I believe “Night of the Infernal Machine” holds the record for most anachronisms of an Wild Wild West episode. We are not talking about little things, either, but glaring, plot destroying errors. Which is too bad, considering the cocept is oe of the better ideas the series ad. Jim and Artie are assigned to prevent a possible assassination at a federal judges convention in Denver wen a wagon load of dynamite turns up missing nearby. When a jude is killed y an exploding cue ball while playing billiards, pieces of the explosive device point to a recently paroled anarchist named Zero Barata is the culprit. To make matters more interesting, Barata as paroled by the head of the conference, Judge McGuigan.
McGuigan is both nutty and ambitious. He was using Barata to build a large explosive with which he is going to use to kill every judge at the conference, including the entire Supreme Court, in order to enure himself an appointment. Barata has himself arrested before the big blast as an airtight alibi uder the promise McGuigan will parole him yet again. McGuigan’s other accomplice is the dancing girl serving as the evening’s entertainment, so once again, practically every guest star is a villain.
The episode is light on gadgetry an stunts, but high on plot twists and comedy. The plot twists ought to be obvious. Everyone is in on the scam. Slapstick, even. Artie is posing as a chef who is constantly getting into scraps with the egotistical Wolfgang Puck of Denver. Jim stops the exploding cake by stuffing McGuigan’s face in it, so there is a resolution the Three Stooges could appreciate.
McGuigan is played wonderfully by Ed Begley, Sr., father of you know who. His appearance is another of the great guest roles with which the second season has been blessed.
Ah, bout those anachronisms. The judges playing billiards refer to the game as if it is brand new. Billiards had been around nearly eighty years by the time of this series. While investigating who might have the skill locally to build a bomb into an elaborate clock, a salesman tries to sell Jim a “newfangled” alarm clock even though they had been around since 1847. But the worst, because the plot hinges on it, is the exploding cake prominently features the Statue of Liberty, which will not be gifted to the United States until 1886. That would be at least ine years and as many as seventeen after te eents of “Night of the Infernal Machine.”
Ultimately, I really do not care for this episode. It has its good points, but I am too anal about the anachronisms to enjoy it. Sadly enough, John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief presented a much better variation on this plot decades later--and it was quite bad, too.
Rating: ** (out of 5)
