Jeff Jamison (Franz) is a radar operator working at a secret rocket testing facility in New Mexico. He is frustrated with his job: for one thing, he can't talk about it with his family and for another, he laments that his duties aren't as glamorous as the work of others. More recently, he has become concerned over troubling "shadows" trailing a missile they have been testing--Jeff is convinced it is the work of flying saucers. His two sons are similarly UFO-obsessed and the situation is exacerbated when Amy Kern (Ames), a little girl who we later learn is unable to feel physical pain, moves into the neighborhood.
Brian's take on this episode, that it offers a critique of communist (& alien) invasion paranoia, is particularly useful. We can see this in the actions of Jamison's boys who spy on the Kerns through an open window seeing father, Arthur (Greer), tape recording "reports" on earthlings while wife Laurie (Washburn) talks about the importance of their "mission here." Everything comes to a head when Jeff is made to take time off from his job due to "stress" and he brings his accusations about Kern to the local Sheriff (Birch). Coincidentally, Kerns comes in to complain about Jamison's boys spying and their bullying of Amy which led to her running away. Because her condition could lead to her being seriously hurt or even killed they conduct a search and Amy is found and brought home. Meanwhile, Jeff learns that the phantoms following the rocket were in fact vapors.
Jeff goes to apologize to the Kerns but it is a an odd apology. On the one hand he admits that he and his boys were wrong, but he also suggests that Kern was also to blame for causing some of the suspicion. There is more than a hint of "but what if we were right to suspect you?" in his remarks and it all ends rather inconclusively. It may be a critique as Brian suggests. But there is a clear question mark framed around the supposed humanist tone set by the search for Amy. *This*, to me is exactly what the Cold War was all about. Like the phantom vapor trails, UFOs, and Communist spies, right when you think you see it, they disappear.
Finally, it was a pleasure to see that this was the first Eddie Davis-directed episode of the series! Davis directed most of the first episodes of the Ziv series in this era but somehow SFT was one that he came late to. He is extremely economic in his storytelling.
Brian's take on this episode, that it offers a critique of communist (& alien) invasion paranoia, is particularly useful. We can see this in the actions of Jamison's boys who spy on the Kerns through an open window seeing father, Arthur (Greer), tape recording "reports" on earthlings while wife Laurie (Washburn) talks about the importance of their "mission here." Everything comes to a head when Jeff is made to take time off from his job due to "stress" and he brings his accusations about Kern to the local Sheriff (Birch). Coincidentally, Kerns comes in to complain about Jamison's boys spying and their bullying of Amy which led to her running away. Because her condition could lead to her being seriously hurt or even killed they conduct a search and Amy is found and brought home. Meanwhile, Jeff learns that the phantoms following the rocket were in fact vapors.
Jeff goes to apologize to the Kerns but it is a an odd apology. On the one hand he admits that he and his boys were wrong, but he also suggests that Kern was also to blame for causing some of the suspicion. There is more than a hint of "but what if we were right to suspect you?" in his remarks and it all ends rather inconclusively. It may be a critique as Brian suggests. But there is a clear question mark framed around the supposed humanist tone set by the search for Amy. *This*, to me is exactly what the Cold War was all about. Like the phantom vapor trails, UFOs, and Communist spies, right when you think you see it, they disappear.
Finally, it was a pleasure to see that this was the first Eddie Davis-directed episode of the series! Davis directed most of the first episodes of the Ziv series in this era but somehow SFT was one that he came late to. He is extremely economic in his storytelling.