Medic (TV Series) Never Comes Sunday (1955) User Reviews

Appears to have influenced Anatomy of a Fall

[Bachfeuer · 8/10 · 31 December 2023]

I recall this episode from its original airing. Last night I saw Anatomie d'une chute (2023). Like this episode, it involves an eleven-year-old special needs child, whose music making furnishes some of the film's music from within the frame. It recalled the song, "Never Come Sunday" to me.

That film, as well, centers on a marriage profoundly wounded by a child's crippling injury. In this episode, it is plainly stated that the cause of "mental retardation" is being championed. In the new film, a blistering critique of criminal justice and child welfare in France is set out--but totally misunderstood by anglophone viewers. I hope at some point, to find out how the influence came about.

Low-Key Drama

[dougdoepke · 7 November 2014]

The characters are noticeably underplayed by Dragnet favorite Peggy Webber as Mom; Gunsmoke ruffian Denver Pyle as Dad; and an appropriately unsmiling Cindy Carol as the little girl, (and a soon-to-be Gidget). Little Carol is permanently brain damaged by a playground accident, causing Mom and Dad to adjust, which they can't seem to do. Dad's over-protective, while Mom won't accept medical diagnosis. Unfortunately, the difficulties are causing them to drift apart. Note how a desperate Mom ends up going to a quack, which is nonetheless quickly passed over. Anyway, a concert pianist role for Pyle is a real career departure. Still, he plays the aristocratic part very well. All in all, it's a very low-key entry, and appropriately so since the drama itself is implicit.

the story is still too real

[NewtonFigg · 9/10 · 24 March 2022]

The plot involves a child who is brain damaged as the result of an accident. It could just as well, and more realistically, be about a couple with a severely autistic child who have difficulty accepting their child's condition.. The mother is in denial and subjects the child to any treatment that she can find. When legitimate medical professionals can offer no help, she resorts to taking the child to an expensive quack who guarantees a cure. Naturally, the quack's treatment is a fiasco and the child is, if anything, worse.

This episode is now 67 years old. Nothing has changed. The parents' despair, the inability of health professionals to effect a cure, the promises of charlatans who prey on the family and financially bleed them, all the same. The show ends, kind of in limbo. There is no promise of a happy ending.

Bummer.