The Outer Limits S1E2: The Hundred Days of the Dragon

Our impending election has, for a couple of weeks now, far out weighed murder, haunting, or monsters in its ability to keep me up at night with fear, so I thought I would return to reviewing with an episode of The Outer Limits whose subject is the political fears that drove us in the 1960s and that continue to drive us today. The Outer Limits is never really scary, but it's about things that are, and usually those things are far more mundane than the frights that stalk the protagonists of most of the movies I watch. I won't ever be drugged and paralyzed such that I retain consciousness while my girlfriend slowly pierces my eyes with acupuncture needles, or chops off my foot with wire sharpened to slice through bone. Those things exceed the horizons of my social life. I am, however, deeply afraid of who sits behind the desk in the oval office, and if the media is any indication, many many people are afraid that this person could soon be a terrorist. As the title of this episode so subtly indicates, "The Hundred Days of the Dragon" plays on our fears of a communist Asia, and the slow infiltration of communists into the jobs and even bodies inhabited by those we love. It's invasion of the body snatchers for the conservative fringe: if our enemies possess **science** how will we prevent them from injecting our leaders with a substance that turns their bodies into malleable plastic for a duration of exactly two minutes? The episode proceeds pretty much as you expect it to, except for two moments. Dictator Li Kwan surveys the white house, gloating that he will conquer the West (or at least the West Wing) without firing a shot. Later, in the film's triumphant conclusion, the new American president opts to prosecute those involved in the systematic infiltration of the US's highest political and economic positions, but to waive his right to go to war. The film concludes with a heavy handed meditation on the nobility of avoiding war, even in those situations in which we are baited beyond comprehension. No one in this episode, arch villain included, wants war. The Outer Limits didn't scare me, nor did it make me adjust my tv set, rather it made me NOSTALGIC FOR THE 1960s, which is so much worse.

Every year I gear up for Halloween by watching Holiday episodes of Buffy, Home Movies, etc. This year it's election tv, which basically keeps me sane while I frantically check the 538. I've stolen hours in Lydia's living room watching Tanner '88, and because she is awesome, she just linked me to an article that will keep me feeling warm and happy regardless of the ominous October weather. Go vote, and if you want to be terrified on Halloween, Fox News is the new Takashi Miike.