Magic Mirror

Hi Leonore. As Tatia says, we certainly encourage a diversity of opinion here. When I first saw Magic Mirror as a callow youth, I didn't like it much because I didn't understand it. Today the callow youth has grown into a shallow adult, and I like it very much. It's one of my favorite episodes. I may be kidding myself, but I think I understand what motivates the characters. I like the oblique way it's presented (and I always say that obliqueness is the next best thing to profundity!). It has two of my favorite moments in the series. The Russ Conway "lover" speech at the beginning in the projection room, and the moment when Kelly looks in the mirror and says, "Looks all right to me." I'm also fond of Scotty's "She's the rightest woman you'll ever meet," comment at the end, though I'm not sure I completely understand that one. Give me another three or four decades to get my head around it.

I like the "dark" Kelly, almost as much as I like the "fun and frivolous" one. Having listened to Culp interviews, seen him in person, even talked to him briefly, he seems a lot closer to the "dark" Kelly than the other one. My guess, based on pretty sparse evidence I'll admit, is that the light hearted Kelly was an exercise of the imagination.

When you mentioned Nancy Culp, my mind immediately jumped to Nancy Kulp (with a K) and I was thrown for a few seconds. Then I realized you were referring to Culp's wife who did act with him in a Trackdown episode which I've seen. She was very good in it. A meeting of Kelly and Miss Hathaway could have been fun though. Would she have been better off pining for Kelly rather than Jethro? I can't answer that one. Thanks to Bulwer-Lytton we do have this documentation of a Culp-Kulp meeting.



Jimmy