I agreed that this one started out somewhat slow, but once the title character started delivering his \"money shots\" (I\'m sorry to use what I know is a term for the pornography industry, but unfortunately that\'s appropriate here) the tension shifted (for me) dramatically.

Thanks for calling my attention to \"cushy\", which according to dictionary.com didn\'t start appearing in the American language until around WWI. It\'s interesting that some of the other phrases Barbara used such as \"peeping Tom\" (which apparently originates from the (10th century?) legend of Lady Godiva, describing a lecherous man named Tom who allegedly was struck dead as he attempted to peer out his window at the naked noblewoman as she rode by) would have been known in Victorian times. Martin wrote some good scripts, but thanks for catching this flaw.

And yet...

I liked this story when I first heard it, but it grew on me even more when I heard it again and started thinking about both its content and when it aired (1975.)

First of all, it might be easy to think of satyrs as lecherous but innocuous creatures, as dirty old men in cloven hooves. (Did you ever see the Disney animation of \"Hercules\" back in 1997? Danny DeVito played a satyr who was one of the GOOD guys...Hercules\' friend. Perfect voice for the part.)

Satyrs, however, are not just limited to Greek mythology. In fact, they are referenced twice in some translations of the Old Testament chapter of Isaiah, when he said \"satyrs will dance\" on a certain land. By saying that, he meant that land would become desolate and dead for human habitation, and indeed, prophecy was apparently fulfilled though I\'d have to look up what land he was referring to.) Lasciviousness by itself isn\'t a virtue, but apparently in the Bible (elements of which were used so heavily in earlier RMT episodes) \"satyrs\" (and there\'s no doubt in my mind about which side of the ground \"Anton Gitano\" and his ilk live) carried a far more sinister connotation.

The biblical elements I so often seemed to hear in the RMT was \"sin = death\". In one of the most depressing episodes (to me) of the RMT entitled \"Out of focus\", a beautiful succubus directly quotes \"the wages of sin (is death)\" to her not-so-innocent victim.

Originally I thought the episode was slightly heavy handed, but...again...it was aired in 1975, and with that in mind, I think Martin was making this episode about:

-Divorce, and the unintended consequences of this sin - Steve, despite any implied infidelities of Barbara\'s ex-husband, I got the feeling that she was the one who may have had just as much if not more of a hand in initiating it. E.G.\'s comments at the end of the show seemed to imply she had a lot to learn about marriage.

I think Martin was trying to suggest that people who engage in divorce can open themselves up to sins and consequences they had no clue to expect. He wrote this play in or before 1975, when we apparently began to see the effects of \"no-fault\" divorce which itself mushroomed as a by product of the so-called \"sexual revolution\" in the previous decade. I know there have been people here who\'ve been affected by divorce and I\'m not trying to insult or condone them. I just know that my wife\'s parents were split by a so-called \"no-fault\" style divorce (initiated by her mother) and 20 plus years later her now grown siblings and she (and their children) are STILL feeling horrible aftereffects of it.

The reason this play seemed slightly \"heavy-handed\" to me was because we (or at least many of us) now know what horrendous things divorce can open the door to. Yet back then 29 years ago, though, we as a society were just beginning to collectively learn these side effects as D-I-V-O-R-C-E no longer became a \"dirty\" word.

Who, after poor Millie, Scout and that barn owl gets to suffer the most due to \"Anton\'s\" presence? Barbara, the one who (at first) didn\'t seem to think that she had sinned in getting a divorce.

-Absentee fathers, and effects on their sons - When he lets his guard down, Anton shows himself to be a bitter, angry, self-centered man, instead of just being a self-centered one. What did he say: \"I have no father.\"

Obviously, his war-hero father (or whomever) was never around to show him such things as the meaning of true love, of sacrifice, of living for things bigger than one\'s self, and how to treat the fairer sex. Obviously, he never gave him even respect for life.

-Families, and why a family unit is so important. (And believe me, I know we unfortunately can\'t all have one in this fallen world, as I lost my Dad at age 15 when I really (though I didn\'t know it at the time) needed him most.)

So often, we refer to the Victorian times as a stuffy era that we\'d never want to go back to. Indeed, we can\'t, and there are good reasons...but some things from that era weren\'t bad, either.

One of them, at least as seen by Martin, was the importance of the family unit. It was interesting to me, for example, how Barbara seemed to be rebelling from it, not only by divorcing her husband but by not calling her parents \"mama\" or \"papa\" until after being confronted directly by evil. Or how she started trying to protect her little sister by that time, where previously (to a degree) she\'d been poisoning her with her (Barbara\'s) views on men and marriage.

-The dangers of bitterness (or \"unforgiveness\") and the all-consuming desire for revenge. It\'s been said that harboring bitterness (again, warned against in the Bible, mainly because of its effects on those who harbor bitterness) is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die.

Anton\'s mother harbored bitterness. And she apparently wanted revenge. Were he not such a character utterly lacking in any need for sympathy it would be tempting for me to say \"poor fool\"...because he NEVER KNEW why his mother (who was supposed to nurture and protect him...see \"families\" above) sent him (albeit unknowingly) to...well, end up experiencing the plot twist.

-The sin of \"lasciviousness\". As I said, some might think a satyr, if indeed he was the epitome of this sin, would be no more dangerous than Arte Johnson\'s doddering old lecher in the old Laugh-in TV show.

Not so, given the fact that sin does indeed equal death.

A true satyr, by definition, could not be satisfied. And (from everything I see) would sooner or later (and probably quite frequently) show his true colors in the way that Anton did with Millie the maid. (And note how even though she was \"cheeky\" in a pleasant sort of way she wanted to preserve her virtue. Remember Satan and his one-track mind in the episode \"The fall of Gentryville.\"?) What was it Anton said to Millie about virtuous women: \"They\'re the best sort\", then made that immature yet sinister snickering after she left the room?)

-The dangers of keeping certain secrets from those you love. Some things, perhaps, a spouse might not always have to tell if they\'ve done them prior to marriage. Others, though, need to come out. Like when said secrets are coming to live at one\'s house for purposes unknown. Or why you\'re being SENT to live at the house of a family whom you\'ve never met.

I\'m sure I\'ll think of some other points I\'ve missed later. I would have given this a \"4\", but knowing the message I believe Martin was trying to say for the time this program was created I give it a \"5\".

And yes indeed, poor Scout, and that barn owl, and especially poor cheeky little Millie.<br>