1.25 --- Opening Day

Directed by : John Milius Written by : Gerrit Graham & Chris Hubbell Starring : Martin Kove, Jeffrey Jones, Elan Oberon First aired : 29th of November, 1985. Sally (Elan Oberon) is married with a succesful businessman named Carl (Jeffrey Jones, Amadeus, The Devil's Advocate), but for a long time already she's having an affair with her golf instructor and Carl's good friend Joe (Martin Kove, The Karate Kid). Sally and Joe plot to have Carl killed on the opening day of the duck hunting season, and they finally agree on it during a party held at Sally & Carl's. The next morning, Joe and Carl head off to hunt, and when the horn sounds to signal the opening of the new hunting season, Joe bludgeons Carl with his rifle and lets him drown. He comes back to Sally, but is amazed to find out that all of a sudden, the tables have turned - he is transported one day back and is standing in Carl's shoes, with Sally calling him her husband and all photos in the house which originally had Carl in them swapping the presumably dead Carl for Joe ! His day passes identically like Carl's last day, right to the point when he sees Carl, now the golf instructor, at his party talking about the duck hunt. Realizing he's gonna get the same treatment, Joe confronts Sally about her affair, but she is adamant there is nothing between her and Carl. At the hunting spot, Joe is ready to pounce on Carl when the horn signals, convinced that Carl will try to kill him, but loses his footing and falls into the pond, drowning. A visibly upset Carl drives to Sally and informs her Joe is dead, to which Sally remarks, "at least it wasn't you"...and the roles are switched yet again. *** Directed by Hollywood's premium right wing nutter John Milius (Conan the Barbarian, The Wind and the Lion), Opening Day is a downright confusing episode with the ending left wide open for interpretation. Is the circle broken now that Joe is dead, or will Carl go through it again ? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure if anyone who saw it is, quite frankly. We could disband this as "twilight zone just being twilight zone" I guess, but better TZ episodes at least tend to dish out some rationale behind its motives. Not so here. While all three leads are good in their performances and the direction is expectedly competent, there are two things which bothered me enough for me to go Zicree on this episode. First, the "duck pond" set is godawful. Second, any police officer who pulls out a bludgeoned corpse from the water, (Joe dealt Carl a couple of real good hits to the head) and swallows the "he fell back and drowned" story from the ONLY person to be with him at the time, should be not only relieved of his duty but also lined up and shot. The main plot idea is definitely a sound one, and it was already exploited with great success in the classic TZ episode Judgement Night (4th of December, 1959.). But unlike Judgement Night, Opening Day goes nowhere with its basic premise, making it ultimately a lesser TZ entry. Trivia : look fast for Milius himself cameoing as a man attending the party during the opening credits - he briefly fondles Elan Oberon as she passes by en route to the kitchen.