Siege of 31 August
starring Ronny Cox, Gail Strickland
directed by Peter Crane
Neil (Ronny Cox), a farmer who is also a veteran of the war in Vietnam, wants Ben, his 11-year-old son, to go to a military academy. Ben is eager to go. Helen (Gail Strickland), Ben's mother, doesn't want him to go.
Neil buys Ben some toy soldiers. Weird things start happening. Ben asks his father about a village in Vietnam that he should know nothing about. A miniature model of the Vietnamese village mysteriously appears. More toy soldiers show up overnight.
Neil loses his cool. He gets into a fight with the toy soldiers that have come to life. He dies in an explosion.
What exactly happens in this story is a bit murky in places. Neil has issues that he needs to work through but it's pretty clear that he has never sought professional help even though he is still haunted by experiences he had during the war.
This isn't a great episode but I could see what they were reaching for here. It's too bad they couldn't pull the pieces together and make it a better episode than it was.
Notes
Ronny Cox has been in many movies I've seen. The first ones that come to mind are Deliverance (1972), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), and Robocop (1987). He played Captain Jellicoe in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Chain of Command, Part 1 and Part 2) that I watched earlier this year.
Gail Strickland has been in a few episodes of television that I might have seen. The only thing she was in that I'm sure I've seen in Uncommon Valor (1983) which I watched earlier this year.
This is the first of three episodes of this show that Peter Crane directed.
No comments:
Post a Comment