This is a stand-alone story, brought about by the many roles our favorite actors have played over the years.
What's
on TV?
Sharon H
~<<>>~
“Does
this place have cable?” Chip Morton asked, collapsing onto his end of the couch
with a slice of pizza in one hand and a can of soda in the other. On the other
end of the couch Lee Crane sat, his long legs stretched out in front of him,
bare feet propped up on the coffee table.
“Chip,
I’m surprised this place has running water, much less cable.” Lee snagged
another piece of pizza from the box on the table in front of them and promptly
bit the end off.
*This
place* was a tiny backwater town in the middle of nowhere. What was suppose to
have been three hotel rooms turned out to be a small multi-person room, due to
a *clerical error* the clerk had said. By the time Lee, Chip and Nelson had
arrived, it was too late to find another hotel room, everything being booked up
for some science fiction convention in town.
“Were
you two planning on leaving some for me? After all, I paid for it.” Harry
emerged from the small bathroom, his auburn hair still damp. He was dressed
like Chip and Lee, in pajamas and a robe. As he walked by the table, he snagged
a section of pizza and dropped into the room’s only reclining chair. He gave up
his chance to be first at the shower in exchange for the chair and one of the
two beds. Chip and Lee could fight over who won the right to the second bed and
who got to camp out on the couch. Nelson propped his feet up on the end of the
table. Glancing around he noticed a TV schedule lying on the table next to him.
“I think this should answer your question Chip. I believe this place does
indeed have cable. I wonder what’s on?” Harry started flipping through the
pages. “ You two in the mood to watch a submarine movie? I see the Enemy
Below[i]
is on.”
“Too
much like my day job.” Lee replied. He pulled a piece of pepperoni off his
slice and plopped it in his mouth. Chip reached over and confiscated a second
piece.
“Well
how about this. . . you’ll like this one Lee, a double feature; two of those
James Bond movies, Live and Let Die, and License to Kill[ii].”
Lee
snorted, finishing off the crust. “Not really in the mood for all that shooting
and those car chases.”
“Too
much like your part time spy job?” teased Chip. Lee leaned over and gave his
friend a shove on the shoulder. Chip reached over and shoved back. Harry spoke
up, his eyes never leaving the magazine, “I’m not in the mood to baby-sit, so
you two ease off,” he said.
Chip
and Lee both grinned. “Aye, Sir,” they chorused. Lee got up to fetch himself a
soda. On his way back to the couch he paused by Nelson’s chair. “Let me look
through that,” he said.
Nelson
handed the schedule over. “Good luck. I didn’t see anything.”
Lee
folded himself up on the couch and flipped through the book. “Anybody up for
Buck Rogers? The episode’s called Planet of the Slave Girls[iii].
Looks like a two part episode.”
Chip
scowled. “I’ve seen that episode. There's this one guy, blond with this
scraggly mustache and this cheesy red leather suit, he gave me the creeps for
some reason. I’ll pass.”
“Picky,
picky. Okay, how about Moby Dick, the Gregory Peck version[iv].”
“Giant
whales, Lee? I’ve had enough of giant whales to last a long time,” said Nelson,
licking the cheese from his fingers.
“This
is ridiculous,” complained Crane sourly.
“How many hundreds of channels are there in here? You’d think we could
find something to watch.” He tossed the
book down on the couch between him and Morton and snatched up the remote. He
switched the TV on and started running through channels. After a few seconds of
searching he paused.
“Hey,
is this the Twilight Zone?” he asked. Chip concentrated on the screen.
“Yeah it is. Leave it here.”
Crane
dropped the remote and looked down at the pizza box. Three slices left. Nelson reached down and
yoinked the biggest of the three. Meanwhile Chip had found a deck of cards from
somewhere and was shuffling them with a mischievous gleam in his blue eyes. Lee
settled back down on the couch. “What do you plan to do with those?” he asked
Morton.
Morton
lifted one eyebrow. “We’re going to play. Winner gets the bed. Loser gets the
couch,' he replied.
Crane
groaned. The last person on the planet he wanted to play cards with was Chip.
Everybody he had ever played had some kind of tell, something to give his
opponent away. Chip had such a fine control over his emotions that it was hard
to read him. The blond card shark started to deal.
Nelson
meanwhile was watching the TV. Something about the actor was familiar. “Does
this guy remind you of anyone?” he asked. Chip and Lee looked up from their
card game and looked up at the TV.
“Yeah,
he kinda reminds me of the chief a little[v].”
End
srh
[i] Enemy Below (1957) starred Al (David) Hedison as Lieutenant Ware, the executive officer of the USS Haynes
[ii] David Hedison is the only actor to portray Felix Leiter twice.
[iii] Robert Dowdell played a villain by name of Galen in this episode.
[iv] One of Richard Basehart’s many distinguished roles, playing the part of Ishmael (1956)
[v] Terry Becker played a character named Jagger in the 1964 episode "I Am the Night-Color Me Black"