Title: “The Lonely”
Original transmission date: November 13 1959
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Jack Smight
Starring:Jack Warden as James A. Corry
Jean Marsh as Alicia
John Dehner as Allenby
Ted Knight as Adams
James Turley as Carstairs
Setting: Unnamed asteroid
Timeframe: Unknown, but the future, as there is space travel and also there are prisons in space
Theme(s): Loneliness, companionship, artificial intelligence, punishment for crime, isolation
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating: B
Serling’s opening monologue
Witness if you will, a dungeon, made out of mountains, salt flats, and sand that stretch to infinity. The dungeon has an inmate: James A. Corry. And this is his residence: a metal shack. An old touring car that squats in the sun and goes nowhere—for there is nowhere to go. For the record, let it be known that James A. Corry is a convicted criminal placed in solitary confinement. Confinement in this case stretches as far as the eye can see, because this particular dungeon is on an asteroid nine million miles from the Earth. Now witness, if you will, a man's mind and body shriveling in the sun, a man dying of loneliness.
A man has been sentenced to life imprisonment (as you can read above) on a lonely asteroid millions of miles from Earth, as a self-contained solitary confinement. His only companions are the crew of supply ships that visit him four times a year, so when he sees one land he’s delighted. Human company! He’s somewhat crestfallen though to find that they can only stay fifteen minutes, which is nothing when you’re on your own for years. Captain Allenby, whom he has become friends with, tells him that back on Earth there’s growing unrest about this kind of punishment, that people think the likes of him should be imprisoned back on Earth, that having to serve out his sentence out here in space all alone is cruel and unusual punishment, but so far nothing has been changed.
One of the other crew seems happy with the situation, crowing over Corry’s dilemma, angry that he personally has to spend so much time in space doing these runs that his own kids sometimes don’t know who he is when he gets home. Corry complains that he’s going crazy out here, that it’s unfair: he’s not a murderer, he says. He killed in self-defence, and the Captain seems to believe him. He tells him he has brought him something special, in a big crate, but that nobody can know about it or he'll lose his job.
When the ship leaves, Corry goes out to open the crate. To his surprise it turns out to be a robot woman (yeah). Apparently she can feel and think and reason and talk and do everything a real woman can do, but he knows it’s still a robot and is disgusted by it. He soon warms to it - her - though and in a short enough time is in love with Alicia. She makes his loneliness go away, gives him someone to talk to, to share things with, to pass the time. So when the ship arrives and he’s given the great news that he’s received a pardon, he’s thrown onto the horns of a dilemma. The ship is full and there’s only room for him, not Alicia as well. As he tries to save her, Allenby takes the initiative and shoots her. Now there’s nothing to stop Corry getting on the ship and heading back to Earth.
Serling’’s closing monologue
On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man's life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them. All of Mr. Corry's machines, including the one made in his image, kept alive by love, but now obsolete—in The Twilight Zone
The Resolution
Poor. I really expected something else; either that Corry would choose to stay on the asteroid, having fallen in love with Alicia (though who would then supply them I guess) or that Alicia, seeing he wouldn’t leave without her, would sacrifice herself by pretending to be just a machine. In the end, it’s a clunky, awkward ending that leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.
The Moral
Not sure. The selflessness (if such can be said of a robot) of Alicia in keeping Corry sane is not repaid, and she’s cast aside in a rather hamfisted stab I guess at misogyny, but if you want a moral, maybe Futurama said it best: Don’t date robots!
Iconic?
Again, the idea of robotic companions for lonely men (ooer) has been explored before in science fiction, however I think this might be the first time a female one was used in a television series. It would certainly lead to the idea being recycled right up to today, in series like
Star Trek and
Red Dwarf among others.
And isn’t that…?
Jean Marsh (1934- )
Known for creating and starring in the English period dramas
Upstairs, Downstairs and
House of Elliot
Ted Knight (1923 - 1986)
The snarky crewman is played by a man who would go on to become another snarky favourite, untalented radio host Ted Baxter in the iconic
Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Oops!
It’s not necessarily wrong, but is annoying the way everyone on the episode refers to Alicia as a ro-but and not a ro-bot (though she does have a nice butt).
I think the idea of the ship having to take a particular orbital window from the asteroid to get back to Earth is just some technobabble; I don’t believe there are any factors in a planet or indeed asteroid’s rotation that could contribute to any flight plan, or could prevent a ship plotting a course for Earth. I think this was just written in in the hope - realised - that nobody would question it and would assume it was based on science.
Corry says he and Alicia have been on the asteroid for eleven months when the ship comes back, but Allenby when leaving the first time said “see you in three months.” That would mean that they have been back twice before, and nobody has noticed or seen Alicia? They certainly act - all of them, including Allenby - surprised at the presence of the robot. I suppose he could have hidden her, or asked her to go off away from where they could see her, but still, on a flat asteroid which is all desert and has no cover, where was she going to go?
Themes
Again we have the overarching theme of loneliness, which, given the show’s premise and its rather bleak opening credits and mournful music, is not surprising. This time though it’s loneliness due to being marooned (intentionally, by the powers that be) on an asteroid, and how the slow and steady march of time slows to a slouching crawl when there’s nobody else to share your days with. The first episode to deal with robots, and therefore artificial intelligence, it can be looked on as either a hope of companionship for a lonely man, or a deeply misogynistic story that envisions women as nothing more than helpmates for him. In fairness, it’s Alicia’s tears that move Corry, rather than have him envisioning a sex doll as it were (which might have been too much for the times) and he does fight to take her with him, but when she’s shot it’s as if he realises she was just a robot, and is content to leave her behind.
At its core though the episode also explores the notion of love between, as it were, different species, if you can consider a robot a species, though no mention is made or even hinted at of a sexual relationship (he does say he’s fallen in love with her, but it could be seen as a platonic kind of love) and how love - and companionship - is one thing, perhaps the only thing, that can keep a man sane when he is left on his own.
The idea of crime and punishment is also tackled here for the first time in other than ways already known, and while the idea of banishing one man to his own asteroid, necessitating shuttles having to be sent every three months with supplies is pretty unlikely, not to mention hardly cost-effective, this kind of thing does reverberate through later science fiction, with penal colonies established on dead planets and asteroids, though these are normally manned and guarded, and invariably for more than one prisoner.
Mention is made of unrest at home, so we can see the government is not entirely popular, and given that the pardon is eventually forthcoming, we might also assume the authorities have been deposed or replaced, whether through elections, succession or even revolution we’re not told. Serling’s vision of the future is certainly a bleaker, but more practical and likely one than that of Gene Roddenberry.
Personal notes
This is the first ever episode set off-world, and indeed, in the future.
Although written by Serling, this is the first episode where the idea was not his, where he adapted the story from the writing of another, in this case Lynn Venable, who wrote the short story.