The Tale of the Super Specs

Description: Season 1, Episode 6

Story Teller: Gary

Plot Summary: A prankster and his girlfriend inadvertently see into a different dimension with the help of gimmicky glasses.

Review: After the terrible "Hungry Hounds" episode, "Super Specs" helps to put things back on track in a big way. Not only is this a solid episode--one of the best really--but it's on the scarier side by kid standards. This is also our first story from Gary, and we get another look into the lives of the Midnight Society members. Gary's dad owns a magic shop which we get a glimpse of when he's hanging out with Kristen. Finally, I like the involvement of David in a gag that pays off at the end of the episode when Kristen mentions other members are saying Gary's stories haven't been scary lately.

So for this tale we get a prankster stocking up for April Fool's Day while his girlfriend tags along. At the same magic shop from Gary's real life, this prankster meets Sardo, a cheapskate scammer and wannabe magician; Sardo is another reoccurring character throughout the series. The prankster casts a spell on the super specs, the equivalent of x-ray glasses, and his girlfriend which allows both in conjunction to see into another dimension. From the girlfriend's perspective, when wearing the super specs, the people appear as shadowy figures that both exist in our world and not. Realistically, it's just actors wearing all black clothes, but it's handled in a creepy manner with POV of the super specs.

The woman in black. Pretty effective for a simple costume.

As the prankster runs around trying to mess with people with some magic powder, the girlfriend tries to get Sardo to help stop whatever is happening. The three characters eventually perform a spell to close the gateway between our dimension and the one with the shadow people. Of course, with the idiocy of Sardo, they fail miserably and our dimension becomes locked away while the shadow people prevail. It's kinda cool too, because they have actors who look similar playing the shadow versions of the leads. This episode is the first to have a bad ending which I think enhances the scare factor for the kiddies. Typically you expect the leads to win, but, by all intense and purposes, you could argue they ended up dying even. Last, that final gag with David and the super specs was the icing on the cake to wrap things up.

Overall, I think this episode works on all levels. It gives us that Midnight Society goodness coupled with a scary and fun story. We get the first appearance of Sardo and a shift in tone with the first unhappy ending. I would add this episode certainly felt Twilight Zone-ish without a doubt as the characters being kids was incidental to the ideas presented.