I rate this episode ★★★★☆ for GOOD. I’ll start off on what I liked the BEST. First, the cast: Marian Seldes (as Eleanora), Evie Juster (as Fisk & Helga), Earl Hammond (as Max & Otto), and Lloyd Battista (as Misha, the Doctor, and R.J. Todd). Kudos to Evie Juster & Earl Hammond for each playing 2 roles. But a big round of applause to Lloyd Battista for playing 3 roles and to Marian Seldes; the actress who portrayed an actress. SPECIAL NOTE: Himan Brown plays the role of Rudy in this. The music had tracks that expressed pensiveness, wistfulness, love, loss, and lust. The sound effects really got to me, especially at the 19-minute mark where everything’s quiet at first and suddenly the sound of a bomb exploding occurs. The sounds of the footsteps, doors, crowd applause, audience screaming, fire alarm, beeping at the Hospital scene, people murmuring at the train station, and classical music played in the background were effective. Now here’s why I didn't rate this 5 out of 5 stars: our Host. In her Prologue, Tammy Grimes makes a good intro by quoting the lines from AS YOU LIKE IT from William Shakespeare. But then in ACT-1, she talks about falling in love with great actors/actresses like Eleanora at the Jefferson Theatre in Washington. But Eleanora isn’t real, so how can she admire an actress that doesn’t exist??? Later on, Tammy Grimes explains that our main character is about to play the biggest role in her life: a savior for the Secret Society (which happens to be a rebellious group). In ACT-2, after explaining Eleanora’s past continues to frighten her, Tammy Grimes mentions that Eleanora is an innocent bystander and is caught up in a world of terror (seems like our Host is repeating her narrations from the first Act). In ACT-3, she mentions that love loses its luster. In the end, she mentions that our main character got to play Juliet twice and never came back for the curtain call (want to take a guess on what happened to her?) In her Epilogue, Tammy Grimes points out that this is a love story that ended unhappily (even though we already knew that) and finishes her narrations from the last lines of ROMEO & JULIET. Her narrations were helpful to explain the story, but her words in the first Act were perplexed. And as for the writing of this CBSRMT episode, James Agate, Jr. wrote a decent Drama-Mystery that was entertaining, but could’ve improved. For instant, the plot of this story is about an actress, who is about to play Juliet from a Shakespearean classic, reminisces the days she fell in love with a Secret Society Leader and then lost him. Now, would it make more sense if this character, who’s about to play Juliet, had an old lover that was very much like Romeo? Plus, there wasn’t enough romance between Eleanora & Misha. The dialogue was there, but the character description of him wasn’t. He had spirit for his cause, but not enough to express affection/fondness towards her. Another way to Title this would be “The Fire Within” because that’s how Eleanora felt about the situation. Another title would work is “Five Years Ago” because that’s how far back the story went. If you’re a fan of Marian Seldes and/or Lloyd Battista, tune into this one. Plus, it has a commercial of the Bank of Ravenswood with its number: 989-3102. Also, it has a CBS news report on Ronald Reagan at the very end. Until next time…pleasant dreams. =0)

A somewhat average episode--a love affair with hints of terrorism. 3 stars.

I enjoyed this oen very much. Seems like there were a lot of films in the 70's especially, that had as part of the story a secret society. It is an interesting study in this scenerio. There seems like it is often a case of teh society killing someone innocent etc.. so they are forever on trh run and can't really have a normal life and so on. This one is a fun listen check it out!

In my opinion, criticizing Tammy Grimes is unfair because she is reading from a script, just like the other actors. They give her some lines to read and she does what they tell her to do. (At least, that's how I assume it was done.) It would be one thing to criticize the way she *delivers* her lines, just like one might criticize and actor for hamming it up, but it's not like T.G. is jumping in to interrupt the show or say something stupid on purpose. I think the writers dictate what the hosts will say, so if anyone deserves criticism for what the host says, it's whoever wrote the script. Also, while no one on this thread mentioned E.G. Marshall, I suspect that people who criticize T.G. are just comparing her to E.J. and disliking her because she was his replacement. It's also unfair to criticize her just because one may happen to like E.G. Marshall better. It's like comparing apples and oranges. I prefer E.J. as a host, but I think T.G. also did a fine job. She wan't trying to imitate E.J. and she had her own style. She deosn't deserve all the dislike she gets, imo.