An eternity spent listening to Phyllis Diller harangue you…even with two billion of us, could this be any man’s idea of heaven? “Pamela’s Voice” reviewed here.

Season 1 Episode 5—aired 1/13/71

“Pamela’s Voice” *

Written by Rod Serling
Directed by Richard Benedict
Phyllis Diller as Pamela
John Astin as Jonathan

The best thing that can be said about the first installment in episode 5 is that it’s mercifully brief (nine minutes).

Jonathan (John Astin), alone in a funeral parlor, lights a cigarette in a kind of relieved celebration over the death of his wife Pamela, whom we hear in his spoken aloud narration was quite the annoying nag, with a voice the opposite of honey.

Suddenly, that leather-lunged voice is heard in the flesh, belonging to Jonathan’s late wife. In casting Phyllis Diller in this role, the “perfect” actor has been hired, but to what end? Pamela/Diller demonstrates to us exactly what drove Jonathan to push his spouse down the staircase to her death and I suppose Serling wrote this script intending it to be a comedy, but director Richard Benedict simply gives us two unpleasant people (one with a braying voice) arguing with each other.

Jonathan expects the funeral home will be taking Pamela away soon but she points out that she was buried months ago. She has him open the casket and look inside and he sees himself in it. He realizes that they are both ghosts. She is in heaven so she can do whatever she pleases and he is in hell, and so she will annoy and harangue him forever.

Did I mention how mercifully brief this episode is?

We’ve had a number of dogs reviewed in the last few but they are going to get better soon, I promise.