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Episode # (aired): 71 (December 15, 1967)
Episode # (filmed): 72, I calculate. Apparent J/A intimacy: ****** (out of six, right?) Jim and Artie are fucking, they've been fucking, and they're going to continue fucking. Compelling plot holes to be spackled or fixed: Well, here the deal is that the script is so lackadaisical that there's not really a plot. The whole episode actually seems more a commentary on what WWW might be rather than an episode. (Although it is highly unlikely that a European princess would enrolled in a girls' school in *Denver* in 1874.) Reason to spackle the episode anyway: No reason: it's all utterly out of the closet. Shirtlessness: None! Can you believe that!!! What were they thinking of!!!! Physical contact: **** Okay, we don't see them going at it, but they obviously are; there's one point where Artie gets *tres sportif* and, in his guise as foppish aesthete, comes over and puts his hand on the back of Jim's waist, probably only about three inches away from the beginning of very heaven. And his hand STAYS there. H/c potential: none. Angst potential: well, again, none. (They are deliriously happy together.) Jim beauty: ****** What else can be said? Artie beauty: ***** A little fatigued-looking, yes, but he seems quite inspired by his disguise. General bizarreness of episode/bad scriptwriting: This script seems to have been compiled from the leftover scraps of other scripts with ketchup added to mask its origins. Importance of having this on a pimping tape: ***** (possibly a little more ironic than classic pimping eps) Apparent relationship status: They are *SO* fucking and enjoying every second of it. Out-of-body experience rating for Sunbeam: *************** (See below.) Plot recap: Dig this: Jim is in St. Louis, looking fine and frisky, and he's going to see a man at a hotel so he flirtatiously asks the guy at the hotel desk what the room number is, only to find that someone else named Jim West has already been there. Jim runs upstairs where he overhears a whispering killer dispose of the man he's looking for. Jim bursts in and gets beat up by the whisp. killer; then he hears the dying man exhale two words: "Enzo . . . Silver." Jim chases the killer downstairs and sees that now even the guy at the desk has been killed! We find ourselves riding to Denver on a small Weimar-tinged wagon train filled with Eastern European strong men and accordion-playing midgets. One of my favorite things about this episode is how, despite the obvious lack of plot, all the characters manage to be so vivid. There's Miss Tyler, the fat and frumpy tea-swilling British gentlewoman; there's her driver, Toothless Pete Carstairs; there's a eerily passive gambler named Jeff Smith; and there's the above-mentioned midget and his strongman friend, Koko and El Bardoom. Not to mention a hot PIMP DADDY named Chris Kohner (played by our ST Scalosian friend, Rael!)and his four ho's. Plus there's Artie in checked trousers, slouch hat, velvet jacket and floppy bow at his throat; see, he's playing Oscar Wilde. The time line is wrong (Oscar Wilde wore his slouch hat, floppy bow, and velvet jacket to lecture the "fine manly silver miners" of Colorado -- Oscar's own phrase -- on aestheticism in 1882, and this ep is set about 1874), but, as we shall see, Artemus IS Oscar Wilde! So, the weird Cabaret-inspired wagon train gets attacked by Indians, and Jim comes out of nowhere to help them fight the Indians off. "Hullo, Artie," he says as he takes his place by the shotgun- toting Artie. "Hullo, Jim," Artie says, and it's amusingly casual because they just keep shooting. Then, in an effete British accent, Artie says he's disguised as "Jonathan Ashley Kingston", a freelance lecturer on the virtues of "The Bard". (Which is the scriptwriter's way of getting around the time problem of alluding to Wilde's 1882 lectures on aestheticism). Now follows a very strange moment: "Very impressive," Jim says, but RC seems to break character and crack up laughing. It's not a Jim laugh, or a moment for a Jim laugh, so I really thinks it's just RC reacting to (in a very nice way) to RM's effete charade. RC and RM are laughing so hard they have to stop filming is my guess, so we cut to the Indians. When we come back, Artie fills Jim in. Seems like Enzo is the killer and, while nobody knows who Enzo is, Artie found out Enzo's girlfriend is on the wagon train. One of those ho's, no doubt, but which one? Artie says, "James, my boy, all cooze is the same to me." Well, actually, he doesn't. But he implies it. Jim and them drive the Indians off, and everybody runs over to thank him. PIMP DADDY is having problems with his ho's – they want to go back East - so Jim says he'll escort the girls back, but they'll have to go through Apache Country. "Apache Country!" says a ho (none of whom can act, which I think is an ironic salute to all the other inept WWW actresses). "That's where the Apaches live," Jim says. (RC is great here.) The ho's decide to stay. Then big ol' Miss Tyler comes over and thanks Jim. Artie seems very ill-at-ease (no reason given, which is why I think everybody made this ep up as they went along). She leaves, and Artie's cool again. He says to Jim,"the HARD and GEM-LIKE glow will lead you where you want to go." Then they give each other knowing looks and laugh. Okay, cue out-of-body experience. Even back in high school, I liked reading about gay men so, in my senior English class when the teacher said we could do our term paper on anybody, I picked Oscar Wilde (gay, he was gay! I knew that!) I ended up doing my paper on the influence of Walter Pater (famous nineteenth-century aesthete) on Oscar. Pater (1839-1894) was notoriously gay and started the Oxford aesthetic movement and Oscar (1854-1900) studied with Pater at Oxford. The key influential quote of Pater's(which I featured prominently in my term paper) is at the end of one of his essays on how to live. Pater writes: "To burn always with this HARD, GEM-LIKE flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." Oh, man, that's THE classic Walter Pater quote, and that Artie alludes to Walter Pater pretty much floors me. *sigh* Hey, I do apologize for my excessive pedanticism. I can only imagine how tedious it is for real people, but becoming a hardcore man-nooky slasher after living in the ivory tower for so long tends to create curious cross-urges in my temperament. Back to the story: Gambler Jeff Smith disappears after mildly befriending Jim, Artie overhears Enzo's voice (nice imitation, RM!), and two ho's die. Then they reach Denver. PIMP DADDY and the remnant of his posse of fly bitches show they have rapidly moved from grief to acceptance by squealing with pleasure at the sophistication of downtown Denver. A classic fight scene erupts between Jim and some alcoholic who's got on Jeff Smith's hat: it goes on forever and musses Jim adorably. Meanwhile, Artie watches the whole thing with a cool, appraising eye; he knows he's going to get some, and how!, soon. After that, Jim goes to see the governor who is protected by a veritable harem of well-built studly bodyguards (everybody is so gay in this episode). They won't let Jim in and tear up his calling card. Jim gets mad and says (RC is precious here): "that card was IMPORTANT." Then he beats up the most insolent bodyguard until the gay governor turns up and says, "I knew you'd sweet talk your way in, Jim." Purrrrr. That night there's an all-whore party for the political powers of Denver. Artie is a waiter and has to wear a grotesque ugly costume with a bald head and there's a lot of rahrah about somebody ordering Cherries Jubilee made with molasses. Then Jim somehow finds out who Silver is (she's the European princess) and he leaves the party to fetch her at her exclusive girls' school (perhaps she's majoring in smelting and wants to see the Colorado silver mines first hand). Hey, Miss Tyler's there! Neat! Uh-oh, not so fast. Jim socks Miss Tyler and her wig falls off! She's . . . a man!!! Played by FabYouLuss classic-tranny T.C. Jones! Cue second out-of-body experience: again back in my high school years, reading T.C. Jones' biography (where he insists he's totally straight: snort) was one of my seminal slash experiences! Damn! (Hey, here's a T.C. Jones website, if you want more info: http://www.blakstone.com/Dragstravaganza%20Site/tcjones2.html) And then there's an end. Actually, they're so short of plot there's two endings! Ending A) Princess Silver is being feted aboard the Wanderer but she has to leave before dessert but she gives Jim a gentle girly kiss. *Sigh* She's pretty and all, but . . . Jim is Daddy's boy here. :) Artie comes back out with the dessert; why, it's Cherries Jubilee made with molasses. And RM gets to mug furiously when he tastes it ‘cause it tastes so bad! Ending B) Jim and Artie are playing cards. Jim implies his dad was a gambler and the table turns over revealing the strange gravity-resistant accouterments you all had alluded at one time. Jim says, "really, Artie" in a sweet'n'sexy voice, as they both look guilty (why?) Here Jim and Artie are gentle and intimate and amused with each other. I think they had sex after Ending A and before Ending B. (See, Artie tells Jim there was an orgy where one of those ho's put a little spoonful of warm molasses on his and Pimp Daddy's cocks and then licked it off. Now he wants to show Jim just how that works. "Jesus," Jim whispers over and over again as Artie's moist mouth performs this marvel. Now they're playing cards while they wait for the Viagra-laced laudanum Artie just invented to kick in so they can do the warm molasses thing again.) |