Episode 1: The Lady in the Bottle

Lately I've been out of sorts. I could and would shatter this bottle to release the ship from it's crystaline prison. But unlike Humpty Dumpty, put back together again. Thus we consult the "I Dream of Jeannie" Episode Index.

Season 1. Episode 1. The Lady in the Bottle.

When the rocket launch for a space mission goes awry, its astronaut, Captain Anthony Nelson, finds himself stranded on a desert island. There, he finds a beautiful antique bottle lying there on the sand. When Tony opens the bottle, he is shocked to find a beautiful, 2,000-year-old genie named Jeannie, who is now calling him her new Master and willing to grant him anything he wishes.

Space debris washed up on some sort of desert island (or 'planet', if you will). In the trauma of a crash, one is often left with amnesia. When pressed for the specifics of what led us here, "A rocket launch gone awry" is as good an explanation as any. The episode thus far conforms to experiential reality. IDoJ::1 apears to be leading us down the path of righteousness. Going further into this metaphor seems warranted.

The beautiful antique bottle, a thinly-veiled characterization of the mind, implies that the mind is a prison (no matter how lovely it appears). We are used to thinking that the body is merely an "ugly bag of mostly water" that the mind orders about from here to there. The wind through an open window that blows a mote of dust from one room of the house to another. But from whom does the mind take its orders? We realize we are neither our bodies nor our minds. So who calls the shots?

The beautiful, 2,000-year old genie conjures up Jung's 'wise old man'. Some sort of trans-dimensional aspect of Self that is available for personal conversation in times of need. The 'wise old man' seems to be able to answer such difficult questions. And the '2,000-year old' reference is obviously pointing to a Christ figure. But according to IDoJ::1, this genie is imprisoned within the exterior shell of it's own 'bottle'. Only something outside of itself can invoke it. Even something lesser and more barbaric than itself. Thus neither Jung's wise old man nor the Christ figure could exist outside the exterior shell of the human being. The ludicrous atrocities just keep piling on, one atop the other.

In Jung's mythology, this all colludes to make Tony the 'persona'; the entity apparently at the wheel. The one apparently calling the shots. But really just bumbling along from episode to episode. Tony wears his Military uniform with pride, taking his orders from his base commander, and never once questioning any of it. Tony is an empty shell of a man (just as the mind is an empty shell of Self). Yet even after he's found his Jeannie, Tony remains in a constant state of fear.

So Tony keeps the Jeannie imprisoned in her beautiful bottle until the weekly catastrophe is well past neigh. To save his own skin, Tony reluctantly calls forth the Jeannie. Yet always with great hesitation and reluctance. Tony remains ever fearful that his base commander will 'find him out' and expell him from his beloved Military. The biggest part of his secret shame is the Jeannie herself. It is strongly implied that if the base commander ever discovers Tony's Jeannie, Tony would be forcibly ejected from the Military, with great shame and gnashing of teeth and the series would be summarily Canceled.

The glove seems to fit.

Welcome to greenslashpurple.