Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989) s03e14 Episode Script

Mummy Dearest

He's alive.
Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Huh? Huh? What'd I tell you? Vinnie, that's a movie mummy.
I'll be working on a real mummy.
They don't have agents or do lunch.
What do you think? Wrap it around your face.
The mummy will feel at home.
I've got to meet Dr.
- 30.
The woman rips dead Egyptians from their tombs for a living.
She's bad company.
She's one of the country's foremost archaeologists.
Did I say "curse"? Did anyone say "doomed for eternity"? It's an honor the natural history museum chose eastman.
When we cat scan this mummy, we'll learn an amazing amount Its age, its sex.
We can look at its bones and tissue, see what diseases it had.
We can reconstruct what it looked like in real life.
Imagine getting to examine a body that's 3,000 years old.
Ooh, yeah.
My dream come true.
Personally, I'd rather examine one in the 16-20-year-old range.
You're remarkably limited.
Wait.
Before you go.
Jim? Jim? Aah! Good tip, vin.
Whatever I do, I won't call it Jim.
The museum acquired it through an antiquities dealer in San Francisco, who had very little information about it except that a wealthy sacramento family owned it for 80 years.
From the manner of painting and wrapping we can assume it's about 3,000 years old.
The quality of the bandages suggests we're not dealing with an upper-class person, but we could be surprised.
Are we all set? Yes, sir.
Everyone wearing their anti-curse amulets? O.
K.
Let's go.
Good lord.
I heard the quake was 4.
7.
The weird thing is What'll it be? Eggs tut over easy.
Anyway, I heard the epicenter is right here under eastman.
Seriously? Nefertiti ziti.
Guys, it was a 3.
8, and the epicenter was somewhere off the coast of Malibu.
Um, sun-ra filet and a side of pharaoh fries.
It was a natural phenomenon Two tectonic plates press together, energy needs to be released, and you have an earthquake.
Yeah right when the mummy's head goes into the cat scan.
It isa little eerie.
I didn't say I believe in the mummy's curse, I just said it's a little eerie.
Nothing for me.
Again? You haven't been feeling well for weeks now.
A little nausea It comes and goes.
It's probably just nerves.
Um, look, let me check you out, run a few tests.
Nausea shouldn't linger like this.
O.
K.
The earthquake's not the only weird part.
That's 3.
75.
I heard the finger the cat scan operator used to press the button broke out in warts.
I heard it was boils oozing pus.
Have a nice day.
I do not believe this.
And if you connected the warts with magic marker, they spelled "repent.
" Admit it, doogie, when the mummy went into the machine and the earthquake started, weren't you a little freaked out? No.
I wasn't.
Are you guys really seriously saying that an ancient inanimate artifact is causing evil things to happen? I mean, what kind of idiot believes in a mummy's curse? The facts cannot be ignored.
At 9:30 you messed with the mummy, at 9:30 the earth erupted.
Mere coincidence or Egyptian jinx? You decide.
Coincidence.
But before you do, look at this.
O.
K "1923 lord carnarvon discovers the tomb of tutankhamen.
" A few weeks later Dead! Mummy material himself! He died of an infected insect bite.
And lord carnarvon's friend Howard Carter entered the tomb with lord carnarvon.
A few weeks later, a cobra eats his pet canary.
That bird abruptly changed his tune.
It's all in here.
has a cursed mummy.
They ship it to America On the titanic! That's a totally unsubstantiated rumor.
Look, we've worked on the mummy all afternoon and nothing's happened.
Nothing.
Ow! It drew blood! I did it, Vinnie, through my own impatience.
It's a warning! Ignore it at your peril! It rained the other day.
The wood swelled.
You're playing with fire, howser.
It's like with my great-aunt nicolina.
She toured the catacombs in sicily, sat on some coffin, mistaking it for an elaborate bench, and three weeks later She falls face-down in the street, dead! She was 96.
She was a robust 96! These are stories from the old country Superstitions.
You're in the 20th century, you're a college student.
You have to break away from your past.
I don't know.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
You're afraid of this mummy because you don't know anything about it.
Ignorance is the mother of fear.
See, watching this isn't helping.
Here's what you're going to do Tomorrow you'll come down to the hospital Pay attention.
You'll come down to the hospital, look at the mummy, talk to Dr.
fields, and once you see that it's just a historic object, you'll see it the same way you see a painting.
Aah! Yeah A painting from hell.
I can't look! But I got to look.
No! I got to look, and I can't look.
It's like driving by a car accident Part of me wants to look away, but the other part is mesmerized.
You know I can't, but I got to! I can't.
I got to! Aah! I've been amazed at how well-preserved the bandages are.
It's really quite extraordinary under the circumstances.
Dr.
fields, Dr.
katz Uh, this is my friend Vincent delpino.
He's a college student with a great interest in egyptology.
Mr.
delpino It's good to see you taking an interest in academic matters.
So nice to meet a future colleague.
An honor.
A delight.
You know, for a dead guy, he's surprisingly fragrant.
They used aromatic herbs to embalm the body.
I bet you're just dying to touch it.
Oh, yeah.
I'm nuts to do it.
Go on, feel free.
The face is the most interesting part.
You can really feel the skull through the bandages.
Oh, g-great.
I was hoping to really feel the skull.
Isn't that something? Oh, yeah.
Nice eye sockets.
They didn't remove the eyeballs.
Of course, over time they've decayed quite a bit.
The cat scans and the x-rays have been very informative.
We've learned that it's a male, probably in his late teens to early 20s.
See the wisdom teeth? Oh, yes.
Quite lovely.
We also have a fairly good idea of how he died.
Look at this skull.
Notice anything? There's a hole in it.
Good.
Now what could that mean? Well He took a good shot to the head, like with a rock No, with an ancient hammer.
I can picture him coming out of work after a long day at the pyramid, about to meet his illicit lover.
Just as he falls into her arms wham! Hit from behind by a husband crazed with jealousy.
You could have a future in this.
We've taken 66 cat scans of the mummy's skull at various depths, and Nigel has input them into the computer.
The computer stacks them together to create a three-dimensional image.
Then, using characteristic depths of tissue at various points around the skull, Nigel has created a reconstruction of what our friend probably looked like in real life.
Wow You can do that? Science It's the wave of the future.
Are you still superstitious? Hey, you heard what she said I got a future in this.
I'm a man of science, reason, pure cold intellect.
Aah! Astonishing.
Remarkable.
The resemblance to Vincent is absolutely uncanny.
I think Vinnie might agree with you.
He put a pox on me! Vinnie, that's hives.
He put hives on me! You've given yourself hives.
Stress causes antigens to bind with I.
G.
E.
, which attach to mast cells, causing them to degranulate and release histamine.
The result is hives.
Drop the rational mumbo-jumbo! We all know what's really going on here.
Right 3,000 years of world history all leading to one logical climax Messing with Vinnie delpino's mind.
You don't think so? Well, tell me something What are the odds of a coincidence like this happening? Long.
Very, very long.
It's an obvious omen of doom.
Stop.
Stranger things have happened.
True Although I can't think of many offhand.
There's stonehenge.
So something unusual happened.
So what? Do you know how embarrassing it is when your friend tells Dr.
Joanna fields, who was profiled on a novaspecial, that she will burn in hell for eternity? How do you apologize after your friend calls your boss the worm of Satan? Is there an appropriate hallmark card? Excuse me for embarrassing you when my doom was foretold! So a corpse resembles you.
Oh, there's a relief A corpse that had his brains bashed in by a hammer! This nightmare started when you messed with that mummy.
Stop, howser! No.
This is a unique scientific opportunity.
Should I give it up because of your irrational superstition? Yeah! I can't believe you'd ask.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
I get it.
The mummy means more to you than I do.
Maybe next time you go to the Lakers game you can sit in the loge with Mr.
shriveled! Your blood work checks out normal and your upper g.
I.
Series are normal, so you don't have an ulcer or stomach tumor.
What about the heartburn and exhaustion? I don't know.
You're healthy.
It's some rare fatal tropical thing, isn't it? You were in the tropics? When? Never.
Um, look Let me think about this some more.
I'll nail it.
O.
K.
Well Thanks.
Nasal aperture.
Hmm.
Well, that's right.
Um Spacing of the eye orbits.
Hmm Accurate.
Don't worry, buddy.
It's got to be a mistake.
I'm sure you're better-looking than Vinnie delpino.
Uh, length of teeth? Probable tissue depth Cheekbones.
Yeah, that checks out.
Diameter of the skull Scared you, didn't I? I still got it.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
You're Here Standing up talking.
Sure! In some corner of your heart, you know you believe I can.
That's why I figured you needed my help.
With what? This whole superstition thing.
Oh, I know you say you don't buy it, but what about your profession? It's the antithesis of superstition.
Oh, really? So who were those guys back in medieval times who cured people of insanity by cutting holes in their heads to let the madness out? O.
K.
, I admit it Medicine used to be pretty superstitious, but at least there was a thought process there.
Vinnie's got a thought process, too.
You're both just trying to make the world less random.
But what he's saying isn't logical.
Is that so terrible? Look at Wilhelm roentgen.
The guy's got radioactive material all over his lab.
He holds his wife's hand in front of the screen The first X-ray.
How did he think to do that? A hunch, I guess.
A hunch? Like, you mean, nonlogical thinking.
It's all right.
I'm a doctor.
Congratulations! You're pregnant.
I knew you were too young to be a doctor.
No, Phil, I have a hunch.
You're wife's pregnant, isn't she? Yeah, but nobody knows that yet.
Your body knows.
You're experiencing a sympathetic pregnancy.
Get out of here.
It's called the couvade syndrome.
experience some form of it, although you've taken it to a fascinating extreme.
Do I get maternity leave? This is great.
It's hard enough being a male nurse.
Now I got to be a Pregnant male nurse.
So, how far along are you? Four months.
So what am I in for? With someone like you it's hard to say.
The possibilities include varicose veins, stretch marks, and let's not forget hemorrhoids.
Ohh I apologize deeply for my comment about your preoccupation with dead people.
If you'd let me continue touching your mummy, I'd be deeply appreciative.
Apology accepted.
I figure the hives will go away by the year 2,000.
I was going to resign from the project to ease your mind.
No, that's o.
K.
I'm staying.
I want to be enlightened.
I want to be rational.
I want to be you, but good-looking.
So, what rotting thing are we looking at today? We're going to examine the mummy's internal organs.
Shall we start with the stomach, the liver, or the large intestine? Ugh.

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