Source: Cinefantastique Vol 30, number 5/6, September 1998

White Light Fever; 3 stars out of 4

#5, 4/21/95. Written by David Kemper. Directed by Tibor
Takacs

An aging billionaire, Harlan Hawkes (William Hickey), who
refuses to accept death, relies on the cutting edge
artificial heart research that he's funding to save his
life. But Death has different plans for Hawkes and haunts
him with mysterious lightning. Meanwhile Hawkes' doctor,
McEnerney (Bruce Davison) has serious doubts whether the
artificial heart that Hawkes practically owns should be
given to him or to a young woman patient who is more
deserving of the gift.
Thematically. "White Light Fever" is potent. Facing death is
fearful, and in this story of one man who refuses to die,
the subject is addressed. The antagonistic relationship
between Hawkes and MacEnerney, as demonstrated by Hickey and
Davison, is what propels the drama here. Like "Dark
Matters", this is almost a POLTERGEIST story. The lightning
that haunts Hawkes throughout the story doesn't make for a
terribly personable threat, though. It is reminiscent of "It
Crawled Out of the Woodwork" and "Production and Decay of
Strange Particles" in that sense. "Bill Hickey was such a
character!" said Richard Lewis. "I thought of him for the
role, because I saw him in PRIZZI'S HONOR. There was concern
whether he would make it through the episode. But he's a
pretty tough guy. I thought it was a hard show to pull
off. It's a big concept. It's hard to visualize what's in
the script." Producer Richard Lewis said this character was
deliberately Howard Hughes-like.
About casting Davison, Lewis noted, "I was sitting next to
Bruce Davison on the plane and got to talking to him and
said, 'Gee, we're doing the show OUTER LIMITS' and he didn't
know anything about it. 'Would you like to be in one?' He
said 'Sure!' We got the script and offered it to him and he
did it."

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