#ben piazza

1.02c Chameleon

Director: Wes Craven

Writer: James Crocker

Cinematographer: Bradford May

Summary:

In orbit above the earth, a spacewalking astronaut notices a strange blue light flashing off part of the space shuttle Discovery. When the shuttle returns to earth, two engineers, Brady (John Ashton) and Gerald (Steve Bassett), are asked to inspect one of the exterior cameras after it malfunctioned in orbit. When Brady removes the camera, he is engulfed in blue light and disappears—leaving just the camera. The camera is moved to a sealed observation lab where a team of NASA scientists can securely examine it. Dr. Curt Lockridge (Terry O’Quinn) and his team try to reason through what happened while they wait for consultation from a higher ranking scientist, Dr. Vaughn Heilman (Ben Piazza). 

The camera flares up in blue light again, but now the observation lab is occupied by, what appears to be, Brady. “Brady” pleads with them to let him out. They attempt to reason with him, but “Brady” becomes increasingly irate. In a fit of desperation, “Brady” shape shifts into the form of Brady’s wife, Kathy (Lin Shaye). Kathy then pleads the case to the scientists to let “Brady” go home. This reveals that when this shapeshifter absorbs someone, it also absorbs their knowledge and memories, as the real Kathy is safe at home. 

The scientists catch the shapeshifter up in its misunderstanding. It morphs back into its Brady form and begins to lash out. They decide to forcibly sedate the Brady-Thing, and Heilman enters the room to examine it. The Brady-Thing wakes up and absorbs Heilman. Rather than taking on Heilman’s form, it morphs into a bomb with a clock counting down to detonation. As it turns out, Heilman used to work in weapons R&D. Lockridge decides to enter the room himself as a sign of trust, to reason with it and set it free. When the countdown reaches zero, another flash, and out of the room runs the shapeshifter, now in the form of Heilman. 

Lockridge chases after it, out onto the tarmac of the airfield. The shapeshifter explains to Lockridge that it ended up on earth out of pure curiosity and assures him that Heilman and Brady are not being held prisoner. Unable to explain its nature in human language, it offers Lockridge the opportunity to merge with it as well, and travel the universe. Lockridge declines and the shapeshifter transforms into a swirling ball of light, launching itself into the open night sky.

Closing Narration:

“Imagine yourself a visitor to many worlds, drifting on the solar wind, a thousand voices singing in your memory. Now imagine you're this man, who can only guess at the wonders he might have known, wonders that exist for him now only as a riddle... from The Twilight Zone."

More about Chameleon:

Chameleon was conceived and written by supervising producer James Crocker. On the DVD commentary for this episode, Crocker explained that his inspiration for writing this story was simply that he liked shapeshifter stories. It was refreshing to hear to be honest, as sometimes producers who envision themselves as creatives build up grandiose creation myths for their creative output. Anyway, I think that this approach worked out well for Chameleon as a Twilight-Zone story. Crocker successfully took inspiration from  preexisting stories about shapeshifting alien beings and synthesized something original from it. (My assumption is that his inspirations were The Andromeda Strain (1971), The Thing (1982) (or The Thing from Another World (1951)), and maybe just a touch from the Star Trek TOS episode “The Squire of Gothos.” But, that’s just my speculation!) 

Superficially, Chameleon reminded me more of a story that might appear on The Outer Limits. However, the shorter runtime of the episode gives it a Twilight Zone-y flair of presenting the viewer with a strange premise for them to mull over on their own. That is, Chameleon is relatively fantastic, rather than explicative, which would be more in line with the more sci-fi leaning Outer Limits. 

No specific episodes of the original series immediately come to mind to pair Chameleon with, which is a good thing. If every episode had an analog in the original series, this reimagining of the series wouldn’t be showing much imagination! However, if I’m pressed to pair it, I’d go with The Lateness of the Hour (2.08) for depicting the panic response of suddenly not comprehending who or what you are or The Invaders (2.15) for depicting a fundamental difficulty in communicating between people from different planets. While this isn’t a Twilight Zone episode, The Outer Limits episode Corpus Earthing also came to mind when watching this story for the first time.

Ben Piazza (deceased)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: 30 July 1933

RIP: 7 September 1991

Ethnicity: White - American

Occupation: Actor, playwright, writer

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