The Ray Bradbury Theater - "The Murderer"

Near the beginning of August, I watched The Ray Bradbury Theater episode "The Murderer," and I noted that an electronic version of the first movement of Bach's third Brandenburg concerto (BWV 1048) is used in the diegetic soundtrack.  Almost two months later (at the end of September), I was thinking about this again and realized that some of the qualities of the piece exemplify the episode's environment.

Most of the episode is simply a conversation between Dr. Arnold Fellows and Albert Brock in a sort of psychiatric center (with flashbacks to show Brock's story).  Brock explains that he became overwhelmed with the constant barrage of sound from various electronic devices ("My whole day was one big listen") and eventually went on a spree to destroy them (after which he was arrested).  To a degree, the baroque polyphony and rather fast allegro tempo of the Bach piece illustrate this excessive stimulation that Brock experienced.

When I re-watched the episode last week, I realized that the placement of the piece also holds some significance.  It's playing outside the room where Fellows and Brock meet, so when Fellows enters and later leaves, there's a sudden transition between Bach and silence as the door closes or opens.  This immediate shift between extremes further highlights the contrast between the two.

The Ray Bradbury Theater - "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone"

Last week, I watched "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone," an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater.  At the beginning of the episode, celebrated writer Dudley Stone is having a book signing, and he's approached by John Oatis Kendall, an aspiring author who feels hopelessly overshadowed by Stone.  Kendall passes a note to Stone that reads, "Dudley Stone, I have come here to kill you!" and shows him a gun concealed in his pocket.  Stone doesn't seem too perturbed by this and invites Kendall to his house the following day.  There, he explains that there are many things he wants to do with his life besides writing:  "All the books I promised myself to read but I've never read; all the symphonies yet to be heard; all the films as yet unseen; spices waiting to be snuffed; beef joints, ham hocks waiting to be devoured; tapestries yet to be woven; sculptures to be shaped; paintings waiting to be painted; sons and daughters to be advised; grandchildren to be raised; far countries to be flown over, to be walked through; hang gliding yet to be tried; tides yet unswum to be swum; all of it around me, free and vital, beckoning, waiting:  my reasons for letting you kill me."  He urges Kendall to kill him, but more metaphorically than literally.  Stone shows Kendall a multitude of his unpublished manuscripts, and Kendall kills Stone's writing career by throwing the manuscripts into the sea:

Freed from the burden of writing, Stone can now do what he wants with his life.

I'm not sure which level to take this on (whether it's Stone's design, Bradbury's allusion, or just a coincidence), but the same sort of event is described near the end of Shakespeare's The Tempest.  In Act Five, Prospero says,

I here abjure, and when I have required

Some heavenly music, which even now I do,

To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,

I'll drown my book.  [V.i.51-57]

Prospero is a magician, not a writer, but for him, as for Stone, throwing his book into the sea marks a definitive end.

The Ray Bradbury Theater - "The Emissary"

A few years ago, I got a box set of The Ray Bradbury Theater (which I'd been unaware of until I saw it in the store), but I didn't start watching the series until Bradbury's hundredth birthday last year (on 22 August).  Recently, I watched an episode titled "The Emissary," and I think the ending could be taken in two different ways.

This post contains spoilers.

The episode is about Martin Bailey who is basically confined to bed because of an illness that the episode never specifies.  His dog, apparently named just Dog, helps him to learn about the outside world by bringing various items back to him.  Early in the episode, it brings back a variety of leaves and plants, and these allow Martin to determine where the dog has been.  One day, Martin attaches a sign to the dog that reads, "Martin Bailey owns me.  Sick in Bed.  Needs company.  Follow me."  The dog returns with Miss Haight, who would have been Martin's teacher had he been well enough to attend school.  Over the next few weeks, Miss Haight regularly visits, always announcing herself with a cheery, "Company!" and bringing Martin a variety of books to read.

After Miss Haight is suddenly killed in a car accident, Martin becomes preoccupied with thinking about the dead, specifically how "it doesn't seem like much fun" for the corpses simply to lie underground.  He asks his parents, "Why don't they jump up and run around once in a while?"

Shortly after Miss Haight's funeral, Dog disappears and is missing for a day.  On the evening of what is apparently Halloween, it returns, and when Martin examines it to see where it's been, he finds mud and worms.  As he asks the dog where it's been digging, the lights in his room go out.  A glow comes from the doorway where a hand pushes open the door and a voice announces, "Company!"

Taken one way, this could be precisely the thing that Martin has been thinking about:  the dead "jump[ing] up" out of their graves and "run[ning] around."  In this case, Miss Haight is dug up by Dog, and she visits Martin once again.

Since Martin has some sort of illness, however, it's also possible to view these events as hallucinations that he experiences as he dies.  The dog doesn't really return covered with mud, and the hand of a corpse doesn't really push open the door to Martin's bedroom.  His illness and his preoccupation with the dead simply make him believe these things in his final moments.

Miss Haight's last words to Martin were "Hurry up!  I'll be waiting," so the "Company!" that he hears at the end of the episode could be upon his meeting her in the afterlife, not her coming back to his bedroom.