The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV Series) By the Numbers (1992) User Reviews

Stand at Attention

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 7 April 2015]

Two men meet on a train. There is a bit of history between them. One of them was a guest at a hotel years ago. The other was a boy at that time. He was under the thumb of a brutal military father (who was the pool director) who ordered him time after time, disciplining him for every little thing, taking away his childhood. When the other man intervened he was threatened by the father. The poor boy had to stand at attention in the hot sun for an hour, do forty laps in the pool, wait on guests, clean the place up. As the first man quizzes his acquaintance, we find out the secret he has carried around for years. I really like this episode.

One of the best

[gridoon2024 · 7/10 · 23 August 2015]

One of the best episodes of "The Ray Bradbury Theater" - perhaps even THE best. It's not without flaws: the "train miniature" is a little too obvious, and the casting of the same actor, without the use of any aging effects, to play the same person after 10 years while a young boy turns, very logically, into a young man throws you a little off. But it tells a gripping story, and it has the kind of sublimely ironic payoff that I am looking for in this type of anthology show, and that too many episodes of this particular anthology show miss. If I could sum it up in one sentence, I would say "Live by the discipline, die by the discipline". *** out of 4.

"Once in all these years, no tears."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 11 March 2022]

Like another reviewer here for this episode, I think this might be my favorite Bradbury story. It demonstrates with the greatest irony what a strict disciplinarian father might expect of his son after drilling him relentlessly to obey without question, no matter how foolish or trivial the demand. The main story flashes back to when The Father (Ray Sharkey) used a military styled approach to hone his son (Ciaran Pennington) into an unemotional cog, even using physical abuse at times when the boy would not follow his instructions completely and to the letter. Not to say the son disobeyed, it's just that there was no room for personal initiative or anything outside the parameters of the man's instructions. With all of this past history taking place alongside a swimming pool at a resort where the father worked, the fateful day arrives when the man inadvertently trips over an errant beach towel, and falls into the pool. But the father can't swim! The son, now so strictly trained to only obey his father's voiced commands, continues to stand at attention while the man drowns, reluctant to intervene lest this be another ruse to get him to act independently.

The only factor to this story that should have been remedied by the film makers was the age of the now grown son and the gentleman he meets on a train who was a witness to the prior events at least a decade earlier. In the present, they both appear to be about the same age, a significant distraction as you're trying to concentrate on the story. Still, the irony of the episode seeps through with the consequential result of a young man who couldn't regret the passing of a tyrant father.

WTF child abuse as a meme??

[evony-jwm · 1/10 · 28 December 2020]

The worst special-effects; Unrealistic toy train in two directions, no aging make up on actors meeting tens of years later, the sun going down instantly to darkness ...

what was the purpose?? Anti military?? Slapping a kid?? Shallow pool drowning?? Utterly worthless!

This is the Worst Bradberry ever.