The Fictional Man

by Al Ewing

  On first glance, the plot relies on a fairly simple ‘twist’ of the kind that Twilight Zone has already done better: William Shatner plays a soldier – dressed somewhat incongruously in the manner of a British redcoat – who finds himself, without explanation, in the grounds of a large mansion, run – and ruled – entirely by beautiful young women. There are other redcoats already there, but they seem brainwashed, content to drink tea with the women and take them for promenades around the grounds, while Shatner is keen to return to the war, fighting with his fellow ‘captives’ and even – in the episode’s most queasily visceral moment – driving his bayonet into the stomach of ‘Barbara,’ the Mansion’s apparent ruler. (Barry zooms in sharply at the moment the bayonet plunges in before cutting to Shatner’s face, glistening with sweat, horrified at his own actions. When we cut back to the face of Diana Millay as Barbara, utterly unperturbed – of course, there’s no damage, no sign of any wound – it’s as big a shock to the viewer as the violence itself.)

  The incident with the bayonet – Shatner’s first real exposure to the power of the weapon he constantly carries – creates a change in him, and over the second half of the narrative he comes to accept his imprisonment, finally agreeing with his fellow soldiers that an endless life of platonic pleasure in the Mansion is a far better option than returning to a war that he knows almost nothing about.

  Of course, no happiness in an episode of Door To Nowhere can last for long – its willingness to go for the bleak ending was what marked it out from its rivals even in these early days – and all too soon the soldiers start vanishing from the Mansion one by one, and Shatner learns from Millay that “the one who had you first” has discovered his presence in their idyllic retreat and he must now leave them forever. Shatner tries to resist expulsion – railing against the force that controls him in what has to be one of the most Shatnerian performances of all time – before we cut to an argument between a young brother and sister in a suburban home. The brother rescues the last of his wooden toy soldiers from his sister’s doll house, where she’s been using them to provide romantic companions for her Barbies (or ‘Barbaras’ – presumably Mattel didn’t approve the use of their product). The brother returns the red-painted soldier to his own room, after extracting a solemn promise from his sister that she won’t use his toys for “sissy stuff” ever again. As the boy gloats over his reformed army, talking to them about how he’s gonna “make ’em fight,” we cut to Shatner, marooned on a misty, featureless battlefield, staring at his rifle and the deadly bayonet, listening to the sound of war coming closer. Unlike the very early episodes, when Door To Nowhere was still aping its spiritual father, there’s no closing narration here – no cuddly homily to see us into the next programme. We simply fade to black.

  It’s not perfect, of course. In some ways, the episode is a victim of the times – in particular, toy fashions of the period. Barbie had just arrived on the doll scene, but her counterpart for the boys’ demographic – GI Joe – had yet to appear, and it’s hard to watch “The Doll House” in the present day and not feel his absence. (Although having said that, I don’t believe that GI Joe came with a rifle and bayonet permanently attached. The scene where Shatner tries and fails to put the rifle down is one of the most brilliant – and symbolic – moments of the episode.) I’d have liked it if Matson had been slightly more subtle with his names, too – not only does the title of the episode give the game away to an extent, but Shatner’s soldier is actually called ‘Sgt Billy Doll’ in the credits, which is cringeworthy. Thankfully, he’s never fully named in the script.

  Probably the biggest problem is the acting. Not all the performances gel – Shatner is obviously magnificent and Millay strikes just the right balance between the peppy innocence you’d want in a “Barbara” doll and the otherworldly qualities you’d expect from the matriarch of a mysterious, possibly alien culture, but the rest of the acting is a little wooden (no pun intended) and in places quite shrill. I’ll single out Ron Howard as “The Boy” – he misjudges the tone of the piece badly, playing the ending as almost upbeat and blunting some of the tragedy in the process. (Though it’s hard to blame a seven-year-old for fumbling such a complex character beat.) More importantly, there are some frankly awful moments with Horace Keefe, easily the worst of Door To Nowhere’s regular ‘background players,’ as he overplays the subtext and reads the part of Shatner’s ‘brainwashed’ fellow soldier in an excruciatingly camp lisp, which breaks the tension so badly – as well as being pretty offensive to modern ears – that it drags the episode down from what would have been a solid ‘A.’

  For the most part, though, this is up there with the best of Door To Nowhere’s three seasons, and it’s where we start to see how those seasons are going to shape up. We’ve got the anti-war sentiment that dominated second season episodes like “A Round Of Liar’s Dice” and “What Is That Which The Breeze,” and while it might be stretching things a little to credit Matson with predicting America’s involvement in a ground war in Vietnam, the idea of young men being called to fight in wars they don’t understand the history or even the point of – all at the bidding of overlords who consider them little more than toys to be smashed against one another – is a powerful image that resonates strongly. We also have, arguably, the first of the existentialist questions that grew to take over the programme and inform some of the proto-psychedelic excesses of the third season – “Puppet On A String,” “Eyes Down” and “A Man Of Substance” all draw more than a little influence from this episode’s examination of what human life might look like from a different perspective, and Matson’s Season Three opener “The Fox At Bay” feels almost like a direct sequel, with Jack Warden replacing Shatner as the man lost and alone on a seemingly endless plain as the noises of terrible violence close in on him.

  Where this episode stands alone, though – exploring territory no other episode would dare to for the entirety of Door To Nowhere’s run – is in its examinations of gender, sexuality and the meaning of masculinity in a world that was on the brink of an explosion of social and sexual freedoms. When Shatner first arrives, he’s belligerent and aggressive, accusing his fellow soldiers of cowardice by leaning on the idea of the ‘real man’ – and here’s where Keefe’s ham-fisted performance does some real damage, shoring up 1950s attitudes of what a ‘real man’ looks and sounds like at exactly the moment the narrative is starting to knock them down – and the clash with Millay, that ends with Shatner essentially attempting to murder her, begins because she offers him a doily for his tea. All through the first act, Shatner is more willing to listen to an absent ‘father’ – the ‘superior officer’ who he believes is waiting for him outside the grounds of the Mansion – rather than the ‘mother’ figure, Millay, who wants nothing more than to see him happy, content and in love. Even after he’s realised that he’s better off in his new surroundings, he openly wonders what he is, if not a soldier. What makes the tragedy of “The Doll House” so acute is that it’s not until Shatner fully accepts the ‘sissy stuff’ he’s been fighting during the whole half-hour, embracing his new identity as one of what Millay calls “the beautiful boys,” that it’s all ripped away from him and he’s brought back, weeping, to what he once thought he wanted.

  Best lines/Random thoughts:

  - “There’s a war on. We have to fight. Hell, do you want them to win?” “Depends who they are.”

  - “Now, don’t be a silly, Billy. You can’t hurt anyone with that. It’s just a stick, that’s all, just a silly little stick.”

  - “I didn’t know what happy was until I came here. Happy is not being afraid.”

  - “You can marry me every day, if you want.”

  - “Whoever you are - I’m unarmed! It’s just a stick! Just a stick!”

  - The meltdown Shatner has midway through the plot would fit in perfectly with this YouTube of classic Captain Kirk neurosis. “I’ve lost control!”

  - Fans of trash culture might see some similarities between
the plot of this episode and cult “classic” The Delicious Mister Doll. Hutton Hopper – best known for his ultra-gory schlock horrors The Girl Flensers and Cannibals Of 44th Street – attempted early in his screenwriting career to turn “The Doll House” into a James Bond/Derek Flint style ‘spoof spy’ film. The result was basically what would have happened if all originality and nuance had been surgically drained from the episode and then Horace Keefe commissioned to play all the parts. (Even the women.) Director Jean-Paul Vitti added some additional camp and psychedelia, including a fantastic sequence set in a spinning op-art ‘gravity room,’ but the dialogue remained mostly unchanged and – by all accounts – pretty diabolical. (Vitti did add a heaping helping of his own well-catalogued perversities, as personified by Anouska Hempel in a performance somewhere between the evil queen in Barbarella and her own role in Blacksnake.) Someone braver than me has attempted to review this atrocity here, but frankly it’s something that needs to be seen to be believed, assuming you have three bucks to spend on eBay. Just don’t believe the people telling you it’s somehow ‘ironic.’

  Next week: Burgess Meredith plays one of the creepiest Santas on record as we review the Christmas episode, “A Lump Of Coal.”

  THE SMILE ON Niles’ face was so wide it almost hurt. This was perfect. Absolutely perfect. He did a quick search for the episode itself – maybe he could download it, or even torrent it - but evidently it wasn’t available on anything later than VHS, and any pirates interested in the show had been taken down by Talisman’s lawyers long before. Still, he had everything he needed in that review.

  ‘The Doll House’ was the starting point he’d been looking for. Rather than adapt Hutton Hopper’s material – and it was nice to put a name to the shame – he could simply follow Hopper’s example and layer an exciting spy thriller on top of an already-existing story concept that the studio happened to own. Except unlike Hopper, Niles Golan was not about to completely miss the point of ‘The Doll House’ and reverse its entire message.

  Briefly, he wondered if there was more to that on Hopper’s part than just cluelessness. It’d be great to talk to him – actually, no, it probably wouldn’t be. It’d be nice to talk to Fred Matson, though, get his side.

  The old screenwriter puffed on his pipe, eyeing the author carefully as they relaxed with a tumbler of whiskey on the older man’s sumptuous veranda. “You know,” he said, after a moment, “all I’ve ever really wanted in this life is for someone to do ‘The Doll House’ right – to do it as an action-packed secret agent thriller with a dark, serious edge and some powerful eroticism.” Matson leaned forward, giving the author an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder with his strong, fatherly hand. “You’re a good Joe, Niles. You’re a gosh-darned good Joe.”

  Niles smiled. He knew exactly where he’d gone wrong earlier – because Hopper had made Dalton Doll the authority on what the definition of a ‘real man’ was, a mouthpiece for Hopper’s Neanderthal viewpoint, Niles had assumed that that was all the character could be, that Doll’s misogynist machismo was an essential part of him, without which he just couldn’t function. But of course, that was nonsense.

  Why not have Doll searching for the definitions of masculinity himself, the way Shatner’s character had been? (That was, he was certain from reading the review, what ‘The Doll House’ had been about.) Put him on a mission to find his own identity, both as a man and as a secret agent with a revolving leopard-skin bed and an automatic drinks machine. He’d be trying to be a new kind of man, a sort of ‘new man’ – Niles had to admit, it sounded like a wonderfully original take on the male protagonist in general, and he was pretty sure nobody had tried to do it with a stereotypical sexist spy character before. He could even throw a little comedy in.

  Of course, as in Matson’s original work, the moral would be that sometimes being a man meant having to shoot some people. You could sort of have a cry about it and still be a man, but sometimes you just had to get things done.

  He tried calling Maurice, but the phone went straight to voicemail. Presumably he was still having his ‘massage.’ Well, all right, he could go right to the studio with it – pitch something to Dean right now. He’d had five pints, admittedly, but he’d watched a whole film since then, and besides, it’d probably help the pitch. And if Dean didn’t want to take the pitch over the phone, that was fine too – he was probably okay to drive over there.

  He really wasn’t that drunk at all.

  The phone was ringing. He psyched himself up, quickly, staring at his reflection in the glass of the coffee table. He was going to destroy this pitch. Fucking destroy it. He was a tiger.

  Rarr.

  The noise of a handset leaving a cradle. “Shoot.”

  “Dean? It’s Niles. Listen, I’ve got something –”

  “I’m going to have to stop you there.” The voice on the other end was young, female. Had he been given the wrong number? “Dean’s not available at the moment –”

  “Ah!” Niles smiled. “You must be his secretary. Listen, I’ve got a wonderful pitch for him. Sort of a statement against misogyny, everyday sexism, that kind of thing –”

  “Sounds awesome,” the voice said dryly. “Like I was saying, Dean’s calls are being routed through to me for now. He won’t be available for some time.“

  Niles nodded, eager to get to the pitch. “That’s fine, but maybe I could leave a voicemail for –”

  “He’s been arrested for having sex with livestock.”

  “What?” Niles stared at the phone, as if expecting it to bite him. He slumped back down onto the couch, the air draining out of him like a balloon. “So... so what does that mean for the pitch?”

  “Well, obviously, the studio had to fire him, so... it’s probably dead. I mean, I’ve taken over most of his projects, but I’ve got to admit, what I’ve been hearing... it’s not best-of-breed, you know?” She enunciated the words best of breed as if she was trying them on for size, like a hat. “I really can’t afford to give the green light to things that aren’t best-of-breed, and... well, a guy who sleeps with poultry is not a good judge of what’s best-of-breed, and what’s just... whatever a guy who fucks hens wants to hear. Anyway, he’s out and probably so are you. Sorry if that’s blunt, I prefer to just rip the Band-Aid off, no false hope, you get me?”

  Niles nodded, glumly. “No, I appreciate that. It’s very kind, really.” He sighed. “So Mr Doll is dead. Well, thank you, um...”

  “Jane Elson.” The voice responded. “Hey, did you say Mr Doll? Are you the guy Dean wanted to pitch on that? Because, listen, I’m not going to be able to get onto that tomorrow, but if you can pitch for that in a couple of days...”

  Niles sat up. “I thought you said –”

  “No, that’s one of his I liked. I’m pretty sure with the right script we could make some big numbers on that. It’s the whole retro thing – that’s what I think people are really going to go for, except if you could make it kind of an early ’noughties retro instead of a ’sixties retro? You know, Arrested Development, Brangelina, the Patriot Act, iPods, that whole vibe – that’s going to be the next big thing after ’nineties retro burns out and I feel like if we catch that wave we could really make something that’s, uh...”

  “Best of breed,” Niles murmured.

  “Right, right. Best-of-breed. Listen, you’ve got my number, I’ve got your number, give me a call in a few days when you’ve got something and we’ll get the wheels in motion, okay? Ciao for now.”

  The phone went dead.

  Niles put it down on the coffee table, staring at it for a moment. For some reason, now that the pitch was no longer urgently required – or as urgently required, anyway – all his ideas had deserted him. He knew he had to start from ‘The Doll House’ and build on it, and he had a vague mental picture of Mr Doll crying a lot underneath a running shower, but beyond that...

  He slumped back on the couch, a wave of weariness washing through him, washing him out. He fumbled for the television
remote to put Mr Doll on again – maybe now that he knew a little more about where it had come from, the film would open itself up to him, reveal some hidden depths...

  But he was already asleep before the opening titles finished.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN HE WOKE up again, it was dark, and the phone told him it was past one in the morning.

  Niles lifted himself off the couch and headed to the bathroom. He knew he should call Maurice about the pitch and the new circumstances, but there was no point calling him this late – besides, he had a feeling Maurice would be a little pissed off that he’d called Dean, or rather Jane, without consulting him first. Still, he had an extra few days now to work things out, so it was all to the good.

  As the toothbrush buzzed away at his gum lining, Niles found himself fascinated by the thought of one story becoming another – a piece of twist-ending science fiction based on children’s toys, aimed at a discerning audience, becoming an oversexed secret agent fantasy aimed at the lowest common denominator. How had that come about? Had Hopper and Matson collaborated at all? Was Matson railing against his baby being fed to the butchers, or was it just one of many work-for-hire jobs? He rinsed his mouth out, returned to the laptop and started googling the two men, hoping for evidence of a connection, but very little came up. Sites that talked at length about Mr Doll would mention Door To Nowhere in passing, and vice versa, but nobody seemed interested in comparing the two. Niles frowned, mindful of the time. He knew how easy it was to fall down the rabbit hole of the internet, searching for that one particular piece of information you knew had to exist somewhere, while the clock ticked on and night became early morning.