Dan Borroughs (Stan Shaw) is a young, black and very ambitious actor, who's staring in a revamped version of "Othello" on Broadway. The resonance to his performance is generally praised by the audience, but – unfortunately – not by the influential critic Alexis St. Clair (Samantha Eggar), known for her harsh judgment and having the power to either start or end careers. Unfortunately the latter seems to be the case for Dan, who is devastated by St. Clair's evaluation of his performance. So Dan attempts to "impress" the critic with his skills in private. With devastating effects, that might do more than only end his career
Short but sweet episode, by today's standards rather tame and predictable, but nevertheless another creepy little gem in that tiny little treasure box called "Dark Room". As always, the show consists of a good mix of actors that had seen their prime-time (in that case Eggar), seasoned TV-actors and hopeful upstarts (Shaw). Shaw never made it to the top of the acting-elite, but had his fair share in memorable bit-roles, be it in "Rocky", "Roots" or "Fried Green Tomatoes". Shame that he didn't go further. His performance here is both charismatic and menacing, and tough he never really had any leading roles in major pictures, his performances mainly remained memorable. As far as anthology-series like "Twilight Zone" and the likes go, I give this episode a clean 8/10
