Author:  [log in to unmask]
Date:    12/19/94 5:52 AM
 
[Editor's note:  This message was submitted to SCREEN-L by the "Author" noted
above, and not by Jeremy Butler ([log in to unmask]).]
 
I was pleased to see that last Friday's episode of PF was funny and
thought-provoking.  For those of you who missed it, the program begins by tying
in to a recent episode of "X-Files" concerning aliens using cows for DNA
testing.  Then it gets even stranger: a cow gives birth to a baby human!
 
The show did a great job of playing an absurd plot with a straight face (more
or less).  It examined legal, moral, religious and societal issues without
providing any pat answers; it also shows how these issues are all different
facets of the same thing.
 
Other thoughts:
 
As much as I like the child actors, I think PF uses Zack too often as "the
questioning innocent"; his obsession with moral issues seems contrived -- I
know a lot of kids his age and none of them are logical and focused on abstract
thought as is he.
 
Ray Walston is terrific as the judge, right up there with Emmy Award-winner
Fyvush Finkel.
 
Too bad CBS nixed the idea of using some of the "X-Files" characters in this
episode; I always loved it when "Green Acres" and "Petticoat Junction"
characters crossed over.   I suppose a "Petticoat Junction" film is inevitable,
given Hollywood's recycling of TV shows... Winona Ryder, Molly Ringwold and
Drew Barrymore as the sisters, Susan Sarandon as Kate, and Marlon Brando as
Uncle Joe???
 
Joe Swift, Discovery.com