This episode is like a good short story. It's tightly focused on two specific characters in a specific situation, building to a strong ending, but with an even more ironic conclusion than any viewer might guess.
William Shatner and Patricia Breslin are both excellent as the honeymooning couple. The small town diner has a realistic feel to it and the whole storyline is based in the every day world, but with a hint of the unknown and occult suggested ambiguously. The grinning devil head that bobbles on top of the fortune telling machine seems to mock Shatner's eager quest for answers.
One of the best moments occurs when the wife asks him, "Don't you realize you could get the same answers from a dozen machines just like it in this place?" The husband fails to see the logic of her idea and responds by saying " The same kind of answers maybe, but not the exact right answers." He insists that every one of the random answers the machine has given him is a literal prediction and confirmation of things that have happened recently. The way that he stares at the machine in fascination makes it seem almost a rival for Patricia Breslin's affections.
This is a powerful and absorbing episode that stands as one of the series' best.
William Shatner and Patricia Breslin are both excellent as the honeymooning couple. The small town diner has a realistic feel to it and the whole storyline is based in the every day world, but with a hint of the unknown and occult suggested ambiguously. The grinning devil head that bobbles on top of the fortune telling machine seems to mock Shatner's eager quest for answers.
One of the best moments occurs when the wife asks him, "Don't you realize you could get the same answers from a dozen machines just like it in this place?" The husband fails to see the logic of her idea and responds by saying " The same kind of answers maybe, but not the exact right answers." He insists that every one of the random answers the machine has given him is a literal prediction and confirmation of things that have happened recently. The way that he stares at the machine in fascination makes it seem almost a rival for Patricia Breslin's affections.
This is a powerful and absorbing episode that stands as one of the series' best.