn’t detect any breathing or pulse.
So now while Howard is alternately cursing the doctors to hell or praising them to high heavens (depending on what they do to might discover that he’s still alive), his friend Ed and his girlfriend Angela are sitting in the hospitals waiting area. Dr. Arlen and Peter (while flirting back and forth) try to find out what killed Howard since a heart attack becomes more and more unlikely, so they start assuming that he might have been hit by lightning since a storm was brewing while he was playing golf.
Rusty meanwhile is checking out Howard’s golf bag with some other guy from the hospital staff called Mike. While in the elevator, the snake that bit Howard, comes out of the bag with a golf club and bits Mike while Rusty tries to kill it. When the doors open again, the medical staff immediately knows that Mike isn’t dead, just paralysed. Rusty catches on what happened to Howard and rushes to the autopsy room, after informing the docs to follow him. Angela is also running towards the autopsy room, because she wants to see Howard. They all rush in just as Dr. Arlen was checking out some old war scars on Howard’s groin, which causes him to get an erection. So now there is no doubt that he’s alive. After getting some oxygen, he and Angela embrace and Peter faints since he was about to cut open a living person.
My opinion: The tone of this episode is a lot less serious than the other ones and it certainly doesn’t have the dread from the short story. But you know what, screw it, I loved this episode and together with Battle Ground it’s the best of the series. Howard’s inner voice over what’s going on around him is just hilarious. Even the newly added characters don’t bother me.
Comparison with the original short story: The overall plot is exactly the same as in the story, but they added some new characters like Angela and Howard’s friend. They also amplified the sexual tension between Dr. Arlen and Peter and added some scenes, like one of Howard and Angela or the one with Rusty and the snake in the elevator. But I really would like to know why they keep adding female love interests for the main characters. In the story’s epilogue we find out that Howard and Dr. Arlen dated for a while, but broke it off because he could only get it up when she was wearing rubber gloves.
Rating: Great