Father Image

I loved this series. I used to watch it all of the time on the old "Nick At Night" channel in the 80s. This episode really sticks out, and I rewatched it on youtube to pick up details I had forgotten. This episode is about genetic memory. Dan Gardner (Jack Lord) plays a commercial artist, estranged from his father for five years, who inherits his entire estate. The attorney shows him his real estate holdings, most which don't really interest young Dan, but one intrigues. His father was the owner of a burlesque house on the south side of the city that has been boarded up for 28 years. Dan decides to take a nighttime walk to see the place, is almost hit by a truck, and is hit in the head when he jumps to avoid being hit.

At this time he begins to hallucinate - so he thinks - as he sees the burlesque house, which by now he is right in front of, as it was 28 years before when it was operating. He sees things from his father's point of view. In his "hallucination" Dan sees that his dad was not the straight arrow that he always seemed to be, and he might just come to his senses and just think he was dreaming if it was not for what he finds in a big trunk sitting in the middle of the dancers' old dressing room. What does Dan find out? Watch and find out.

This is a very eerie episode about being the sum total of all of your ancestors' experiences from the beginning of time, and what if you could recall some of those memories? Maybe you would rather not and just believe the façade! Plus this shows that from the very beginning, years before Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord was a fine actor.