There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.
—Rod Serling, from the opening titles of season one.
There's no question that The Twilight Zone was groundbreaking, innovative, at the forefront of storytelling and drama and changed the way television was viewed forever. Some of the stories told over its run were truly amazing, from “The monsters are due on Maple Street” to “Time enough at last” and “Dead run” to “Wong's Lost and Found Emporium” and the series made a household name and future screen icon out of creator Rod Serling. It also gave way to other anthology series, some good, some not so good. Series like “The outer limits”, “Tales from the darkside” and “Monsters!” all owe their existence to Serling's genre-defining, rules-breaking, mould-busting brainchild.
But the series was far from perfect, and for every good story there are a handful of real turkeys. It's probably inevitable: any series that relies of tales with a shock and a twist is going to find it hard to maintain the level of quality that would be expected through its entire run, and the odd --- or more than the odd --- stinker is bound to find its way in. Some of these episodes are so bad that they almost don't deserve to share television screen space with the better and more well-known ones, but in a weird kind of way, it's possible they offset the balance of the show and made it feel more real. If it wasn't for the bad episodes, you could argue, the good ones might not exist. For every triumph there is a room full of wastepaper baskets overflowing with failures, and a gem is sometimes only found among a pile of paste beads.
It's these below-par episodes I'll be looking at here, in case you couldn't guess from the title. I mean, I love the show generally but it's been done to death and I feel just running it as one of my normal series would not do anything for me. So I'm going to take the entireity of the series, from its beginnings in 1959 through two resets in the eighties and into the twenty-first century, over a ten-year period stretching from 1959 t0 2003, picking out the really bad episodes and concentrating on them.
Disclaimer: As ever, this is my opinion and I have no innate intention of denigrating the show. I'm a fan, same as you, but every so often I feel it's good to poke fun at a classic, just so if nothing else we can say we don't have sacred cows in this journal. This is mainly meant to be taken in fun, though the comments and observations I will make will be mostly entirely serious. I'm asking the hard questions: how did such an episode survive the cut? How did anyone think it was good enough to be screened? Why was it written, and who thought it was a good idea? Like always, my comments reflect only my own opinions, and you are free to disagree with me if you wish to. You are, though, of course, wrong. 
Episode title: “One for the angels”
Series: Original or Classic
Year: 1959
Season: One
Episode: Two
Written by: Rod Serling
You can perhaps allow Serling some leeway here, as this was only the second ever episode in his brand new series, but given that a) he was trying to sell it as a viable show to be broadcast and b) that science-fiction in and of itself, though enjoying something of a golden period in the late fifties/early sixties, was still mostly seen as “something for kids” and finally c) the pilot episode had been so good, well that leeway begins to erode rather quickly. For me, this is more like the sort of episode you might find near the end of a series, when the writer was beginning to run out of ideas, or when the series was announced to be under the axe, and nobody cared any more. If “Where is everybody?”, the season, series and franchise opener, was stunning, particularly in its twist at the end, this was, to be polite, dog
shit. And if the sponsors had only seen this episode I doubt they would have wanted their name associated with such a thing.
The story concerns Lou Bookman, who is what used to be called a pitchman: a man who sets up his stall of wares and then shouts at passersby, trying to get them to investigate what he is selling and perhaps buy something. Somewhat similar to the market stall traders of today. A dying art, even back in the fifties, when so many people were turning to department stores and shopping malls for their purchases. Bookman is watched by a strange man who is taking notes, and we are told --- or it is very strongly intimated --- that he is Death. Bookman knows nothing of this though and goes home where he talks to the neighbourhood children, all of whom know him, and is most surprised to find the same man waiting for him in his room. This is, of course, as we have been told, Death, but Bookman, though he is taken aback by the appearance of the well-dressed man in the black suit, does not think to ask how he got in. More to the point, when one of the children knocks to ask him to fix a toy for her, and can't see Death, Bookman seems completely unable to grasp the fact that only he can see the Reaper, despite the fact that “Mister Death” has told him so.
Anyhoo, Bookman is told that his time is up. He will die at midnight, however he also seems unable to understand this. Granted, Death couches the announcement in somewhat flowery language, telling him he should “make arrangements for his departure”, but the pitchman can't suss it at all. “My departure where?” he asks, leading us to believe that the world might after all be better off without him! Too stupid (or innocent?) to live? After all the clues he's been given, after he's been led to the truth and virtually been told who the guy sitting in front of him is, he does not get it until Death reaches out towards one of his plants and it instantly withers and dies. Yeah, Bookman: He's Death! Got it now? Je-
sus!
That's all bad enough, but now Serling begins bending and rewriting the rules. We all know, from everything we've read and seen, before this episode and since, that Death cannot be bargained with. He can be evaded, but He always catches you. He can be fooled or cheated. But He cannot be bargained with and the Afterlife, or whatever agency He “works for”, does not provide extensions based on extenuating circumstances. When it's your time, you go: no ifs, buts or maybes. You can cry, you can stamp your feet, you can try to talk your way out of it, but nothing works. Nothing. If you're called, you go. But here, Death tells Bookman there are no less than three categories under which he may “appeal his departure date”. Having no wife or family and not being on the verge of any major discovery, Bookman is ineligible for the first two, but the last, the rather broad “unfinished business”, he can grasp at like a drowning man.
When Death turns down his idea of “making a pitch for the angels” --- the most successful pitch he has ever made in his life, his one big shot --- Bookman basically sulks like a child until Death ...
gives in! I mean, come on! This is DEATH! He don't care about your tantrums, your hurt feelings. He doesn't give a toss if you think He's not being fair! Death is not fair, and that's just how it is. Good people can die bad deaths early and bad people can live to be a hundred. There is no sense rhyme or reason to it, and certainly no fairness or equanimity. Let's face it: if by being a good person you could be guaranteed --- and I mean guaranteed --- to live longer then we'd all be doing it, wouldn't we?
But Death caves, and Bookman is allowed his “extension”, whereupon he decides to give up the profession so that he never has to make a pitch again. Death doesn't exactly cover His bases here: He grants the extension with the specific condition that Bookman can live until he achieves this “pitch for the angels”. There's no limitation set, and He looks surprised when Bookman joyously tells Him he may not fulfil the terms of the bargain for several years (if ever); surely Death, in His long existence throughout history, has come across devious and manipulative men and women before? Why does He not place some rider on the deal? Why does He give Bookman the very obvious out, and more, why does He seem surprised then when the pitchman turns His rules back against him?
But Death, though He may be slow here, knows He must redress the balance, and when He realises that Bookman has in fact tricked Him, and has no intention of making his pitch, He decides that someone else must take the pitchman's place. Of course, this turns out to be Maggie, the child who had wanted her toy fixed earlier. She gets hit by a car --- (“She just jumped out into the road, mister! I swear I didn't have no chance to do nothing!”) --- and now she can see Death, and Bookman knows what a terrible mistake he has made in trying to cheat the Grim Reaper.
Now, if the episode had ended there --- Bookman realises he's an old man, he's lived his life, and agrees to go with Death --- I would not have had too much of a problem with it. It would have been a bit twee, a bit predictable even for this series, which set the benchmark, but I could have taken it. But it does not end there. This, my friends, is where it gets decidedly silly. The child lies close to death, literally. The doctor visiting her says they should know by midnight, and indeed as Bookman stands guard, foolishly thinking he can bar Death's way, the black-suited man turns up. Again exhibiting almost as much stupidity as Bookman, Death lets the pitchman know that he is to take Maggie at midnight, but he must be in the room
at that precise moment, otherwise ....
Realising he has a chance to make up for his selfish attitude which has landed the child where she is, literally at Death's door (sorry), Bookman sets up his stall and begins his pitch. Unbelievably, Death gets drawn in to the pitch and forgets His timetable, getting so caught up in the sale that midnight comes and goes and Death is still outside the little girl's room. Bookman has made his “pitch for the angels” and the original deal is in place (despite the fact that Death said it could not be reinstated); Maggie will live and Bookman will go with Death.
Why do I hate this episode?
Hate is often too strong a word to use for some of these episodes; I don't hate them, I just don't believe they're anywhere close to good enough to have been selected for screening. But this is an exception. This one I do hate. Why? Because it makes so many fundamental errors and treats the viewer like an idiot. Death's inability to outthink the human, Bookman's stupidity and then then the final turd in the barrel, Death the leveller being distracted by what seems to me to be a very average pitch --- I certainly wouldn't have bought anything from Bookman, much less gasped “I'll take all you have!” as Death did --- to the point where He misses His appointment. These are all things that are hard to accept, unlikely in the extreme.
Now I know the very premise of the show was built on the unlikely, the odd, the fantastic and the unexplained, but really: this is taking things a little too far. I like to be challenged when watching a show like this; like most people, I like to try to work out what's going to happen, how it will turn out. But I could not have predicted this outcome. Not because it is so clever or unexpected, but because it is so stupid. A terrible episode that should never have been allowed see the light of day.
Saving graces?
Here I'll do my best, if I can, to note anything that may lessen the crappiness of the episode. Was there anything I liked about it at all? Any clever touches? Any unexpected stars? A twist I had not forseen, or some reference I got? Anything at all?
The only real point I can make about this episode is that it was I think the first time Death had been depicted as other than a scary figure. Even in “The Seventh Seal” He was shown as a dark, hooded figure with a ghostly face. This may or may not be the case, but it's certainly the first time I recall seeing Death depicted as an ordinary, almost nondescript human being. This personalisation of Death, the Devil and other religious or mythological figures would go on to be a recurring feature of the series, and bleed of course into the representations of those icons in other series too.
Interesting asides
The opening scene shows Bookman with a tray full of toys, some of which are robots. One is the famous Robby the Robot, from the movie “Forbidden Planet”, which would have been popular at that time, having just been released. Product placement? Coincidence? Or a nod to a movie which would become a classic in time and which no doubt had helped fuel Serling's love of science-fiction? You decide.
A simpler time
Indeed. Mr. Bookman's “regular ice cream and social hour”, which he reminds the children of, would be frowned upon and perhaps grounds for at least suspicion if not arrest in these times. An older man consorting with a group of underage children, unsupervised? Would never be allowed today. But back in this era it's seen as harmless and innocent. I hate the fifties and the sixties, but even I have to admit things were a lot more simple and straightforward then. Sigh.