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Tuesday Top Five: "Simply focus..."
Aug. 20th, 2024 10:43 pmI said that I’d share my top five “mind control episodes” of live action TV, so here they are, in chronological order.
1. “The Tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (Are You Afraid of the Dark?): If you aren’t familiar with this show, it was an anthology horror series (with a framing device of kids telling each other spooky stories) that aired in the 1990s. In this story, a misfit teen became the thrall of a long-dead wizard, who gave him power over other people’s minds, allowing him to rally his classmates and teachers into what was effectively a cult, and leaving his best friend as the only voice of reason. This episode nailed “high school dynamics BUT SPOOKY” years before Buffy, and it’s one that I can rewatch with a full recognition of why I loved it in the first place.
2. “Stop-Loss” (Dollhouse): Even before Joss Whedon’s work (justifiably) underwent a widespread critical re-evaluation, this show – about an organization that uses science fiction technology for what is essentially human trafficking – was received with noticeable skepticism. I didn’t actually watch it until years after it aired, and while I could and still can understand where the criticism comes from, a lot of the show’s component parts still really work for me, especially the love story between Tony (aka Victor) and Priya (aka Sierra). Late in Season 2, Tony got co-opted by a military hive-mind after leaving the Dollhouse, and although the episode zipped through what would probably have worked better as a longer character arc, the scenes in which Priya tried to remind him of who he was (although she only sort of understood that herself) still managed to hit my emotional buttons.
(I don’t think Dollhouse should be rebooted, but I do think there were ways to tweak continuity that might have resolved some of its issues. Maybe I’ll write about those someday.)
3. “A Sin to Err” (Agent Carter): The first season of this show consisted of eight episodes that told a continuous story, and the sixth episode showed what the primary villain – a psychiatrist who, of course, used hypnosis to trap people in illusions – was really capable of. I vividly remember my “are they really going for… yes they are!” reaction when he started telling another character to “focus,” and he is one of the reasons why I ended up writing so much fic in this fandom. (The very last moments of the very last episode implied that he was involved in the Winter Soldier experiments, but I don’t think that future MCU content took that idea anywhere, though I could be wrong.)
4. “Myriad” and “Better Angels” (Supergirl): The two-part finale of Season 1, in which the Kryptonian antagonist mind-controls (almost) the entire population of a city including several of the title character’s loved ones, is a delicious feast of tropes and undiluted sincerity, and makes no apologies.
5. “The Hellfire Club” (Stranger Things): This is a different flavor of mind control than the ones listed previously, but Vecna uses his victims’ fears and insecurities to manipulate their perceptions and trap them in nightmares, so I think it qualifies. I find his victims more sympathetic and the related imagery more interesting than what the Mind Flayer did in the previous season (though that storyline did have a couple of nicely creepy scenes, like the one in which Billy visited Heather and her parents). That said, none of the mind stuff in this show has disappointed me.
1. “The Tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (Are You Afraid of the Dark?): If you aren’t familiar with this show, it was an anthology horror series (with a framing device of kids telling each other spooky stories) that aired in the 1990s. In this story, a misfit teen became the thrall of a long-dead wizard, who gave him power over other people’s minds, allowing him to rally his classmates and teachers into what was effectively a cult, and leaving his best friend as the only voice of reason. This episode nailed “high school dynamics BUT SPOOKY” years before Buffy, and it’s one that I can rewatch with a full recognition of why I loved it in the first place.
2. “Stop-Loss” (Dollhouse): Even before Joss Whedon’s work (justifiably) underwent a widespread critical re-evaluation, this show – about an organization that uses science fiction technology for what is essentially human trafficking – was received with noticeable skepticism. I didn’t actually watch it until years after it aired, and while I could and still can understand where the criticism comes from, a lot of the show’s component parts still really work for me, especially the love story between Tony (aka Victor) and Priya (aka Sierra). Late in Season 2, Tony got co-opted by a military hive-mind after leaving the Dollhouse, and although the episode zipped through what would probably have worked better as a longer character arc, the scenes in which Priya tried to remind him of who he was (although she only sort of understood that herself) still managed to hit my emotional buttons.
(I don’t think Dollhouse should be rebooted, but I do think there were ways to tweak continuity that might have resolved some of its issues. Maybe I’ll write about those someday.)
3. “A Sin to Err” (Agent Carter): The first season of this show consisted of eight episodes that told a continuous story, and the sixth episode showed what the primary villain – a psychiatrist who, of course, used hypnosis to trap people in illusions – was really capable of. I vividly remember my “are they really going for… yes they are!” reaction when he started telling another character to “focus,” and he is one of the reasons why I ended up writing so much fic in this fandom. (The very last moments of the very last episode implied that he was involved in the Winter Soldier experiments, but I don’t think that future MCU content took that idea anywhere, though I could be wrong.)
4. “Myriad” and “Better Angels” (Supergirl): The two-part finale of Season 1, in which the Kryptonian antagonist mind-controls (almost) the entire population of a city including several of the title character’s loved ones, is a delicious feast of tropes and undiluted sincerity, and makes no apologies.
5. “The Hellfire Club” (Stranger Things): This is a different flavor of mind control than the ones listed previously, but Vecna uses his victims’ fears and insecurities to manipulate their perceptions and trap them in nightmares, so I think it qualifies. I find his victims more sympathetic and the related imagery more interesting than what the Mind Flayer did in the previous season (though that storyline did have a couple of nicely creepy scenes, like the one in which Billy visited Heather and her parents). That said, none of the mind stuff in this show has disappointed me.
