Parks and McGraw make a good sparing team of energetic youth and crusty professional but in a way so typical of television, then and now. There is a lot of scope to this episode, location work on LA roads, beaches and a large cast. It's mostly impressively shot by Lionel Lindon but several exteriors have distracting camera shadows clearly in view. Pollack, as director, keeps things moving--of not escalating-- and has a few nicely blocked and framed shots but the script just isn't great and it all winds up as things usually would on television. The focus on the bongo drum as plague carrying device is kind of novel but also gets pretty silly. The music score, by Murray, also frequently features the bongo, sort of hinting at danger--which is a nice try but also, especially now, kind of silly in a dated way.
Production details of the sets are feature worthy and how they did all this in 4 days is impressive, but more so than the story itself which is still being done from time to time. I usually like these kind of Plague spreading stories but can't say this was the best, or the worst of the genre. There is one nice subplot involving a woman--don't want to spoil it.
Production details of the sets are feature worthy and how they did all this in 4 days is impressive, but more so than the story itself which is still being done from time to time. I usually like these kind of Plague spreading stories but can't say this was the best, or the worst of the genre. There is one nice subplot involving a woman--don't want to spoil it.