Kinescope

Two of the original episodes on the disc with episodes #144-#151 were lost. That’s what the message flashed on the screen. I wonder how that happens. How do you lose an original episode? Who did it? How much trouble found its way to them?

Don’t worry though. The episodes were still on the disc. They were filmed from the kinescope.  The what? Never fear. I looked it up.

“The first and most primitive method of recording television programs, production, or news story, a kinescope is a film made of a live television broadcast. Kinescopes are usually created by placing a motion picture camera in front of a television monitor and recording the image off the monitor's screen while the program is being aired.”

                                                   -Museum of Broadcast Communications

That sounds pretty cool. Early technical. Like magic (which, no matter what science says, is what radio, television, and movies are---oh, and telephones and cell phones and airplanes). That said- it is pretty cool but almost impossible to watch.

This disc delves more into the return of David’s mother and Roger’s wife, Laura. Laura seems “off” right from the start. Her speech is slow. Her voice making everything sound like a question. She seems highly medicated or maybe crazy. Probably crazy.

Laura returns for two things: to secure a divorce from Roger and to take David to live with her. Elizabeth, who has raised David, stands in the way, sensing like the audience that Laura is a few crayons shy of a full box---and I mean the standard 8-pack not the lusted after 64 box with sharpener. Burke Devlin seems to want to reunite with Laura, his girl before she married Roger. This is very upsetting to Carolyn who already dumped Joe to be Burke’s sweetheart. David is terrified of his mother at first, but then he warms to her…and strange things begin to happen.