A pair of retired insurance salesmen (Robert H. Harris, John Qualen) apparently feel the need to intervene in the lives of ordinary people they feel meet actuarial statistics favoring imminent death, and set their sights on a curmudgeonly woman (Jo Van Fleet) who browbeats everyone she comes in contact with. What struck me about this episode was the reference that Clarence (Harris) made about the 'subconscious mind', and how it relates to a person's sense of well being, or in this case, lack of. I don't know when the study of the subconscious entered the mainstream, but this early reference to it in a television program was certainly notable.
Also notable, and something I pick up on when watching these old shows, is how they serve as a time capsule reminder of the way things used to be. With this story set in the present day of the 1950's era, one can appreciate the prices of everyday items before inflation really took hold. How about apples at eighteen cents per pound at the local grocer, or celery at two for a quarter! And then you had pork chops at seventy five cents per pound at the butcher shop. I don't think proprietor Michael Ansara was guilty of a bait and switch, but if you checked the sign for ground round on the outside window of his shop, it read forty nine cents per pound, but inside the store it was sixty seven cents!
Anyway, because he couldn't get the abusive Mrs. Shrike (Van Fleet) to share his concern about inadvertently inviting personal tragedy, and with the temperature reaching the ideal ninety two degree temperature the statistics indicated were ripe for homicide, Clarence almost resorted to physical assault himself before being dissuaded by his partner. However his instincts on this one was good, as the story ends with Mr. Shrike returning home with an alcohol fueled greeting for his wife, complete with longshoreman's hook in his back pocket. I don't think he was going to unload on anyone but the Mrs.
Also notable, and something I pick up on when watching these old shows, is how they serve as a time capsule reminder of the way things used to be. With this story set in the present day of the 1950's era, one can appreciate the prices of everyday items before inflation really took hold. How about apples at eighteen cents per pound at the local grocer, or celery at two for a quarter! And then you had pork chops at seventy five cents per pound at the butcher shop. I don't think proprietor Michael Ansara was guilty of a bait and switch, but if you checked the sign for ground round on the outside window of his shop, it read forty nine cents per pound, but inside the store it was sixty seven cents!
Anyway, because he couldn't get the abusive Mrs. Shrike (Van Fleet) to share his concern about inadvertently inviting personal tragedy, and with the temperature reaching the ideal ninety two degree temperature the statistics indicated were ripe for homicide, Clarence almost resorted to physical assault himself before being dissuaded by his partner. However his instincts on this one was good, as the story ends with Mr. Shrike returning home with an alcohol fueled greeting for his wife, complete with longshoreman's hook in his back pocket. I don't think he was going to unload on anyone but the Mrs.