This Used To Be My Playground

I hate seeing that sad sack "Looking For Work" post hanging around at the top of the page so I'm taking the joyous occasion of William Shatner's 80th birthday to knock it down. While Shatner's long and storied career enjoyed a rebirth when he began to take a self-effacing attitude towards his much-imitated mannerisms, I've always taken Shatner seriously. What some may see as hammy, I see as passionate. What some may see as ripe for parody, I see as iconic.

Most associated (obviously) with sci-fi, Shatner's got plenty of horror credentials on his resume as well - most notably the features Incubus (1966), The Devil's Rain (1975) and Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). He also starred in two of the most memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone - "Nick of Time" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

Today, though, I'd like to give a shout-out to a 1985 episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater, titled "The Playground."

Based on a short story originally printed in the October 1953 issue of Esquire Magazine, "The Playground" was adapted by Bradbury himself, directed by William Fruet (Funeral Home) and starred Shatner as Charlie Underhill, a widower doing his best to raise his young son Steve (Keith Dutson).

Traumatized by the incidents of childhood bullying he endured, Charlie is an overprotective father, keeping Steve - who is five - away from the neighborhood playground. Chastised by his sister Carol (Kate Trotter) for not letting Charlie develop like a normal boy, Charlie is pressured to bring Steve to the playground.

In Charlie's eyes, though, the playground is everything he remembered - and feared. It's a filthy pit filled with feral children.

But is Charlie seeing reality or is he simply incapable of seeing anything but malevolence in these kids? When Charlie sees his boyhood nemesis, Ralph, frozen in time as a child, still stalking the playground, still taunting Charlie, it seems as if there really is more to this playground than just Charlie's bad memories.

Shatner's performance in "The Playground" doesn't feature much in the way of notable "Shatner-isms" (save for briefly breaking out some agonized expressions during the climax) but he has a nice chemistry with his onscreen son and the aura of middle-aged melancholy he projects is effective. At a time when Shatner was typically seen in full-on hero role - either as Kirk in the big screen continuation of the Star Trek series or as gung-ho cop T.J. Hooker on TV - the role of fearful, insecure Charlie Underhill was a well-acted change of pace.

As a study of the lengths that parents will go to keep their children safe from harm, "The Playground" is laced with poignancy. At one point, Charlie asks the question at the heart of this story: "How do you raise a boy?" It's assumed in our culture that boys shouldn't be coddled, that they should learn how to fight for themselves. But for Charlie, the idea of Steve having to endure the same abuse that he had is unacceptable. He'll do anything he can to get between Steve and a brutal world. While Charlie could've easily come off as a irritating worry wart, Shatner keeps the character sympathetic.

Charlie's tenderness towards his son and his still-vivid anguish over his own boyhood torments makes "The Playground" endure as one of Shatner's most admirably low-key efforts.

The Ray Bradbury Theater: "The Town Where No One Got Off"

One of my favorite episodes of the slight but entertaining '80s anthology program The Ray Bradbury Theater was titled "The Town Where No One Got Off" (based on a short story that first appeared in Ellery Queen Magazine in October 1958). Originally aired in 1986, "The Town Where No One Got Off" told the tale of Cogswell, a dream-filled, would-be writer (Jeff Goldblum) traveling alone by train who rises to the challenge of a cynical fellow passenger (Cec Linder) by deciding to forgo his plans and depart the train at a random small town.

Having argued with this passenger that the simple life offered by these anonymous small towns is preferable to the high-stress environment of the big cities, Cogswell sets out to explore an unknown town just for the sake of discovery. In typical small town fashion, though, Cogswell's presence is received by a lot of suspicious glares. But as he walks through the town, being rejected at every turn whenever he tries to make contact with these 'friendly' small town folk, Cogswell becomes aware that someone is following him. An old man (Ed McNamara) who had been seated at the station platform when Cogswell exited the train has been trailing him on his journey through the town ever since.

When Cogswell eventually stops to confront him, the old man says that he's been waiting his whole life for Cogswell to arrive - or for someone like him. As they continue to walk, eventually ending up in a deserted old barn, the old man reveals to Cogswell that he's been waiting years for a complete stranger to set foot in town - someone with no reason to have gotten off there. He's been waiting for such a person because he intends to commit murder, to unleash his life's frustrations on a victim who he would never be suspected of killing.

The old man's hand is in his pocket at this point, assumedly holding a knife. Cogswell then quickly moves his hand into his own pocket and declares that his plan was to come to a town where no one knew him and take the life of a complete stranger. The old man and Cosgwell are left in a stalemate and the final scene sees Cogswell boarding the train to leave town with the old man returning to his post on a bench at the station - waiting for another unknown stretch of time for the next opportunity to act on his desire.

Despite the potentially dark subject, this is not a grim tale. We know that Cogswell isn't a killer and we also know that the old man isn't much of a threat. He may well harbor murder in his heart but his ability to put that into action is easily thwarted. When we see him last on the station platform, it's not entirely clear whether his encounter with Cogswell may have dealt a lasting blow to his murderous dreams. Perhaps now he'll just be an old man watching the trains pass by, wishing he had taken a life when he had the chance.

"The Town Where No One Got Off" isn't an outstanding example of TV terror but it does bring together several of my favorite things - trains, sinister small towns, Jeff Goldblum, and the fall (much of the episode is taken up by dialogue-free shots of Goldblum walking alone through this town at the peak of the fall season, accompanied only by a unmistakably '80s synth score). I also like how the story doesn't come down to a physical struggle at the end. Cogswell doesn't have to wrestle the old man for a knife, he doesn't have to kill the old man in self defense, and he doesn't even make the move to report this man to the police. He just gets back on the train, leaving this man who he knows is a potential killer free to resume his search for a victim.

Perhaps his brusque treatment by the townsfolk leaves Cosgwell unmotivated to alert them to the monster in their midst. Or maybe as a writer, he knows that you can't persecute someone for their thoughts - twenty years spent thinking about murdering a stranger hasn't made this old man an actual killer. Either way, as the train carries Cogswell out of town, it's not the breathless escape of someone fleeing for their life. Instead, it's the departure of a curious soul who has been given an insight into a stranger's darkest fantasies and refused to judge them. Because no matter where you live, that would be rude.