SHERLOCK - "A Study in Pink" X 2 (2010)

For those who feel so inclined, here's a fun thing you can do, and that is watch the 'unaired' pilot for "Sherlock," and then watch the first episode, because it's the same story, but different! 

I think you'll see it makes for a pretty Weird Wednesday!

The top and very plain title card is for the unaired pilot of "Sherlock," and the scenic one is the one from the first episode.

The story title card from the pilot is pretty boring as compared to..................

.............This one from the first episode that is much more enticing and intriguing!

Today is Veteran's Day so it's fitting to have a story about a wounded soldier returning from an ugly war!

I guess the top picture from Dr. Watson's Blog was just too simple for the producers or whoever it was calling the shots!

In the pilot episode the Psychologist's office is smaller, and then they decided to not only enlarge the room but they also reversed the positions of Dr. Watson and his Shrink named Ella! 

 

Tanya (Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker) Moodie plays Ella in both episodes but her appearance is quite different in the two.

Not so for the character of Sally Donovan, because in the pilot, Sally is played by Zawe (Velvet Buzzsaw) Ashton, but....

.............In the first episode, for some reason Zawe was replaced and Sally is now played by Vinette (Say Your Prayers) Robinson.

The pilot of "Sherlock" is only 55 minutes long, but the first episode is 88 minutes long, so they did use some of the same footage, like this shot, and they added characters like Sherlock's brother Mycroft who goes on to be one of the main characters in later episodes.

I think this one got to me the most, this pink bag just wasn't good enough!

Can you imagine being the person who decided that the first pink bag just didn't cut the mustard, and didn't deserve the job? I guess somebody has to be that anal retentive!

The pilot features Joseph (Dr. Who) Long as the cafe owner named Angelo.............

.......But in the first episode, Angelo was switched to Stanley Townsend, who among his 136 credits has done a virtual ton of voices for video games.

 

Well there's more than one, but here's at least one constant, the über-creepy cabdriver as played by Phil (Alien³) Davis!

Watch them back to back if you're stuck at home and killing time is killing you, it's an excellent way to go!

KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER / "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be" - 1974

Here's one from the seventies, Kolchak goes up against some aliens from outer space this time! Can you believe it? A sci-fi episode! There are tie-ins with the movies, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, ISLAND OF TERROR and THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, along with some red herrings to confuse things a bit... Confuse everyone except Carl, that is.

Well, the action starts when Kolchak gets a lead and he heads over to Raydyne Electronics where the police have surrounded the place. So, what's the big deal?

Well, everything's going haywire there! The damn wall is exploding and a very strong wind blows the cops around like they're nothing! I'd bet the stuntmen had a hoot working on this one, they're flying all over the goddamn place!

The wall collapses in one spot, revealing...

Ingots of lead!!.. As they all watch, the lead disappears into thin air.

Another lead finds Kolchak at the house of Dick Van Patten. Seems like he found a pile of stinky dark stuff, and the city came by and picked it up. 

Carl finds a hunk of it on the lawn as he's leaving and takes it with him.

But then, the owner of warehouse full of electronic equipment gets to meet the aliens and goes missing along with some of the items...

Kolchak wants Dr. Winestock at the crime lab (played by Mary Wickes) to analyze the piece of material he found, she ends up spilling the beans, they already know what it's made of... Hydrochloric acid, acetone and bone marrow!

At the morgue, Carl and his pal Gordy (John Fielder) make their exchange and Kolchak's on his way to listening to the tape with the description of the man during his autopsy, he had NO BONE MARROW!!

Then we head over to Griffith Observatory to give things that needed sci-fi feel...

Kiochak wanders in and sees the dead security guard, without his bone marrow. After figuring out that the aliens are invisible, he heads out to find more clues.

Kolchak is driving in his Mustang when the engine cuts out, then his dashboard compass starts spinning wildly and explodes!! He gets out of the car and goes exploring. He finds a flying saucer and goes up to it, and touches it.

The devilish wind comes up again and Carl is swept aside, he watches as the door to the ship opens up, and after the door closes, the wind subsides. Then, the craft rises up and disappears into the night sky.

 

Carl concludes that the aliens were just LOST IN SPACE! Well, there you go, what a whale of a tale! We will be back on Wednesday with more cool junk, just for you!!

PAPERHOUSE - "Is Anybody There?" (1988)

This week's Saturday Night Special is a strange British film from 1988 called "Paperhouse," and if I had to guess, a lot of people in the year 2020 should be able to identify with it since it makes about as much sense as anything else!

I don't know quite what to make of this movie, I think I liked it, but I can't be quite sure about it. It's really well done, and raises a lot of questions, I'm just not exactly sure what they are, but probably something elementary, like the meaning of life!

An eleven year old girl makes a simple line drawing of a house in class.

Some hi jinks ensue in the classroom, and the young lady finds herself out in the hall.

The girl's name is Anna Madden, and she is played by Charlotte Burke.

Anna has some extra things going on inside her head.

Her teacher's not much help!

Anna has a tendency to just blank out.

And when she does, she goes to a place in her head, the house that she has drawn!

Her Mother doesn't get it, and her Father is gone all the time because of his job!

This is Anna's sketch book that has her drawing of the house in her dreams in it.

Anna is eleven in the movie, but Charlotte Burke was born in 1974, so that would have made her fourteen. In "Paperhouse," the role of Anna takes up probably 80% of the screen time, which is pretty incredible for such a young lady, and I was quite surprised when I found out that this was the only appearance Charlotte ever made.

 

 For the last nine years, Charlotte has run a successful family online business called "Lottie Nottie" that sells hand made bows and hair clips for kids

In the house in her dreams, there dwells a young man named Marc who has no use of his legs. Marc was played by Elliott Spiers, who sadly only lived to the age of twenty because he suffered a negative reaction to an anti-malaria medication that left him gravely ill.

Anna realizes that basically whatever she draws also appears in her dreams, so she attempts to provide Marc with some functional legs, and it kind of works, but not really!

Anna freaks when she finds out her Mom threw her drawing away while she was sleeping, and they have to go dig through the garbage with some impatient trash men!

Anna is very sick now, and is spending more time in her dreams. It does turn into a bit of a horror story when her Father shows up in the dream, and is apparently intent on trying to kill her and Marc.

 

Dream sequence no doubt!

 

The persecution by her Father in the dreams becomes more and more violent!

Anna's sub-conscious mind reaches out for the drawing while she is under attack in the dream, and she tears a part out of the drawing that represents her Dad.

When Marc and Anna escape the clutches of the evil man, they find an abandoned light house where they can stay.

 

The dreams have now basically stopped. Marc was a real person, a sick boy that she had never met in person, and now he has died, and Anna's parents take her on a little vacation. In the coastal town where they are staying, Anna sees the light house for real for the first time, and runs to it hoping to find Marc, but the light house door is locked and there's nobody inside leaving her lost and alone.

There is a happy ending of sorts, but you just need to see it for yourself.

I woke up to a rainbow this morning, I hope you did too!