Weird Science/Sci-Fi Zoned

Sci-Fi Zoned
Season 3, Episode 10
Airdate	June 17, 1995
Production Number	76211
Written by	Tom Spezialy & Alan Cross
Directed by	David Grossman
← 3x09 What Genie?	3x11 → The Wyatt Brief
Weird Science — Season Three

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Sci-Fi Zoned is the tenth episode of the third season of Weird Science, and the thirty-sixth episode overall.

Starring: Michael Manasseri (Wyatt Donnelly), John Mallory Asher (Gary Wallace), Lee Tergesen (The Sci-Fi Zone Host)

and Vanessa Angel (Lisa)

Guest Star: Bruce Jarchow (Principal Scampi)

Co-Starring: Vanessa Lee Asher (Mutated Pig-Lady)

With June Foray (The Voice of Baby Ruthie and Tammy the Doll)

Plot Overview

After the boys have a fight, Lisa hopes to bring them together by casting them into their favourite science fiction anthology show.

Trivia

The Show

• Lee Tergesen appears in this episode, but never as Chett; just the Sci-Fi Zone host. His appearance is clearly not even meant to be part of Lisa's spell (such as the role of Scampi) as Tergesen can be heard as the narrator when the three are watching an actual episode on TV.

Behind the Scenes

• Appropriately, June Foray, who voices Talking Tammy, also voiced Talky Tina in the "Living Doll" episode of The Twilight Zone.

• Vanessa Lee Asher, who plays the mutated pig-lady, was married to star John Mallory Asher at the time.

Allusions and References

• Not only is The Sci-Fi Zone an obvious pastiche of The Twilight Zone with it being in black-and-white with a Rod Serling-esque host (and being run in marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel), but the episodes referenced are themselves identical to many episode of the series including "People Are Alike All Over" (Lisa revealing they're exhibits in a human zoo), "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" (man with third eye), "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (creature in cafe), "Eye of the Beholder" (mutated pig-lady who laments Wyatt's looks), "A Penny for Your Thoughts" (woman slaps Gary after reading his thoughts), "Nick of Time" (fortune telling machine), "Time Enough at Last" (Gary is thrilled by stacks of porn, only to have his ability to see taken away), "Living Doll" (Talking Tammy), "Kick the Can" (old people playing the game in the halls), "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" (Gary and Wyatt selling their souls to the Devil), "The Howling Man" (Scampi's devilish appearance), "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" (the reveal that everyone are toys in a little girl's dollhouse), "Elegy" (the plot of the latter half of the boys as astronauts on an abandoned Earth).

• Gary screaming in front of the Statue of Liberty is an obvious parody of the climax of Planet of the Apes. This itself is a tangent allusion to The Twilight Zone as Rod Serling co-wrote the film.