Two women, Janice and Mary Ellen, out on a summer Saturday, stopping at yard sales and looking over the selections. From their talk, you can't help but get the idea that they are both divorced. Janice picks up a brass lamp that looks suspiciously like a magic lamp. She reads the inscription on the lamp and laughs: "Rub me and your wishes will come true." Her friend tells her to rub it; what could it hurt? She does, and disappears. Janice finds herself in an office, which looks like a bland government office, sitting in front of a desk. The man behind the desk introduces himself as Mr. Brent, her broker. She realizes that the lamp worked, and she’s delighted.  Mr. Brent asks what wishes she'd like. Her first wish is for $10 million dollars, her second is to look 10 years younger, and her third is to have her ex-husband experience a “mild sexual disfunction.”  As Brent, her broker, types up the forms, Brent’s supervisor, Mr. Willoughby, comes over and informs him that he wants to see him when he’s finished about the botch he made of the “Noodleman” account.  Brent gets a worried look on his face, mumbles something about it not being his fault, and hands the forms to Janice.  She must now go to a window and wait in line.  The lines she passes hold people dressed in every conceivable era of the past 3,000 years, from Roman soldiers to antebellum belles.   It’s clear this office is in another dimension, and services everyone from all ages. She finally gets up to the window, and the clerk working the line takes her forms.  A loud voice interrupts their talks, and Janice looks over to where Brent is getting yelled at by the boss.  He says, “You are done,” and Brent disappears in a puff of smoke.  The nasty clerk tells her that she’s missing a form, and that she can get it from her broker.  Janice goes to the supervisor and asks where Brent went, and he tells her he’s done.  She asks if she can talk to him tomorrow, and the supervisor says Brent is done forever. You get the feeling that Brent wasn’t fired, he was disintegrated (I’d like to see that happen to a few government workers I've had to interact with).  At that moment, the 5 o’clock bell strikes, and everyone closes up their lines and disappears.  The supervisor tells Janice to come back tomorrow, and he disappears.  She gets so angry that she shouts “I wish I’d never seen that stupid lamp!” and disappears herself.  We’re back to the garage sale she found the lamp at, but this time it’s before she found it.  She passes it over and pays no attention to it, and goes off on her way none the worse, and probably in a better mood.

This is an inventive episode; it’s funny and just the right length.  Dee Wallace-Stone is good as the slightly bitter divorcee, who has it in for her ex-husband in a decidedly imaginative way.  The wish office is a perfect example of a government office, and Julie Payne, the clerk who waits on Janice is great at playing sarcastic characters; she reminds me of the county employees in my town.  The special effects in this episode are better than average, also.  When the people disappear, they do it in a kind of bubble-smoke aura with a sharp, edgy blaring of trumpets, and it really adds to the episode.  However, trying to simulate a futuristic feel, they have the workers wearing plastic flowerpots as hats, and those are kind of silly; they look more like Devo groupies than anything else.  But it’s definitely one of the better episodes.

Last revised: Sunday, March 17, 2002

 
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