Amazing Stories (TV Series) One for the Books (1986) User Reviews

Last Five Minutes Saves The Episode

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 5 September 2007]

A janitor at a college university is doing his thing, cleaning up the rooms when one night he hears strange noises in the French language room. He doesn't find anything unusual. He looks at the chalk board with all the French written. When he gets home he can speak fluent French.

The next night, after cleaning several math and science rooms, and observing more written material on he boards, along with lab equipment, the man knows all kinds of equations and the like. He has no explanation for this strange behavior going on inside his brain, and his wife is alarmed. She recommends he see a psychiatrist soon, like tomorrow. He and his wife go, but the doc can't figure this out. It makes no sense.

So where does this lead us? To "Fred's" next stop, the next night: the library. In seconds, Fred is on the ground, screaming. Apparently, all those books feeding into his brain at once is just a little too much for anyone. Fred now is one-of-a-kind.

The last five minutes saves this episode, which was starting to bore me. However, even with the goofy ending, the last five minutes were very entertaining and does wrap things up, story-wise.

Note: Get this political correctness, even back in 1985: the college "psyche" professor, introducing Fred to his colleagues, calls him a "maintenance engineer." To repeat, Fred is the night janitor.)

Just the Facts!

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 25 May 2014]

Wouldn't we all like to have unlimited knowledge. The man in this story, who has worked as a university janitor for years, is suddenly able to absorb information from the rooms in which he cleans. He goes into a French classroom and suddenly he begins to speak the language. The next day, it's a science lab. He absorbs math and physics. The ultimate is when he trades jobs with another guy and finds himself in the main library of the university. He has an attack but when he recovers, he has absorbed the vast holding of the library. Unfortunately, he is paraded in front of a group of college professors and treated with ridicule. The issue becomes, "What can he do with the knowledge he has?" He hasn't a clue. The gift he is missing is not fact based. It has to do with creativity and adapting knowledge. This ability leads to great unhappiness and pain. What would we do? Everything is eventually explained in a fairly satisfying way. However, the premise is intriguing.

Knowledge is power. Or is it?

[sonnyschlaegel · 6/10 · 5 April 2007]

Fred, the janitor of a university, cleans the room that is used for French lectures. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds he is able to speak French - although he has never learned it. Then he cleans the Physical Sciences lab - the next morning, he knows all about physical sciences. What will happen when he cleans the main library? How (and why) does all this knowledge enter his brain? Will he be the first person ever fully to use the human brain's potential?

It's a quite simple story, but I think that that is o.k. for a running time of about 23 minutes, and there's a little twist in the end that I liked. There's also some suspense; I really wondered how Fred can learn so fast and what he might accomplish with his knowledge.

However, there are better episodes (with more surprises, and funnier) in my opinion, so I haven't given this one as many points as I have given the others.

Entertaining.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 June 2015]

Fred is a janitor at a university. Suddenly and quite inexplicably he seems to be absorbing HUGE amounts of knowledge simply by cleaning up in the classrooms. At first, he begins, out of the blue, to speak and understand French perfectly...though he never learned French. Then, he soon begins spouting math and physics after working in these classrooms! The wife is naturally concerned and no one seems to know why and how this is happening. It later gets worse when he works not in the classrooms but in the library-- where all this knowledge comes pouring inside his poor brain. He's naturally overwhelmed and falls to the floor screaming! Now he's a super-genius at practically everything!

Apart from all the professors sitting around and laughing hysterically (WHY?!?!), this was a good episode....not great but good and worth seeing. A novel plot make it worth your time.

It proves the old saying right you never get to old to learn!

[blanbrn · 8/10 · 26 January 2016]

This "Amazing Stories" episode is one I well remember for it's theme and for what my mother use to tell me and many of my teachers would tell me and that's you never get to old to learn! Rightfully called "One for the Books" the story is that of an old man who's a janitor at a local university who works night shift after hours when all of the classes are over. And while picking up garbage, sweeping floors, and mopping and buffing one night he discovers something it's like all of a sudden the blackboards which have not been erased come alive and speak to him! All of a sudden at home in front of his wife the old man can speak French, quote theory and state math equations in his head and quote historical dates. Everything is just amazing as knowledge has became power for the old man! Then all of a sudden the episode takes an unexpected twist as something literally falls out of the sky to blast the old man's mind back to normal! Wow fun and neat clever episode of the series.