A brilliant but mousy college professor is pressured by his wife to make something more of his life. For various reasons, despite being the most senior employee, has never achieved full professorship but seems content to do the work he is doing at his present position. He reveals to his wife that he has discovered something that in the wrong hands would bring the world down to succumb to the wishes to whoever wielded it. He refuses to publish or share it to protect humanity. At the same time he has invited a poor graduate student to live with them. He is a follower and student of the professor’s work which appears to be in the supernatural, past lives, reincarnation. The student convinces the professor’s wife that she is the reincarnation of an ancient queen. The episode seemed to a little disjointed and the exact nature of the professors work remained unknown which, to me at least, contributed to the disjointedness of the episode.

I agree with Brannen that the episode was disjointed and the true nature of the professor's work was not really revealed (although his student did tell the wife some of it). At the end I wasn't sure if they had sort of swapped bodies in a Freaky Friday sort of way or if they had just merged their minds, but I tended towards the former as the professor's personality seems to be in control.

Disjointedness made the stonyness more real. I'll have to relisten to this. Very interesting.

Okay, I need some defining clarity here. Am I the only one who absolutely, positively finds Mercedes McCambridge’s voice the most grating thing in the known universe? The opening scene of act 1 is a prime example of her bringing down a scene. Dryden is his usual brilliant self, and when he speaks it is soothing and pleasant, and then when MM speaks my body tenses, I grimace and I can’t wait for her to stop speaking. And...., Why on earth did she keep getting these 30 something roles when she was 60? She was 60 and sounds 75. She’s playing a woman (like she usually did) in her late 30’s. Was there a shortage of 30’s something women in the mid 70’s? Love RMT, but it takes all the courage I can muster to listen to her as a lead. Maybe it’s just me.

It's not just you, lol! She is unique, and I'm kind of fond of her anyway. nut I often find her terribly grating too. There are some performances she did which seemed to work pretty well for her, but often her roles didn't fit, especially the "younger" ones. I agree that she should ONLY play older women, lol!

Not a favorite of mine, thank goodness for news and commercials. It would appear that the professor may have tricked the young up start right into doing what he did. Now the professor has a younger body! With age comes wisdom!

Great set up. Disappointing ending.

First the wife is domineering, then she's week willed at the very first glimpse of the crazy-sounding student. It is a hard listen.