User Reviews

Some of the plots for "Tales of Tomorrow" were fairly obvious but because of the live format and competent acting, they're enjoyable anyway. "The Duplicates" is an example of this. Out-of-work engineer Bruce Calvin (McGavin) is being nagged by his wife to find another job, so he answers a mysterious newspaper ad (remember classified ads?). Calvin is told by interviewer Dr. Johnson (Cameron Prud'Homme) that he is with a secret government agency that has identified a parallel world that is exactly the same as the earth, with exact duplicates of everything. Calvin's mission is to poison his duplicate to separate the two worlds, then escape back home. There's a final plot twist that you'll figure out way before Calvin does.

The acting is as usual impressive and McGavin is very good, but I was rather appalled by the ultra-cheap sets in this episode. Dr. Johnson's desk sits under a ceiling lamp with a shade made of--get this--newspapers! You can even see the ads on the paper. I guess the show's budget was pretty low, but anyone can go to a thrift store a pick up a cheap lamp shade. Anyway, the episode was very predictable but well done, so take a look when you have a spare 30 minutes.

Darren McGavin plays a man who is unemployed and married to a real harpy. However, despite being out of work for several months, none of this makes sense to him. After all, he is a hard-working engineer and has no idea why he was fired in the first place. But his wife does nothing but nag him and put him down for being out of work.

One day, McGavin sees an odd ad in the paper for a job and answers it. When he arrives for the interview, he is surprised to discover that the folks listing the job actually are with the military AND they already had picked him for the assignment! It seems that there is a parallel world exactly like theirs and the paranoid military folks want him to go to this parallel world and KILL his duplicate! This way, the course of the two worlds will not be so parallel any more! What happens next? Well, if you see the show, I am 95% sure you'll be able to figure it out yourself! Still, the plot is pretty interesting and worth seeing.

This is an interesting episode. It involves a pair of parallel universes (Earth and Jupiter in this case) where exactly the same things are happening simultaneously. Darin McGavin plays an engineer who is recruited by the inhabitants of Jupiter to do a planetary exchange. For some reason never explained, this needs to be done or the two planets will declare war on each other and there will be total destruction. The subplot involves another bitter, mean spirited woman who nags and belittles her husband. It appears she lives in a nice house and though he has lost his job through no fault of his own, she continually points out that all her friends are going places and doing exciting things. The way things work out is easy to figure out. It's really odd that the character himself can't see the natural progression of things.