Dark Snarks #06: The Tale of the Super Specs

 

We open this episode with Kristen visiting Gary at his dad's magic shop, and we also open with Kristen easily falling for the old "finger in the guillotine" trick. Turns out that the magic shop is where Gary gets most of his ideas for his stories, to which Kristen tells him that the others haven't found Gary's work to be too scary lately.  The audience can't tell yet since this is technically our first Gary story. In the order we're going it's been one Frank, one Betty Ann, one Kristen and two of David's. Which does seem odd when you think about how Gary is the de facto leader and we're beating around the bush to get to his story. 

We then get introduced to the MacGuffin of the episode, the super specs. A pair of X-Ray glasses, to which Gary jokingly ogles Kristen after wearing them which, I mean, that really hasn't aged well, but since they're likely BS to begin with, I guess it's not worth getting heated over. Kristen's skeptical on the spectacles, but Gary just thinks she doesn't believe in magic.

We then go to the Midnight Society meeting where, sure enough, the topic of the evening is how Gary's quality has gone down the crapper. After scaring the supposedly hard to scare Kiki, Gary asks for the crew (no David this week) to give him another chance, to which they're willing to do so. His tale is about three types of people: Those who believe in magic, those who don't, and those who should. And thus we get "The Tale of the Super Specs".

We open the story as our protagonists, the wonderfully named "Weeds" (Which is still better than being named Hat) is with his girlfriend Marybeth as they're at a magic shop. Weeds is big into magic and wants to prepare for April Fools day. He's messing around with a bag of magic dust that is claimed to be made of monkey bones, he reads a spell in a spell book about the power of second sight. 

And, of course, he reads the incantation out loud and sprinkles the magic dust around, conveniently on a pile of the Super Specs. 

We're then introduced to the magic shop's owner. Mr. Sardo. Oh wait, that's Sar-DO. No mister, accent on the "Doh". Similar to Dr. Vink, this is another regular character in the series. In fact, the character was even brought back in the 2021 series, though not by the original actor Richard Dumont. Weeds is interested in the Super Specs and picks up a pair. Marybeth tries them on, only to see...

Someone trying out for Mummenschanz?

Marybeth takes off the glasses, but doesn't see any sign of the shadowy figure. Neither Weeds nor Sardo saw it either. 

April Fools arrives and Weeds tries out his pranks, including putting some magic dust in a girl's yogurt cup. I mean, I don't want to be the kind of reviewer who is constantly talking about things not aging well, but all I can say is at least it's just dust that makes one of the girls' voice go high pitched, so crisis averted? Although she may now have one hell of a falsetto.

As Weeds continues his pranking, Marybeth gets a hold of the specs and yet again sees a figure in all black, this time reading a book. And yet again, no one knows what she's going on about. When Weeds checks the specs, he doesn't see anything. This goes on for a bit, but Marybeth is now sure it's the glasses. And of course when she goes back to Sardo's to return them, the store is closed. 

Marybeth returns home with the specs. Now when she puts them on, she can hear things, as well as see things that aren't visible without them. A kettle on the stove, a fire in the fireplace, stuff like that. She heads noises and sure enough, it's the shadows again, and they can definitely see her. She panics and runs off. She finds Weeds and their friend Mark and tries to tell them about the figures...

Which have decided to engage in some ballin' in between scaring Marybeth.

She runs off again and this time manages to get a hold of Sardo, who tells her that the spell of second sight is essentially the ability to see things that exist in another dimension. Other beings exist in that other dimension and the only way to see them is through the specs. I mean, it's not totally ripping off They Live, but let's be honest. It's not hard to see the inspiration. So, now there's a window to another dimension that's been opened in Marybeth's house and if it remains open, then those beings can mosey on into this dimension. And despite their fetching black leotards, that's not a good thing.

Just before Weeds can flush the dust, Marybeth stops him, since that's going to be needed as Sardo is tasked with closing the window. And, they manage to make things worse as the shadowy figures show up and now you don't need a pair of glasses to see them either. Sardo manages to cast the spell to get rid of them, or so we think as some actually decent bit of nightmare fuel arrives in the form of a giant pair of eyes, telling them that they tampered with the cosmic seal and that balance must be restored. 

We cut to the alternate dimension as we learn that the woman in the black hood was also trying to close the window to the other dimension (and was the eerie giant eyes). Alternate dimension Marybeth and Weeds ask if things will go back to normal, and she promises that they won't have to worry anymore, as we see that the alternate dimension Marybeth, Weeds and Sardo are trapped in a crystal ball. 

Where they'll spend eternity really hamming it up for the camera.

The episode ends with Gary giving all of the Midnight Society super specs, which causes them to see a shadowy figure. As the others run off, we learn that surprise, it was David all along. What a spec-tacular ending. 

This might be the best episode we've covered yet as it feels like an episode that is more well thought out. Not perfectly, mind you. The plot still suffers from being convoluted and rushed, but what works really works. I like the concept of the specs. Yes, there's a definite feel of They Live in this plot, but there's enough in the story to keep it unique. How the story is about the struggle between two dimensions, with the side you think would win not winning out in the end, as the woman in the other dimension was an actual spellcaster and not a fraud like Sardo. I also really like the design of the specs. The reflective, almost kaleidoscope look to the lenses does give off a memorable and slightly scary look to them. I do remember some of the shots with the specs creeping me out as a kid, so they were effective.

Acting is decent as well, particularly with Weeds and Marybeth as both don't feel as wooden as some of our previous protagonists. And Sardo, as expected, steals the show. He's such a great character. This somewhat effeminate, overly confident conman who has no magical abilities and mostly just flies by the seat of his pants, which gets him into some bad situations, case in point this one. And while the shadow figures are a bit silly looking with the all-black outfits, they are freaky enough, as well as the final scene, as scares that actually work in an episode. Like I said, the ending feels rushed, but that's the unfortunate faults of a 22 minute episode. In the end, this one goes in the win pile. It's not perfect, but does more right than wrong. The Tale of the Super Specs gets an A-.