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Title

The Breaking Point

Plot

A thought projection experiment takes a deadly turn as a scientist takes an extreme step and subjects his wife's subconscious to the process to persuade her to kill him!

Episode

0088

Air Dates

  • First Run - May 8, 1974
  • Repeat - July 26, 1974

Actors

Writer

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Rating

131
99     32


20 Responses to Episode 0088

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. Once again, hypnosis, as portrayed in popular fiction, doesn't exist. Science fiction.

Andy

While I found the episode to be enjoyable and one of those did he didn't he stories the monkey has to be one of THE worst sound effects in this shows history. It sounds like someone rubbing an inflated balloon.

Wayne

A scientist dabbles with ESP and tries a dangerous experiment using his wife as a subject. He attempts to pass a mental message for her to take a loaded gun and shoot him.

Andrew

A scientist discovers how to project his thoughts. He targets his wife's subconscious to influence her to murder -- him!

Adora Davis

(This could also be called: - "The doofy professor" - "Dr. Death wish" or - "Oh, what we could have made Saddam do to himself had we this capability (assuming he's still alive)" ) A man has been shot in the chest and is hanging on for dear life as the doctors and nurses try to save him...he tells us how he got there. He's a retired psychology professor and his pretty young wife, and they were conducting a special kind of research at their Palo Alto home. The prof knows a wee bit more about what he's trying to do than his better half. They're also expecting some company...another (Stanford?) professor, who arrives as a guest bringing one of his capuchin monkeys he used for research named "Chi Chi". (The simian plays a crucial role in the action part of the story.) Chi Chi wears a skull cap to cover his exposed brain. The visiting professor learns a startling secret...the older gentlemen is working to control his wife telepathically. He thinks a command, and she comes out to do it, in a sort of trance. He rings a small gong to bring her out of it at the end of each "experiment". He's trying to do this, he tells the visitor, because he thinks we can subvert evil leaders if we can develop the ability to control their minds. He's going to learn today if he can REALLY do it...the visiting professor is astounded to learn that his retired friend is going to telepathically tell his wife to get a gun out of a dresser in their house, walk in and shoot him...

Lance Humble

A professor experimenting in the paranormal seeks to achieve mind control over his subject to demonstrate the potential of such ability. His subject is his wife who is participating in the experiments while apparently carrying on an affair with one of the professors’ associates. The associate brings along a research monkey for the professor to use for a while. (More about the monkey later, as E. G. would say). The professor wants to test the extent of this power by getting his wife to do something she wouldn’t normally do in a conscious state.

Joclyn Travis

is funny.....mind over chatter. thats a riot! anyways....interesting show.

Martin

The scientist who tells this story reminds me of a character in the black and white version of "The Thing". I am referring to the scientist in the film who wishes to preserve and study the alien monster. Their voices and demeanor are similar. I loved the ending to this episode. A good example of a show that could only be done in a radio format. I tend to think that the wife acted under the influence of her husband's experiments and was not "all there". A quirky, fun show.

Greg Miller

This episode is greatness...or just this side of it. - DeKoven gives an excellent performance as a professor who (like many of his contemporaries at American universities today, I fear) is very brilliant but not very wise. He thinks his idea of mind-control-as-a-means-to-peace is great because HE thought of it, and let's not get started about his cockamamie "If I can get my wife to point a loaded gun at my chest with her finger on the trigger and the safety off - SUCCESS!" method of testing it. Note how "Chi Chi", the capuchin monkey, sounds like someone rubbing a rubber balloon. - Note how everybody in the drama loses.

Blesilda Kilroy

You must listen to this episode just to hear the sound effects of the capuchin monkey/murderer. Oops, spoiler alert. Or is it? 4 stars.

DAVY JOE

Not the best episode ever. The monkey sounded like balloons rubbing. Kind of a stupid test for the professor to try - he could've put blanks in the gun and not told his wife as well. At the end he has the monkey shoot at the mirror and I have no idea why that was, nor why it seems to be easier for him to communicate with the monkey when he can see it's brain. Again, not the best episode.

Alec

I love listening to the old radio commercials!

Jenny

"CHI, CHI. . . PUT DOWN THE GUN!" Moral of the story: Never let a monkey have a loaded gun.

adams_88

Some more hilarious dialog;SPOILER ALERT, gives away the climax. The professor commands ChiChi "Take the gun out of the desk drawer. That's a good boy." (Even though Helen had just laid the gun on the floor after shooting her husband, mysteriously the gun found itself back in the desk drawer.) "Chi Chi shoot the mirror." Complete mystery why the mirror had to be shot?? I thought the Professor wanted to shoot the young doctor for loving his wife? Was the Doctor going to be hit by flying glass from the mirror? Why not shoot the television, or better, shoot the radio. You would hear the shot at the radio and then silence for a few moments until E G Marshall would come on and say "We seem to have lost our radio broadcast from that location. Tune in tomorrow for a new radio broadcast." Then the Professor blacks out for a moment and comes to, he hears this one sided telephone conversation by a cop to his lieutenant. "We found two people dead. One, Mrs Helen in the house, and a Doctor Simpson in the back yard. The Doctor before he died managed to tell Jim something about a monkey with a loaded gun? ... no, nothing else. Oh yes we did find a black skullcap dangling from the chandelier. We have no idea what it is for. That's it, Lieutenant ... oh, almost forgot. Better send an ambulance right away, the dying Professor may still have a chance." Now that is what I'd call hack writing. Finding a black skull cap is of much more importance to a police detective than a dying man on the floor. Too hilarious.

D.C.

This episode was okay, not one of the better ones on RMT. She should have just left her husband instead of trying to kill her husband for what he was doing. Why she agreed to the experiments is beyond me, but just goes to prove don't mess with things you should not. Great blame it on the balloon monkey Did enjoy the commercials though and the news!

Nancy

"And they say, 'Dead men tell no tales!'" I abosolutely love E. G. Marshall! Its great to hear the "Evening News" of that beng recorded on many of these old archves. 8 see the Watergate scandal in a whole new light.

Jim

An interesting episode. Couldn’t wait to hear the monkey . And yes, the Watergate news casts are great insight to today’s Adolf Tweetler as President.

Scooter D & the greens

Huh? On the monkey. Great sound quality. Interesting news on the tops of the hour. All kinds of odd comments about women from EG.

Kathy D

I guess when there are this many shows produced, scripts that should have been easy rejects end up on the radio. This was mind-numbingly stupid. EG's super-sexist misogyny breaks did not help. I give a lot of thumbs up grading on a curve, but this one is a real stinker.

Gilly

I enjoy this nostalgic radio show, but this episode is so misogynistic and the chuckling at the end about murdering a woman is disturbing. The leading lady has a master’s degree and yet, she still needs everything mansplained to her! Of course she needs to drink throughout the show…how else could she get through an evening with these bozos?

Ruby G


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