I feel the fear.

PEW PEW PEW! Flaming fireballs –  it looks like we’ve got some science gone mad in this week’s episode. And STILL no sign of Francis! Let’s jog along with this week’s recap of Logan’s Run!

In some pretty obvious last-minute dubbing, REM tells the runners he senses a forest … through his heat sensors. Now … I’m no botanist — but given they are passing plenty of foliage already AND forests are not known for being super-heat generating … what the eff are you talking about REM?

Low rider.

After seeing the air car puff down for the first time, they push through the forest to a mansion that wouldn’t be out of place in South Pasadena. REM blathers on that it combines Mediterranean AND Georgian architecture. Like Logan and Jessica could prove that either way.

More like McMansion style.

A woman in a plain purple dress stumbles and falls near them, rambling on about danger. REM explains with a “my dear Logan” that the woman is hysterical and suffering from a trauma. A guard in a brown jumpsuit with a leather strip pattern shows up asking where they are from.

“She fell and she can’t get up.”

Logan always answers that he’s from the City of Domes. No one ever seems to react to that, and I’m assuming he is phishing to see if other runners have come this way. The guard takes them all inside with no comment on a city domed or not.

REM has no pithy explanations for the 20th century interior décor.

Fashion Forward

The costume design on this show!

Leather striping is a motif among these people. The most hilarious example is the faux suits a couple of them wear with leather v-neck stripes. One of them is actor Jared Martin, who will later end up playing Dusty Farlow in Dallas!

Don’t you own the Southern Cross Ranch?

Dr. Rowan and Dr. “Dusty” snipe about where the hysterical woman needs to go. Rowan tells the runner team that this facility is a type of convalescent sanitarium. There’s some philosophical back and forth and eerie background music that does nothing to allay their fears. Jessica is determined to stay and chat with Rowan.

Have none of them learned anything in their travels about not splitting up!?! Jessica follows Rowan to visit his patient.

REM and Logan are in their room. REM tries to access the PC in the room. REM’s sonic pencil does the trick. He hacks into all the cameras and they watch Rowan and Jessica.

This show was shameless about stealing from other sci-fi shows.

Rowan explains his patient’s emotions have been deadened except for the emotions Rowan mentally “feeds” her. She was a rebel and they had to shut that shit down. Logan remarks that the way Rowan describes the woman sounds like Jessica. I’m not sure we’re watching the same show, Logan.

That contraption doesn’t look EVIL at all.

Rowan puts on a tin headband and imagines feelings that get transmitted to the woman. They are supposed to be intense emotions, but this woman is so deadened, her facial expression don’t move that much. OR it’s a good thing this woman has no more lines. Jessica says she thinks this treatment is hateful.

Logan only now realizes the door to their room is locked. Dr. Dusty lets them out. As they run off, it looks like Dusty will shoot his weapon at them, but allows them to go free and find Rowan and Jessica. Rowan wasn’t kidding when he said Dr. Dusty is ready to take his job. Succession planning, folks!

Set phasers to … escape?

They barge into Rowan’s office and demand to know where Jessica is. They find her on a monitor. She’s being questioned by three more psychiatrists. As she explains her intense feelings about Sanctuary and Carousel, she blasts them for their experiments and lack of compassion.

Jessica shows more fire in this episode than she has all season. Logan forces Rowan to take them to her. Rowan leads them through his secret door and then Logan and REM promptly fall through a trap door.

Logan and REM end up in a wind tunnel, which is something I guess sanitariums have in the future? Perhaps it helps actors who suffer from specialized phobia, like the lack of dramatic, wind-blown hair.  Also, it’s not like the wind would have blown them into anything except the wall ten feet away, so this danger seems minimal.

All we are is dust in the wind.

Rowan accuses Dusty of letting Logan and REM escape to kill him. Dusty says he doesn’t want to be Rowan’s successor, anyway.

Logan and REM soon encounter a giant flashing light that spits giant, flying fireballs! They play dodgeball until it runs out of fireballs. Logan blasts it . REM realizes it was all an illusion, probably achieved by intersecting laser beams. Get on that, Science and soon we’ll have holodecks! REM also guesses they were being tested for their (wait for it) … FEAR FACTOR!

Flaming fireballs!

They end up in a small red room. Gas starts spewing into the room, choking Logan. REM politely tells Logan he’s going to pretend to pass out too. Moments like this make me love REM more than I did as a kid.

“I wonder where Francis went to …”

When we get back from commercial, Logan is tied up with what looks like the same sparkly bandages from last episode! Dr. Dusty says Logan’s gun will be returned if the Inner Circle decides he’s a good boy again. As they wait to see the Inner Circle, Logan sees a video feed of “menials,” people that serve these doctors. Dusty says they all have diminished brains, which is what I now want to name my future band.

This is the S and M of the future.

Logan works some psychological magic. He makes Dr. Dusty start questioning authority. Logan relays how guilty he felt for hunting runners in the City of Domes (a name I never tire of saying). Dr. Dusty claims to have no feelings and Logan disputes this. From the sad music and Dr. Dusty’s pensive off-camera look, we know Dr. Dusty DOES have feelings!

I’m not emoting, you’re emoting.

Dusty and Logan have to get through two checkpoints to get to the Inner Circle, which is as ridiculous as some of the gated communities I’ve seen in Las Vegas. Once inside, we see the Inner Circle consists of Dr. Rowan and some nameless people in the background.

Absolutely not the body language of an evil mastermind.

The Inner Circle is happy that Logan has a low fear factor. Rowan always knew REM was an android and is being reprogrammed. Rowan monologues that they are collecting knowledge … and making an army. They suspect that if their happy little facility survived, others may have. If so, they may need to conquer them. This is UNASSAILABLE logic.

They bring in a small child and put him in a transporter-like device that ages him into a super buff adult who can fight good. However, the process is flawed. It takes away their courage! That’s why they study fear all the time. As Rowan says, “What good is a massive army of cowards?”

“In just seven seconds … I can make you a man!”

Rowan wants Logan to be the template of his new army and breed with some of the fearless women in the Inner Circle –  to create a master race. Logan replies he’s read about what happens to people who thought they could make a master race. He says, “As for your plan –  it belongs in the straitjacket you keep your people in.” BURN!

Meanwhile, REM is only faking being reprogrammed.

Do androids dream of electric career-killing roles?

Rowan shows Jessica tied up and being interrogated. Her interrogator says they are MUCH nicer than the City of Domes. They don’t kill rebels, they just lobotomize them. Rowan says that if Logan doesn’t do what he wants, she’ll be turned into a menial.

REM busts free and holds Rowan captive with what looks like an android nerve pinch. Dr. Dusty points his gun at them, but Logan convinces him to make his own decisions. Dusty returns Logan’s gun (!) and they go find Jessica.

It’s like Pong … for your brain.

As the doctors start working on Jessica, Logan stuns them. He can’t get to the doctor behind the glass, though, who is still controlling Jessica. REM puts on one of the tin headbands and fights him mentally for control of Jessica’s mind.

After a LOT of button pushing, she’s free and Logan blasts all their data banks. Dusty leads them all out. The menials are all suddenly free, but will be too scared of living above ground. Rowan says Logan and his friends never make it out alive. Dusty tells them which way to go, while he heads back down to buy them some time.

Set phasers to cliche!

As the entrance, Rowan asks how they can live in the outside that’s so dangerous. Logan sums it up – “That’s part of being free –  the willingness to live with danger.” Dr. Dusty decides to go with Logan and his pals. Rowan runs back downstairs and gets blasted by mistake. IRONY!

“And you get a car … and you get a car …”

Now that Rowan is dead, Dusty decides he actually belongs here to help all the scared menials. Dusty accepts his role and becomes the new … head shrink? As menials stumble out into the sun, Dusty tells them they will make a better life for them all – outside.

Wait! I changed my mind! Take me with you!

Awwwww!

Fun episode and brief skin. 3 out of five Sanctuary ankhs. See you next time on the Outside! PEW PEW PEW!

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