Cult-TV Blogging: Circle of Fear: "Spare Parts" (February 23, 1973)

In “Spare Parts” by Jimmy Sangster and Seeleg Lester, two men and one woman receive vital transplants after the accidental death of Dr. Pritchard (Don Knight), a world leader in the field of transplant surgery. 

After the operations are complete, however, Pritchard’s malevolent ghost inhabits each of the recipients in an attempt to force a confession of murder out of his widow, Ellen (Susan Oliver).

I must confess here that I’ve never been a big fan of horror stories in which the organs of the dead manage to take over the minds of the living.  

We have seen this familiar story on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (“The Hand of Borgus Weems”), Quinn Martin’s Tales of the Unexpected (“A Hand for Sonny Blue), and in John Carpenter’s Body Bags (1993) among others.  At the movies, the idea has dominated such films as Oliver Stone’s The Hand (1981) and Body Parts (1991). 

My problem with the story is that transplanted body parts are just…tissue.  They have no souls, and bear no life of their own.  They are mere flesh (without consciousness), and this is settled science.   I have a difficult time suspending disbelief when I see the souls of serial killers living on in their transplanted eyes/hands/hearts, etc.  It just seems silly and willfully ignorant, at least to me.  And I worry that it does real life harm.  Organ donor-ship is a great thing, and I'm afraid ignorant beliefs about it prevent some people from donating.

Anyway, “Spare Parts” involves a ghost whose transplanted larynx, hands, and eyes magically take-over three normal individuals.  These normal individuals then become mindless minions of the ghost, carrying out his evil bidding.  It is never explained how the ghost acquired this power of possession.  Even worse, the ghost is depicted (in flashbacks) as a really terrible, abusive man, so you wonder why he was given this tremendous ability to strike back from the after-life.

In terms of the story’s particulars, Ellen (Oliver), the ghost’s wife, indeed murdered her husband, but the episode makes it pretty clear that he had it coming.  It’s not like he was a good man betrayed by a scheming black widow or something.  

Rather, he was an awful man who promised Ellen a life of entrapment, misery and pain.  He wouldn’t give her a divorce, and she was left with precious few options except to remain in an unhappy marriage with a monster.  I’m not condoning murder, I’m just saying that it’s not like Ellen murdered a good man to go off and have an affair with another man.  She was trapped, and she made an escape for herself on immoral (but clearly desperate) terms.

Why are we to hate Ellen and root for the evil Pritchard to make her confess?  “Spare Parts” never really sells that idea, and so the story is not entirely successful because we sympathize with Ellen more than we do with Pritchard.  

Also, if everyone can see and hear the ghost of Pritchard anyway, why go to all the trouble of possessing the transplantees?  Why not just finger the murderer as a ghost?

Although I enjoyed watching the great Susan Oliver in this story, “Spare Parts” lives up its title in that it feels like a bunch of standard horror elements -- evil transplants, revenge from the beyond the grave, and ghosts -- in search of a coherent narrative.  

Accordingly, this is the weakest Circle of Fear episode in a while, perhaps since “Death’s Head.”

Next week: “The Ghost of Potter’s Field”