Twilight Zone: Living Doll
Reviewed by Geno McGahee
“I’m not your daddy!”– Enrich Streator (Telly Savalas)
Telly Savalas…need I go any farther? You cannot beat anything with Kojak himself as the star and when you add an evil talking doll to the mix, you have yourself a winner.
Enrich Streator (Savalas) plays a new addition to the family, marrying Annabelle (Mary LaRoche), and has unwillingly taken the role of daddy for young Christie (Tracy Stratford). Being a stepfather isn’t easy and especially when you aren’t even sharing the same bed as your new wife. What was up with that? Or, maybe I should say, what wasn’t up with that? I can only imagine Annabelle saying to her man: “You’re jerking off again tonight Kojak!” It’s no wonder why he was such an angry guy.
As Streator sits and does some work, in comes the duo with all sorts of crap that they just bought. Annabelle informs her man that she charged it all, including a “Talking Tina” doll for Christie. Enrich flips his lid, scaring the poor youngster into running upstairs and into her room. He is a mean daddy.
He gets some time alone with the new doll (and don’t worry, nothing sick happens here as you may be anticipating) and she begins to voice her dislike of him. At first, Streator is amused, but the more that Talking Tina speaks, the more hateful things that she says, even getting to the point where she said that she was going to kill him. He becomes convinced that his wife is behind it and turns into the “who doesn’t love you baby” side of his character, going off on his new family. He even states that his wife bought the doll to rub it in his face because he can’t have any children. Well, if you are sleeping in different beds, you’re not going to be making babies…no matter how many lollipops you suck on.
As time goes by, the doll harasses Streator more and more and he becomes more and more brutal to his family, eventually forcing them to the point where they are going to leave. Before that happens though, Talking Tina pipes in one final time.
This is a fun tale and you can never go wrong with Savalas. Why won’t they release season two of Kojak on DVD? I’m waiting for it! He really sells the character and is really just a great actor. I love when he tells the young girl that he’s not her daddy and storms out of the room. You can’t get any more prick than that. I definitely recommend this one.
RSR Rating: 7.5/10. Who loves this one baby? I do.