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Title: “People Are Alike All Over”
Original transmission date: March 25 1960 Written by: Rod Serling, based on a story by Paul Fairman Directed by: Mitchell Leising Starring: Roddy McDowall as Sam Conrad Susan Oliver as Teenya Paul Comi as Warren Marcusson Byron Morrow as First Martian Vic Perrin as Second Martian Vernon Gray as Third Martian Setting: Earth Timeframe: Some time in the future (not specified) Theme(s): Fear, loneliness, animal cruelty, imprisonment, isolation, betrayal Parodied? Many times. By Futurama, for one Rating: A++ Serling’s opening monologue You're looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animal with extremely small heads, whose name is Man. Warren Marcusson, age thirty-five. Samuel A. Conrad, age thirty-one. They're taking a highway into space, Man unshackling himself and sending his tiny, groping fingers up into the unknown. Their destination is Mars, and in just a moment we'll land there with them. Two men stand looking at a rocket ship, on which they will both soon be blasting off on a (sorry) mission to Mars. One of the man, Sam Conrad, a scientist, is apprehensive about the mission, scared even, while the other, Warren Marcusson, has a firmly-held belief that, should they encounter Martians, they will be just like them. Conrad foresees disaster, but they are three hours from take off now and there is no way to back out. Turns out he’s right to worry, as they don’t land so much as crash on Mars, and Marcusson is badly injured. Conrad revives him but he’s still quite weak, and when he tries to open the hatch it seems to be stuck. Conrad tells him the hydraulics are out but Marcusson says that’s all right - the auxiliary power will allow it to open. Conrad, though, for some reason, does not want to open the hatch. He seems very scared. Marcusson seems to realise he’s more badly wounded that he thought, that he is in fact dying, but he says he wants to see what he’s dying for, and pleads with Conrad to open the hatch, saying that if there is life out there the aliens will surely help them. God made everything, after all, and if they have hearts they have souls, so why wouldn’t they help them? Conrad though is still reluctant, still terrified. As Marcusson collapses back into unconsciousness, Conrad retreats into his own private world of fear and dread and panic. Suddenly, the hatch begins to open. Conrad grabs a weapon and waits. Outside is a large assemblage of… people. Humans. Men and women, dressed in a vaguely Roman/Greek style, togas and the like. They don’t say anything but they seem friendly and Conrad is relieved, putting away his gun. One of them goes to check on Marcusson, but he has passed away. Now they do speak, and in English, or, as they explain to Conrad, he is in fact speaking in and understanding their language, through a sort of - well they call it hypnosis or unconscious transfer - I guess we’d say telepathy. They offer to bury Marcusson and also repair Conrad’s ship. He is amazed to see that the late Marcusson was right: these are people, just like them. They take him to a special house they say they have constructed overnight, using images from his mind, and ask him to remain there for a while. He’s happy enough - it’s a perfect replica of a 1950s suburban house, but the woman he has been talking to - and seems to have become attracted to - seems sad, preoccupied, ashamed even, though she says nothing. Okay, for we sophisticated veterans of science fiction, it’s clear where this is going, but it’s still a shock when Conrad realises he is locked in, that the curtains that have been hung do not cover windows but bare walls, and as his euphoria dissolves into panic. Then the walls seem to move aside, showing a barred window through which people stare and point, as we learn that the house is really a cage, and that Conrad is now on display in the Martian zoo, a sign above his house reading EARTH CREATURE IN HIS NATIVE HABITAT. Serling’s closing monologue Species of animal brought back alive. Interesting similarity in physical characteristics to human beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain. Comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself Samuel Conrad. And he will remain here in his cage with the running water and the electricity and the central heat as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found The Twilight Zone. The Resolution First time I’m sure it’s shocking, but the signs are there. Not to the actual truth perhaps, but it’s pretty clear the Martians are not what they seem. A nice eco-comment on the way we treat our animals and our zoos, and quite striking for its time. The Moral The more intelligent (presumably these are) creatures will always try to cage and tame the less so, and there’s always a buck to be made. Themes From the beginning the overriding atmosphere is one of fear, dread, worry, the terror of the unknown, the speculation about what may await them out there in space, on Mars. This fear only increases when the worst happens and they crash, and paranoia takes hold. Then this gives way to relief, joy, disbelief as Conrad sees the Martians are just like us, and are friendly. Emotions go from contented to worried again and finally to full-blown panic as he realises what has happened, and finally a fatalistic sense of acceptance. The treatment of animals, or at least lower life forms, is dealt with here too. Not surely for the first time - Tarzan and other series had been helping man get back to nature and seeing animals in a new light for years before this - but cleverly putting humanity in the place of the lions and tigers and bears, and showing us that, to a higher civilisation, we are but animals, and they would treat us as such. Man’s fear of confinement, of imprisonment comes up here too, and surely also loneliness and the need for a companion, as Conrad, though furnished with everything he needs to live his life, is left without the one thing he cannot survive without, human company. A sense of callousness, too, on the part of the Martians, who probably don’t know any better you could say, but have been able to ascertain that this creature is a sentient, intelligent species, as they have talked to it. Would we imprison a bear or a gorilla or a snake if we knew we could converse with it? If there was a buck in it, you can be damn sure we would! Oops! Conrad steps out onto the Martian surface without any sort of space suit, and has no trouble breathing. Nor do the inhabitants, yet we know Mars’ atmosphere is poisonous to at least we humans. There’s also no sign of the red dust that we now know covers the planet. And isn’t that…? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...dyMcDowall.jpg Roddy McDowall (1928 - 1998) Who doesn’t know the star of the Planet of the Apes movies and series, who also appeared in the movie Fright Night (the original) and its later sequel as well as The Longest Day, Cleopatra, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and series like Columbo, Barnaby Jones, Ellery Queen, Wonder Woman, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Fantasy Island etc etc etc. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...san_Oliver.jpg Susan Oliver (1932 - 1990) Perhaps best known for her role as Vima, the girl on Talos IV in the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage”, she appeared in the usual run of series - Mannix, Cannon, Streets of San Francisco, Bonanza, Wagon Train, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, and was also a pilot, having originally had such a fear of flying that she refused to travel in any aircraft, overcoming this to become Pilot of the Year for 1970 and being only the fourth woman to fly a single-engined plane over the Atlantic when she made the trip in 1967. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../Paul-comi.jpg Paul Comi (1932 - 2016) Comi would show up later in Star Trek, in the episode “Balance of Power”, and also feature in future Twilight Zone episodes, as well as starring in the original Cape Fear, The Towering Inferno, Death Wish II and featuring in series like Fame and LA Law, and soaps such as Falcon Crest, Dallas and Knot’s Landing. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/...wNA@@._V1_.jpg Vic Perrin (1916 - 1989) Another who would make the transition from Twilight Zone to Star Trek, Perrin would guest in three episodes - “Arena”, “Mirror Mirror” and in “The Changeling”, in the last of which he would gain fame as the voice of the loopy probe Nomad. He also would be known for his stentorian tones announcing “Do not adjust your set! We are in control!” as The Outer Limits began. Questions, and sometimes, Answers If this is a Martian zoo, where did the rest of the exhibits come from? We can assume, surely, that Conrad is not the only one caged here, so do the Martians have space flight technology? Given their power both to read minds and, apparently, construct a dwelling overnight, surely the answer there has to be yes. If not, how do they gather the rest of their specimens? Do they just wait in hope someone will crash on the planet? Seems unlikely. And if they do have spaceflight, why have they not visited their nearest neighbour before, and taken samples of its life away with them? Have they done so? Are there other humans in the zoo, and can Conrad at some point hope to be reunited with them? A rather good extra twist would have been had the Martians consoled Conrad by telling him they had a female of his species, leading him to meet maybe a gorilla or something, Hey, they're all Earth creatures, right? Iconic? Absolutely. The idea of an alien zoo exhibiting humans has become a favourite theme in science fiction, though whether or not this, or at least Fairman’s story, was the first example of it I don’t know. Personal Notes Interesting that Tennya, the girl who assures Conrad, despite her own obvious misgivings and conflicted feelings, that everything will be all right is the same Susan Oliver who will a few years later play Vina, the girl on Talos IV who fulfils more or less the same role in “The Cage”. You can also see links here between this episode and McDowell’s later cult series, Planet of the Apes. It’s also good to see that on this occasion they get the distance right: Mars is approximately 35 million miles from Earth. |
Okay, next victims...
Mirror Image: Another rare Zone where the female is the lead. Vera Miles is good as the panicked traveler who has seen her doppelganger. You forgot to mention Martin Milner, who would go on to star in two TV series, Route 66 and Adam-12. Also, if you like Columbo, both Milner and Miles appear in the series, Milner as the murder victim and Miles as the murderess (and of Martin Sheen at that.) As far as the psychological part, maybe, but Milner sees his own doppelganger after Miles' character is essentially committed. Decent episode, very watchable (rating: B) The Monster Are Due On Maple Street: This one goes down as a Twilight Zone classic and you seem to agree, Trolls. I do like the episode and I do like the idea that humans are their own worst enemy, a sad but true reality. I like Claude Akins in this one too as the lone voice of reason. Can't rate it quite as high as most TZ fans do but nonetheless a well written, if a little preachy episode. By the way, did anyone else want to smack the woman that kept pointing the finger at everybody? :D (Rating: B+ ) A World of His Own: This is indeed an interesting one. Is the reality Arthur Curtis who jumps into a Hollywood set or is he really screen star Gerry Raigan, possibly in the middle of a nervous breakdown. A very solid piece by Matheson. Howard Duff was, of course, a very established actor (movies mostly) who, as you mentioned, would star in Felony Squad in the late sixties. David White, of course, went on to play the befuddled boss in Bewitched (Rating: B) Long Live Walter Jameson: Charles Beaumont is back and he does his own twist on The Picture of Dorian Gray. In some ways Walter Jameson (played expertly by Kevin McCarthy)seems a bit pathetic and certainly callous in how he dumps his women when they are no use for him anymore. You don't feel so sorry for him when his jilted wife exacts her revenge. Good episode and always enjoy watching this one but I'm not sure how you can turn a version of Dorian Gray into your own creation. Beaumont gives it the old school try though (Rating: B+) People Are Alike All Over: A very good take on life on Mars and again, a sharp critique of the human race. I especially like the ironic ending where Marcusson's optimistic view of the title is repeated by Conrad's bitter realization of the same thing. Of course, Roddy McDowell is the famous actor in this one and, besides his storied career, can also boast of having been one of Elizabeth Taylor's closest friends. Great episode (rating A) And that's up to date. You're up, Trolls. :) |
Title: “Execution”
Original transmission date: April 1 1960 Written by: Rod Serling, from the story by George Clayton Johnson Directed by: David Orrick McDearmon Starring: Albert Salmi as Joe Caswell Russell Johnson as Professor Manion Than Wyenn as Paul Johnson Jon Lormer as Reverend George Mitchell as Elderly Man Fay Roope as Judge Richard Karlan as Bartender Joe Haworth as TV Cowboy Setting: Earth Timeframe: 1880/Present (at the time) Theme(s): Time travel, murder, revenge, justice Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A+ Serling’s opening monologue Commonplace—if somewhat grim—unsocial event known as a necktie party, the guest of dishonor a cowboy named Joe Caswell, just a moment away from a rope, a short dance several feet off the ground, and then the dark eternity of all evil men. Mr. Joe Caswell, who, when the good Lord passed out a conscience, a heart, a feeling for fellow men, must have been out for a beer and missed out. Mr. Joe Caswell, in the last, quiet moment of a violent life. A cowboy is preparing to be hanged, having been found guilty of murder. He seems to have no remorse, despite having shot the young man, according to the deceased’s father, in the back. But as the horse is urged away and the rope goes taut, there is no sign of Joe Caswell, ne’er-do-well and killer - the noose is swinging there, empty! Caswell, to his intense surprise, wakes up in New York, 80 years in the future, a man leaning over him explains that he has a time machine, and has brought him from the past. He’s a scientist, an inventor named Manion, and he is unaware that he has brought back a criminal and a murderer, though as he says himself, he doesn’t like the look of him. When Caswell is shown the new world he had been thrust into, he experiences severe future shock, as 2000 AD coined the term - the inability to assimilate all the experiences, sounds, sights and wonders of the time in which he finds himself, but when Manion realises what he has done, and declares his intention of sending Caswell back to face justice, the cowboy smashes a lamp over his head, grabs the gun the professor was reaching for, and leaves. Out in the new and unfamiliar world though, Caswell is lost, disoriented, helpless. He staggers along, neon signs flashing at him, traffic honking, people bumping into him - New York at its finest. He blunders into a telephone kiosk, but spooked by the sound of the operator coming out of the receiver he locks himself in, and only manages to escape by smashing the glass and falling out. He next finds himself in a bar, where, having trashed the jukebox he has a drink, complaining of the noise - it’s too loud, there are too many lights, and all the “horseless carriages” are terrifying him, and when he sees a cowboy on the TV over the bar he shoots at him, thinking he’s being challenged. As the barman yells for the police he legs it back out into the street, where he shoots at a taxi. Making his way back to the laboratory, he sees Manion is still unconscious (or dead) and realises too late in despair that he has no way to get back to his own time, no way to get home. Just then a robber appears, holding a gun on him. An opportunist, this guy had been watching Manion and knew he went to bed early, so had assumed he would have free rein to plunder the place, but finding Caswell there he trains the gun on him. They struggle, and as Caswell is punched over towards the window it breaks, and the robber uses the cord to strangle him. Searching around the room, he finds nothing of value until he sees the time machine. On entering it, the door closes and he is transported back to 1880 - right back into the noose intended for Caswell. Poetic justice. Serling’s closing monologue This is November 1880, the aftermath of a necktie party. The victim's name—Paul Johnson, a minor-league criminal and the taker of another human life. No comment on his death save this: justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar. Tonight's case in point in The Twilight Zone. The Resolution Masterful. Not only does a) Caswell kill the only person who could get him back and b) die by hanging, eighty years in the future, but the man who hangs him ends up deservedly taking his place at the end of the rope intended for him back in 1880. Superb. The Moral Justice can only be delayed, not avoided or outrun, and your sins eventually catch up with you. Themes The main one is of course justice, or indeed revenge, as a man who should have hanged in 1880 ends up meeting the same fate in 1960, and a man who surely would have fried in 1960 had he been caught, ends up dangling at the end of a rope eighty years in the past. Another time travel story, the first I think in the series to use an actual time machine (though there is absolutely zero attempt to even fudge an explanation of how it works), and probably the first, perhaps not only Twilight Zone but maybe even story to use a time travel episode as a tool of justice. Perhaps not, but I certainly think so here anyway. Murder, another theme that tends to crop up in this series is also explored here, in three ways: the alleged murder Caswell committed, for which is to be hanged, the slightly panicked murder of Manion by Caswell and the very cold-blooded and deliberate murder of Caswell by the thief. And isn’t that…? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...addle_1960.JPG Russell Johnson (1924 - 2014) You Americans will know him best as the Professor from Gilligan’s Island (means nothing to me; that show was never broadcast on this side of the water) though he also appeared in the classic science fiction movie This Island Earth. Jon Lormer (1906 - 1986) Apart from appearing in other Twilight Zone episodes, he would go on to feature in three episodes of Star Trek, also starring in Perry Mason, Lassie the Series and Peyton Place, as well as in the Stephen King anthology Creepshow. Of mild interest too is that he and the actor who played the robber, whom I have not featured here, both played parts in the 1958 movie I Want To Live! and both were uncredited. He also hooked up with Kevin McCarthy, whom we met in “Long Live Walter Jameson” on the set of If He Hollers, Let Him Go! in 1968. A quick mention for George Mitchell, whom we met earlier as the gas station attendant in the opening scenes of “The Hitch-Hiker”. Questions, and sometimes, Answers Caswell stumbles out onto the street, having smashed up a jukebox and also discharged a firearm in a bar, in the heart of New York City. The barman has called the cops (though, rather breaking with tradition and not using the phone, simply yelling POLICE!) and THEN Caswell shoots at a taxi in the street. We hear sirens and whistles, yet he is able to make it back to Manion’s lab unimpeded, to meet his doom at the hands of the thief. Why was he not arrested? It’s not as if he could blend in, and he had the gun in his hand. Everyone saw him, so why did the cops not arrive? Gunfire on the streets of New York? And no cops? How did the dictaphone start up by itself after Caswell had smashed it up? From what I know of those machines, you have to press play. It shouldn’t be able to just start playing of its own accord. And the full final recording is there, too? Unlikely at best. Can you really hang or strangle a full-grown man with the cord from curtains? Would the string not snap if you pulled at it? Would the curtains not come down before your neck broke? I know children have been caught in those and died before, but a big, bull-headed, heavy, muscular man fighting for his life? Fair enough; he was probably weak from having already had the noose around his neck, but still - the robber is a weedy little guy, and yet Caswell can’t push him off while the guy is strangling him? It’s not as if he gave the cord a tug and Caswell went up, like with roller blinds or something. His feet remained on the ground. I think it would have taken longer, and a whole lot more brute strength, to manage to kill him with what is in essence a flimsy little piece of cord, not exactly anchored to anything. Once Manion saw the rope burns, why did he not a) send Caswell back while he was out or b) send him back without saying anything once he woke up and the professor could confirm what kind of man he had rescued? Telegraphing his intention, essentially advising the man - a self-confessed cold-blooded killer - that he was sending him back to be hanged does not seem to me to have been a smart move on the professor’s part. Iconic? Ah yes, but time travel stories have been with us forever. A lot of the time (sorry) the Old West is a fertile breeding ground for setting such stories, perhaps because it’s just different enough for the future/past to be scary, but still recognisable. That sound that would become famous through Star Trek is back again; listen to it when the robber switches on the time machine. Personal Notes This time machine is different from most in science fiction, which usually act as a sort of vehicle for the time traveller and are controlled by him. This one seems to operate as a kind of net, or homing beacon, something that can be sent into the past - or future - and come back autonomously, bringing with it whatever or whoever it has picked up. |
Title: “The Big Tall Wish”
Original transmission date: April 8 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Ron Winston Starring: Ivan Dixon as Bolie Jackson Stephen Perry as Henry Temple Kim Hamilton as Frances Temple Walter Burke as Joe Mizell Charles Horvath as Joey Consiglio Carl McIntire as Announcer Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Desperation, magic, hope, despair, last chance Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A Serling’s opening monologue In this corner of the universe, a prizefighter named Bolie Jackson, 183 pounds and an hour and a half away from a comeback at St. Nick's Arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who, by the standards of his profession is an aging, over-the-hill relic of what was, and who now sees a reflection of a man who has left too many pieces of his youth in too many stadiums for too many years before too many screaming people. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who might do well to look for some gentle magic in the hard-surfaced glass that stares back at him. No, no, fucking NO! WHY does EVERY show, no matter how little it has to do with the sport, have to have a boxing episode? I can tell you right away that I hated this, but just ignore me: anything that has to do with boxing bores and annoys the hell out of me. Let’s get to it then. (Note: Trollheart has gone for a cup of tea and a lie down. Normal service will resume shortly...) A washed-up boxer prepares for the fight that will be his comeback, knowing full well he has no chance, but his friend, a little boy called Henry, says he’s going to make a “big tall wish” that Bolie, the boxer, will win. His mother tells him that her son made a wish last week that she could find the fifteen dollars she needed for the rent, and she got a cheque in the mail. Bolie smiles sadly, asking her when do kids find out there is no magic? At the fight, as he gets ready he talks disparagingly to his manager, who seems to think he’s wasting his time, but when Bolie finds out he has bet on his opponent he goes mad and punches at him, misses, hits the wall and damages his fist. Disaster! As expected, he’s pummelled and it’s not long before he’s hitting the canvas. As he’s counted out, Henry presses his face up against the TV and calls Bolie’s name. On the count of nine, time stops, and when it starts again the positions are reversed: it’s his opponent who’s on the ground, counted out, and Bolie who is victorious, with no idea how it happened. Back in the dressing room, he marvels that his fist is not broken after all, like his trainer said it was, but the trainer denies having said that, and further, when Bolie wonders how he got up off the canvas the trainer says he never went down! He was in control all the way. When he gets home in triumph, even though everyone remembers it the way his trainer does, Henry knows. He says he made the big wish, that it was magic, otherwise Bolie would have lost. But Bolie is too old and experienced in the disappointments of reality to believe in magic, and they quarrel. Henry tells him he has to believe, otherwise the wish won’t come true, but Bolie can’t make himself believe, and suddenly he’s back in the ring, on his back, being counted out. Back home, he is still Henry’s hero, but the boy agrees that there is no such thing as magic, no such thing as wishes. Bolie sighs that maybe there is magic, but just not enough people to believe in it. Serling’s closing monologue Mr. Bolie Jackson, 183 pounds, who left a second chance lying in a heap on a rosin-spattered canvas at St. Nick's Arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who shares the most common ailment of all men, the strange and perverse disinclination to believe in a miracle, the kind of miracle to come from the mind of a little boy, perhaps only to be found in the Twilight Zone. The Resolution You know, not half bad at all. The obvious expectation is that the kid’s wish changes the outcome of the fight, but the twist is that because Bolie can’t believe, can’t bring himself to credit the existence of such a power, the magic can’t work and things go back to the way they actually are. It’s quite sobering, and brave as an ending when it could have been sickly sweet. Kind of a death of childhood and a realisation of reality, for both of them. The Moral As the great sage Homer of Springfield once put it, “well, wishing won’t make it so.” You can’t wish for things to be other than they are, just because you don’t like the way they are now. Themes They’re familiar ones, and in many ways this episode could take place on any other show. Hope, however ill-advised, as a black boxer who has taken too many hits to the head tries to make it big one last time. Desperation as Bolie tries to recapture his past glories and make the hood proud, regain his standing, despair as he realises he has lost so much to this sport, and as he says to Henry, the story of his life can be read in the cuts, bruises and scars on his face. An episode with magic at its heart, but magic that rigidly obeys the cardinal rule, that in order for it to work you must believe in it, making it sort of pragmatic magic I guess. As the unicorn said to Alice, “Now that you’ve seen me, if you believe in me I’ll believe in you.” Or to quote the beautiful Miss Estefan, it cuts both ways. Oops! Bolie says he has had his nose broken twice in the one fight. I don’t think that can happen, can it? Once your nose is broken it stays broken, which is why I believe most boxers do have broken noses. Questions, and sometimes, Answers Not so much a question as a comment. Considering how supportive all his “hood” were before the fight, and given that they must have known he had little to no chance, why are they all so cold when he comes back defeated, as if he lost on purpose? Iconic? Not really. There are stories in everything from Little House on the Prairie to The Naked City, probably, about washed-up boxers (usually black) trying to get one last big fight under their belt before retiring, and they seldom if ever work out well. This is a pretty hackneyed story, in other words, with admittedly a decent Twilight Zone twist. The Times they are a Changin’ And this time, for the better. This has to be the first almost all-black episode of a series at this time. The hero is black, the kid is black, the mother, all the extras. In fact, the whites are conspicuous and stand out. Yes, it’s a stereotype - black boxer - but for 1960, this has to have been a bold and courageous move, and I bet Serling got some pushback from the studio, who would not have wanted to see black actors on their screens, much less heroic, human ones. Actually, I’m right, as Serling himself said at the time: “Television, like its big sister, the motion picture, has been guilty of the sin of omission... Hungry for talent, desperate for the so-called 'new face,' constantly searching for a transfusion of new blood, it has overlooked a source of wondrous talent that resides under its nose. This is the Negro actor.” As a result of this, and the inclusion of black actors in later episodes, The Twilight Zone was awarded the Unity Award for Outstanding Contributions to Better Race Relations in 1961. Personal Notes I don’t know whether it was due to broadcast restrictions or the fact that the producers knew kids could and probably were watching, but the actual fight is directed well. Mostly you see the audience in close up - perhaps making a comment on the need for people to watch other people be battered to bits for entertainment, a kind of “Gladiators” thing - with initially only views of the boxers’ legs. Eventually you see blows falling, but it’s relatively tame compared to, say, Rocky or Raging Bull. Quite tasteful. I would also question to some degree the story used here. It’s almost - probably quite unintentionally - a case of “stupid backward savages still believe in magic”. Then again, Bolie is shown to be “less savage”, if you will, by refusing to give the wish any sort of credence, and we’re left with basically a little boy believing in magic. |
Title: “A Nice Place to Visit”
Original transmission date: April 15 1960 Written by: Charles Beaumont Directed by: John Brahm Starring: Larry Blyden as Henry Francis "Rocky" Valentine Sebastian Cabot as Mr. Pip Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Retribution, gambling, overindulgence, despair, the afterlife Parodied? Frequently Rating: A+ Serling's opening monologue Portrait of a man at work, the only work he's ever done, the only work he knows. His name is Henry Francis Valentine, but he calls himself "Rocky", because that's the way his life has been – rocky and perilous and uphill at a dead run all the way. He's tired now, tired of running or wanting, of waiting for the breaks that come to others but never to him, never to Rocky Valentine. A scared, angry little man. He thinks it's all over now but he's wrong. For Rocky Valentine, it's just the beginning. A thief is at work, when he hears the police coming and legs it but is shot as he tries to make his escape. Waking up, he beholds a man in white who tells him he is his guide, and conducts him to a sumptuous apartment, which he tells him is his. Not only that, but clothes, food, music, money - everything he wants, and later women too. It seems everything is his for the asking, all his needs have been provided for. Suspicious, he demands to know what he has to do for all this, and is told by his guide, Pip, nothing: nothing at all. When he loses his rag and shoots Pip, and the bullet has no effect, he begins to realise something is wrong. Pip tells him he is dead, and Valentine concludes he is in Heaven, suddenly much more disposed to believe everything that’s happening to him. But as he goes gambling, and wins every time, the shine begins to wear off this paradise he’s found himself in. The fact that he can’t have any company - can’t meet any of his old gang, as he’s told this place has been created specifically for him - further removes the gloss. And then he starts wondering how could someone like him get into Heaven? He reckons there must be some good deed he performed that somehow made up for all the bad things his life has consisted of, but for the life of him he can’t think what that could be. When was he ever kind or patient or considerate? When was he tolerant or gentle or loving? When did he ever do one good thing in his whole miserable, misbegotten life? As he says himself, if there’s no thrill, no chance of losing, where’s the point? Pip tries to convince him - perhaps if he sets it up so he can lose occasionally? No, says Valentine, that’s no good. He would know. Well, how about going back to what he was best at in life? How about knocking off a bank? Yeah, that would be great, except… there’s no chance he could get caught, so again where’s the thrill, he moans? How could he have got here? What kind of mistake did those in power make to have sent him to Heaven? Ah, but… Pip begins to laugh maliciously. What ever gave Valentine the idea that this was Heaven? Serling's closing monologue A scared, angry little man who never got a break. Now he has everything he's ever wanted – and he's going to have to live with it for eternity – in The Twilight Zone. The Resolution Very clever. I don’t recall if I sussed it the first time, but your suspicions do tend to kick in when Valentine keeps winning. What worse kind of Hell could there be, where boredom is your constant companion, where a gambler always wins, a singer always goes to the top of the charts, an actress always lands the star role? To quote Kirk, man must claw and struggle for every inch, and if there’s no struggle, if everything is handed to you, well, that could be Hell. The Moral Be careful what you wish for; Hell ain’t always what it seems Themes Gambling plays a big role here. Rocky Valentine’s pathetic life has been one gamble after another, if not at the gaming tables (one would assume, while he was alive, those of a seedier, less salubrious order than the ones he now frequents) then every time he did a job, risking being taken, arrested, shot. When he goes to “Heaven” gambling is one of his only loves, and he revels in it, though quickly finds out that a gamble with no risk is no gamble at all. The thrill comes from the possibility, even the probability, that you might lose. Someone once told me gamblers don’t play to win, they play to lose. But what if you can’t lose? Retribution of course is here too. A fitting punishment for a life badly led, a mean, miserable existence spent preying on others, living off the labour and efforts of others, and caring for nobody but himself. Retribution is meted out at the barrel of a police revolver, but continues in the afterlife, where Valentine learns a hard lesson about the dangers of not doing good in your life. There’s also indulgence, as Valentine sticks his nose in the trough and snorts and gulps his fill, and disillusionment, as he begins to weary of the place. Iconic? This storyline would be repeated, but perhaps not this exact outcome. One of the best examples of it I remember was in the series Angel, where the title character was to be taken to Hell via a lift, and when the lift doors opened, he was back on Earth. The symbolism as clear as could be. Hell=Earth. The Times they are a Changin’ Even for the time it was recorded, I feel Valentine’s language, syntax and slang are from a previous era. He uses words like “broad” and “dame”, which to me seem more to belong in the late forties and early fifties, and he calls Pip “Fats”, which, while used as a sort of not-too-demeaning descriptor, was I think pretty phased out by the sixties. But I’m no expert: he comes across to me as drawing more on the likes of gangsters like Capone and Siegal, and actors like Cagney and Bogart, about a decade or so behind. |
Title: “Nightmare as a Child”
Original transmission date: April 29 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Alvin Ganzer Starring: Janice Rule Terry Burnham Shepperd Strudwick Michael Fox Morgan Brittany Joseph V. Perry Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A- Serling's opening monologue Month of November, hot chocolate, and a small cameo of a child's face, imperfect only in its solemnity. And these are the improbable ingredients to a human emotion, an emotion, say, like—fear. But in a moment this woman, Helen Foley, will realize fear. She will understand what are the properties of terror. A little girl will lead her by the hand and walk with her into a nightmare. Returning home, a schoolteacher meets what appears to be the child of a newly-arrived family, and since she is alone sitting on the step and quiet, invites her in to her apartment for a cup of hot chocolate. The child seems to know about her though, mentioning her aversion to marshmallows. Then she alludes to a scar the teacher, Helen Foley, has on her arm, where she got burned, but Helen says she doesnt’ remember how she got the scar. The child seems very serious and a little scary as she goes on, reminding Helen of a man she saw earlier, whom she thought she recognised, and who frightened her. The child says her name is Marky, or rather, her nickname, what people call her. Helen is getting very on edge, but then there’s a movement outside and the little girl runs out, saying she doesn’t want to meet whoever it is. It turns out to be the man Helen had seen and thought looked familiar earlier, and he is an old friend of the family. He introduces himself as Peter Seldon, who used to work for her mother. He reminds he she had some sort of accident or episode which blocked her memory of the details, but says to her she was in the room when it happened. She doesn’t know what “it” refers to, and he seems loath to elaborate. Hints come out though that Helen’s mother was murdered and the man responsible never found or caught. When Helen mentions the little girl, and what her nickname is, Seldon is surprised, telling her that was her nickname was she was a child. From somewhere she hears a girl singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” though she seems to be the only one who can hear her. When he shows her a picture of her as a girl, it’s her: the little girl who came in and drank chocolate and seemed to know all about her, is her. When she goes back out and the little girl, Marky, is sitting on the step again, singing, she finds that she too has the burn mark in exactly the same place. Memories are beginning to come back about her mother’s murder, and when she looks up Seldon is there. He confesses that he is the murderer, and that the only reason she is alive is that she could not remember anything about the incident, but now that she has begun to regain her memory, he’s going to have to take care of her too. As they struggle out in the hallway, Seldon loses his balance and falls down the stairs, breaking his neck. Now that she has recovered her memory, and the murder is solved, the child is seen no more. Serling's closing monologue Miss Helen Foley, who has lived in night and who will wake up to morning. Miss Helen Foley, who took a dark spot from the tapestry of her life and rubbed it clean—then stepped back a few paces and got a good look at the Twilight Zone. The Resolution Decent enough. We’re left to decide whether her younger self travelled forward in time somehow to jog her memory, or whether the child was buried deep in her mind, but if the latter, then why did she suddenly start remembering now? The Moral Really not sure what this one is trying to tell us, if anything. Might be one of those without morals. Or maybe it’s that your sins eventually catch you up. Themes The overriding theme here is one of lost or suppressed memory; we're not sure whether the trauma of seeing her mother murdered has been too much for Helen and she blocked it out, or whether she suffered a form of amnesia and really doesn't remember. or didn't anyway, until Selden showed up. There's a sense of something just... not right about the little girl. How does she know so much about Helen? And that in itself leads to fear, fear that is irrational because she can't say why she's afraid, but this does not make the fear any less real. Murder again rears its head, after coming up against it in "The Execution" recently, and a sense perhaps of justice too, in that the killer finally gets his comeuppance. To some degree maybe there is time travel here too, but that's never confirmed, nor is the appearance of Marky ever explained, so it's left up to the viewer to decide, if they wish to, the circumstances that lead to Helen seeing herself as a child. My own feeling is that Marky exists only in her mind - Serling is careful to show her interacting with nobody else - and has been buried there since she witnessed the murder. That however does not explain why it's only now, after so long, that the memories surface And isn't that...? Well, weirdly the only semi-famous face here is of the little girl, unnamed, seen right at the end. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/...yMQ@@._V1_.jpg Morgan Brittany (1951 - ) Played Katherine in Dallas, also ran her own line of clothing for children, was spokesperson for the Gayle Hayman Cosmetic Company and sold Victorian porcelain dolls on the shopping network. She is now a conservative political commentator. Okay, not the only one, but another bit-player only seen again at the end. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/...14,317_AL_.jpg Joseph V. Perry (1931 - 2000) Best known for his role as Nemo in Everybody Loves Raymond. Questions, and sometimes, Answers As they struggle out on the hallway, Helen bangs on two different doors. Does nobody hear her? Iconic? Nah Personal Notes Kudos to the actress playing Markie. It’s not too hard, probably, for a child to play a child (like yer wan in “One For the Angels” for instance, or the kid that wails “That’s him mommy!” as Arthur Curtis/Gerry Raigan speeds away in “A World of Difference”) but it’s a whole other thing to play an almost adult role. To keep her face so serious, almost sneering, and impart an air of menace to a small child: quite a feat, and Terry Burnham does a great job. I wonder if it’s coincidence that the murderer is called Selden, the same name given to the convict prowling the moors in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles”? |
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Title: “A Stop at Willoughby” Original transmission date: May 6 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Robert Parrish Starring: James Daly as Gart Williams Howard Smith as Oliver Misrell Patricia Donahue as Jane Williams Jason Wingreen as Train conductor Mavis Neal Palmer as Helen James Maloney as 1888 Conductor Billy Booth as Short Boy Ryan Hayes as Engineer Butch Hengen as Tall Boy Max Slaten as Man on Wagon Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Pressure, modern life, desperation, time travel, suicide Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A++ Serling's opening monologue This is Gart Williams, age thirty-eight, a man protected by a suit of armor all held together by one bolt. Just a moment ago, someone removed the bolt, and Mr. Williams' protection fell away from him, and left him a naked target. He's been cannonaded this afternoon by all the enemies of his life. His insecurity has shelled him, his sensitivity has straddled him with humiliation, his deep-rooted disquiet about his own worth has zeroed in on him, landed on target, and blown him apart. Mr. Gart Williams, ad agency exec, who in just a moment, will move into the Twilight Zone—in a desperate search for survival. Driven to distraction when his protege absconds with an important account, Gart Williams tells his boss to shove it and seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Heading home, he is tormented by the sound of his boss’s voice haranguing him, and falling asleep he wakes up to see the train stopped at a town called Willoughby, a town he has never heard of before and knows is not on this line. More than that, it seems to be summer out there and when he left the office it was November and snowing. Everyone looks so peaceful and friendly though, and the conductor assures him this is a place where a man can slow down and take it easy, take a break from the pressures of modern life. He also mentions that it’s 1888, a detail which seems to elude Williams: maybe he thinks he didn’t hear properly. How could he have? Before he can leave the train however there is a jerking shunt, and he wakes up. The conductor on his train - not the same, old and white-haired one who had spoken to him about Willoughby - does not recognise the name of the town, and it’s snowing again, and dark outside. At home, his wife is a harsh, grasping drunk, who obvously has nothing but contempt for her husband and does not mind showing it. She makes it very clear she believes she hitched her star to the wrong wagon, and regrets it very much. She tells him he was born too late, into the wrong century. He’s the kind of man who would be happy with the simple things, and he agrees, but knows there is no such chance. Though the conductor confirms he has checked through all the old timetables and there never was a stop called Willoughby, he falls asleep again and ends up outside the town. Again, thinking he is dreaming again, he stays on the train, though he does make a move, but too late and Willoughby vanishes again. “Next time,” he tells himself. “Next time I’m going to get off.” Back at the office, things are not going well, and he decides that’s it: he’s walking out. He phones his wife to let her know but she hangs up on him. On the train, he waits, waits in hope, in anticipation, in desperation to hear the words. “The stop is Willoughby.” Finally! This time he gets off, and everyone seems to know him, everyone is friendly. He can breathe again. Next scene shows his dead body in the snow, and the younger conductor claiming he just said something about Willoughby and jumped out. As the hearse moves off, we see inscribed on the doors WILLOUGHBY AND SON, FUNERAL DIRECTORS. Serling's closing monologue Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things—or perhaps, for a man like Mr. Gart Williams, who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of The Twilight Zone. The Resolution Absolutely first class. At first it’s a little so-so; you know how it’s going to end. Life slows down at Willoughby, and maybe it exists and maybe it doesn’t. But the final scene, where Williams is dead and the hearse - pure genius. The Moral Modern life can be challenging, and sometimes you need to escape, leave it all behind, take a chance. Themes The pressures of modern life is the main theme here. Williams works in the high-flying, high-intensity world of advertising, for a boss who is a slavedriver and who does not like him, as he has lost the company a major contract, but fears to fire him in case Williams takes business with him. So the ad man is forced to work at a job he is getting increasingly less fond of, and which is slowly killing him. The nineteenth-century Willoughby, with its much slower pace of life and friendlier atmosphere is just what he needs. In many of the Twilight Zone episodes, the perils of working at a high pressure job would be addressed, as from the early 1950s on is when the rise of the business executive really began to take place, with people not just working for a wage but for a career, and competition for jobs fierce. Desperation figures here too. Williams feels that if he doesn’t get out of his job he will be seriously ill, and at one point contemplates (though jokingly, we assume) suicide. He is, however, shown to be suffering bouts of pain in his stomach, no doubt an emerging ulcer. And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...enter_1975.jpg James Daly (1918 - 1978) Most famous, apparently, for his role in the TV drama Medical Center, Daly also played Flint in Star Trek’s “Requiem for Methuselah”, and guested in shows like The Invaders, Mission: Impossible, Ironside and The Fugitive. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ward-Smith.jpg Howard Irving Smith (1893 - 1968) Starred in, among others, series such as Green Acres, Hazel and Bewitched, and was part of the famous radio broadcast by Orson Welles of The War of the Worlds. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/st...20100824160252 Jason Wingreen (1920 -2015) Claims to fame include his role in All In the Family and its spin-off Archie Bunker’s Place, as Dr. Brody in Airplane! Another doctor in the Star Trek banned-for-years episode “The Empath”, but we’ll know him best as the voice of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back. Parallels There are so many similarities between the two episodes that this seems basically a rewrite of “Walking Distance”, but handled far better. |
Title: “The Chaser”
Original transmission date: April 13 1960 Written by: John Henry Collier (teleplay by Robert Presnell Jr.) Directed by: Douglas Heyes Starring: George Grizzard as Roger Shackleforth John McIntire as Professor A. Daemon Patricia Barry as Leila J. Pat O'Malley as Homburg Marjorie Bennett as Old Woman Barbara Perry as Blonde Woman Rusty Wescoatt as Tall Man Duane Grey as Bartender Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Love, desperation, magic, be careful what you wish for Parodied? I would imagine so, though no examples spring to mind. Rating: A Serling's opening monologue Mr. Roger Shackelforth. Age: youthful twenties. Occupation: being in love. Not just in love, but madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love - with a young woman named Leila, who has a vague recollection of his face and even less than a passing interest. In a moment, you'll see a switch, because Mr. Roger Shackelforth, the young gentleman so much in love, will take a short, but very meaningful journey into the Twilight Zone. A man who is madly in love with a woman who has not the faintest interest in him is given a card, told to go see a man who will sort out all his problems. Dubious, but desperate, he goes to see the man, and finds himself in what appears to be a library, where he is told the man can give him a bottle which will make the woman, Leela, fall helplessly in love with him. He warns Roger that if anyone gets hurt it will be him, and seems to have gone through this plenty of times before, knowing the outcome. He asks if Roger would like to purchase some “glove cleaner”, a euphemism, it would appear, for poison, but Roger is blissfully unaware what he means. The potion works, all too well. Leela falls so totally in love with him that she becomes cloying, clinging, driving him mad. She won’t leave him alone, she wants to do everything for him; she is virtually his willing slave. Eventually he goes back to the shop and after some farting around he buys the glove cleaner. The professor tells him it is odourless, tasteless, painless and undetectable, but he must use it immediately, and he must use it all, as if he falters just once he will never have the courage to use it again. It costs a thousand dollars (whereas he took only a single dollar for the love potion), but at this point Roger is desperate in a whole new way, a way he had never expected to be. He used to be desperate to have Leela’s love, now he’s desperate to get out from under its strangling, suffocating influence. At home, he’s all ready to do the deed when Leela drops her bombshell - she’s pregnant. In shock, he drops both glasses, and his chance is gone forever. Serling's closing monologue Mr. Roger Shackelforth, who has discovered at this late date that love can be as sticky as a vat of molasses, as unpalatable as a hunk of spoiled yeast, and as all-consuming as a six-alarm fire in a bamboo and canvas tent. Case history of a lover boy, who should never have entered the Twilight Zone. The Resolution Clever. It could have gone plenty of ways - Roger getting the glasses mixed up and drinking from the wrong one, she having visited the professor herself and having her own potion, something as simple as him being seized by a sneezing fit and spilling the champagne. But at the end, after he has dropped the glasses he admits he could never have done it; he truly is in love with Leela, even this kind of all-consuming, exhausting love. The Moral Love doesn’t necessarily make the world go round, or as Brian May sang, too much love will kill you. Themes Well there could only be one major one, couldn’t there, and love frames the theme of many a Twilight Zone episode. Here, it’s originally unrequited, then achieved by nefarious means, then no longer wanted, and finally something the guy is stuck with. Shows how too much of any good thing is never wise, and how easily love can turn to hate (although in fairness Roger just gets really stressed out and annoyed at Leela’s devotion, he never says he hates her). Obsession would be another, at least at the start; the desperate mission, the seemingly unattainable goal, to win Leela, and then remorse, when everything works out, but not as he had expected. And magic. Magic is here too. This episode could not work without magic - or maybe it’s science, though if someone ever came up with the proper equation to distill love into a bottle he’d be a millionaire, and not hanging out in some dingy, dusty bookstore. And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Zone_1960.JPG George Cooper Grizzard Jr (1928 - 2007) Had roles in Hawaii 5-0, The Golden Girls, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Spenser: For Hire, The Cosby Show and Law and Order, among others. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Train_1961.JPG John Herrick McIntire (1907 - 1991) In addition to being in films like Herbie Rides Again, Rooster Cogburn, Psycho and The Incredible Hulk, he was in Diff’rent Stokes and also the lead in The Virginian and Wagon Train. Hmm. Both roles came to him on the sudden deaths of the previous two leads. Just sayin’... Questions, and sometimes, Answers Okay, this is New York. When the guy in the telephone kiosk is constantly making calls and there’s an impatient queue behind him, you don’t think someone is going to haul him out? They all just stand there, waiting, as he makes call after call, with no intention of ever leaving the booth? I repeat: this is New York. Iconic? No. Stories about love potions - and, to some smaller extent but related to this, genii - are as old as time itself. You’ll find them in the writings of Arabic storytellers in the 1001 Nights, or Arabian Nights. This is an interesting little twist on the theme, but I don’t think it led to a slew of copies and could not claim to be the wellspring of this idea. Those clever little touches A little on the nose, perhaps, but the nameplate on the door says Professor A. Daemon. Hey, at least the number over the door isn’t 666! Personal Notes I have to be honest, I bloody hate both main characters here. Leela is horrible as the stuck-up, haughty, thoughtless and heartless woman as Roger pursues her, treating him like a puppy she can kick, and when she falls under his spell she’s twice as annoying. Roger is an idiot, let’s be honest. He doesn’t get the hint about the glove cleaner, he looks sappily at the next guy into the booth as he claims he has to keep calling his “girl”, he doesn't offer an apology. He’s just fresh-faced and very very annoying. |
Title: “A Passage for Trumpet”
Original transmission date: April 20 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Don Medford Starring: Jack Klugman as Joey Crown Frank Wolff as Baron John Anderson as Gabe Mary Webster as Nan Ned Glass as Nate (Pawnshop Owner) James Flavin as Truck Driver Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Desperation, suicide, loss, music, afterlife, second chances, love, redemption Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A - Serling's opening monologue Joey Crown, musician with an odd, intense face, whose life is a quest for impossible things like flowers in concrete or like trying to pluck a note of music out of the air and put it under glass to treasure...Joey Crown, musician with an odd, intense face, who, in a moment, will try to leave the Earth and discover the middle ground - the place we call The Twilight Zone. A washed-up trumpet player is trying to get a chance to play again, but the bottle is in his way. He used to be great, a real star, but then he hit the booze and he’s been sliding down the ramp ever since, almost at the bottom now. He decides to hell with it, and sells his trumpet, drinking the proceeds, and then, even more in the dumps, throws himself in front of a truck. When he wakes up it seems nobody can see him, and finally he realises he didn’t survive the encounter with the truck. He is dead. He drifts back to the jazz club in which he was trying to get a gig, and meets a guy playing a trumpet, who seems to be able to see and hear him, to his surprise. Turns out he’s not dead; all the people who couldn’t see or hear him, they’re dead, but he’s not. He’s in Limbo, and needs to make a choice as to whether he wants to live or die. He decides to give it another try, and as he gets back to the land of the living he sees himself being hit by the truck, but hardly even injured, just shaken up. The driver presses money into his hand, asking him not to claim against him. This gives Joey the means to redeem his trumpet from the pawn shop, and then meets a woman who has only just moved to New York, and things begin to look up. Serling's closing monologue Joey Crown, who makes music, and who discovered something about life; that it can be rich and rewarding and full of beauty, just like the music he played, if a person would only pause to look and to listen. Joey Crown, who got his clue in the Twilight Zone. The Resolution Meh, it’s a bit ham-fisted isn’t it? Kind of a cross between It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, but not anywhere near as good as either. He goes to Limbo, but is allowed return to Earth? I thought the only choice in Limbo was whether you go Up or Down (if you believe that stuff) and that the decision is not yours? Meh, again I say. Poor. The Moral Sometimes life may not suck bad enough to kill yourself? Meh. Themes Desperation once again rears its ugly head, as Joey Crown tries to get back into the groove, but is held by back Mr. B-O-O-Z-E. His desperation drives him to suicide, another recurring theme in some of these episodes, and then there’s a choice and finally redemption, a determination to try again. Oh, and love blossoms at the end. Bah. And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Zone_1963.jpg Jack Klugman (1922 - 2012) An instantly recognisable face, Klugman became known as Walter Matthau’s character Oscar Madison in the series spin-off of the movie The Odd Couple, and also as the eponymous pathologist Quincy ME, as well as starring opposite the great Jack Lemmon himself in the movie Days of Wine and Roses. He won three primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe during his career, almost all for The Odd Couple. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Virginian.JPG John Anderson (1922 - 1992) Best known to us as Kevin, the alien in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Survivors”, he also played the governor in the movie Smokie and the Bandit II, and had parts in, among others, Little House on the Prairie, Voyagers! And M.A.S.H. Mary Webster (1935 - 2017) Notable only for being so far the only actor who not only reappeared in the series but was paired with the same actor, when she and Klugman starred in the season four episode “Death Ship”. Iconic? No, it’s as hackneyed a story as they come. And too much jazz. Ugh. Ten or Less Things I Hate About You 1. Why is it that in a very large percentage of the episodes, when something happens that a character either doesn’t like or understand, or can believe, they always seem to use the phrase “someone’s having a gag”? I guess it was common parlance in the fifties and sixties, but man is it annoying. 2. Jazz. Why did it have to be jazz? Like the one with the boxer, this immediately set me up to dislike this episode, but unlike that one, where I warmed to it (kind of) this one just leaves me cold, as jazz always does. Klugman’s performance is the only bright light in it for me. 3. The naming of the “angel” is a ham-fist move too far. Even if he had said something like “Oh just think of me as … someone who looks after people.” And Klugman had said “Like… like a guardian angel you mean?” and then Gabriel had shrugged and vanished. This is too damn obvious, despite the usage of Gabe, which he then ruins by saying “short for Gabriel”, as if nobody knew that or could work it out for themselves. 4. I don’t like the way the final resolution is worked. What are you supposed to think? You see him looking at himself stepping out in front of the truck. Is he supposed to be looking at the past? And if so, does he then vanish, his time line null and invalid now, when the “past” Joey goes to buy his trumpet back? And how has he made this transformation? Shouldn’t it be him, and not the other Joey who… ah, ferget it. I would have had the whole scene freeze as he walks out, run backwards to where he’s handing over his trumpet, have him think it over, change his mind, and move on. But that’s just me. |
Title: “Mr. Bevis”
Original transmission date: June 3 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: William Asher Starring: Orson Bean Henry Jones Charles Lane Florence MacMichael William Schallert Vito Scotti Horace McMahon Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Second chances, time travel (?), angels Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A- Serling's opening monologue In the parlance of the twentieth century, this is an oddball. His name is James B. W. Bevis, and his tastes lean toward stuffed animals, zither music, professional football, Charles Dickens, moose heads, carnivals, dogs, children, and young ladies. Mr. Bevis is accident prone, a little vague, a little discombuberated, with a life that possesses all the security of a floating crap game. But this can be said of our Mr. Bevis: without him, without his warmth, without his kindness, the world would be a considerably poorer place, albeit perhaps a little saner...Should it not be obvious by now, James B. W. Bevis is a fixture in his own private, optimistic, hopeful little world, a world which has long ceased being surprised by him. James B. W. Bevis, on whom Dame Fortune will shortly turn her back, but not before she gives him a paste in the mouth. Mr. James B. W. Bevis, just one block away from The Twilight Zone. James Bevis, a local eccentric and somewhat of the breed of the good-hearted innocent, is fired from his job and then his day really starts to turn sour. His car moves off by itself from where he had parked it and crashes, overturning in the street, then when he gets home his landlady is in the process of evicting him. As he drowns his sorrows that night he sees a man in the mirror over the bar waving to him, but when he turns to acknowledge him, nobody is there. The bartender can’t see him either, but then the man speaks to him and Bevis goes to sit at the table at which he appears to be. A moment later he literally appears out of thin air. He tells Bevis he is his guardian angel, that centuries ago one of his ancestors earned the right to have one of his kind assigned to the family, and this angel, J. Hartley Hampstead is his. He says he can re-run this day, and change the outcome to a much happier one. And proceeds to do so. However, much changes, as it has to. First of all, Bevis has to wear a more respectable suit (“I look like an undertaker!”) and the kids don’t want to play hand-egg, sorry football - sod it: AMERICAN football with him, as they did when he had exited the building that morning originally. He’s also resisted the temptation to do what he did earlier, pick up a little dog on the stairs and slide down the banister. That, Hampstead tells him, is the old Bevis, and he is the new one. His landlady however is delighted, having been paid, apparently, three months in advance, so at least he won’t be getting evicted any time soon. People who were friendly to him when he was the old Bevis though, have no interest in him and some are openly hostile to him. He has a new car, a sports number, his old rickety jalopy having been deemed by the angel not suitable for his new image. At the office, his desk is neat and tidy, where before it was covered with knick-knacks, stuffed animals (not cuddly ones; real, taxidermy stuff) and clocks, and far from firing him, his boss gives him a raise. But in order to get all these things, Bevis realises he has had to literally become a new man: he has had to leave behind all the things he loved, all the things he enjoyed, all the things that made him what he was. His ancient car. His relationship with the kids, with his co-workers. His easy camaraderie with the street sellers. He decides his new life is not what he wants, and asks for the old one back. He gets it, and things go back to the way they were, but he’s much happier now. Serling's closing monologue Mr. James B. W. Bevis, who believes in a magic all his own. The magic of a child's smile, the magic of liking and being liked, the strange and wondrous mysticism that is the simple act of living. Mr. James B. W. Bevis, species of twentieth-century male, who has his own private and special Twilight Zone. The Resolution Pretty poor really. Everything goes back to how it was and he realises his life isn’t so bad. As if. The Moral Appreciate what you have? Don’t try to change? Themes Bad luck would seem to dog Mr. Bevis’s footsteps, and runs through the episode like a bad smell. Losing his car, his job, his flat, all in the one day. Then we have the theme of guardian angels. Again. The idea of giving up something, sacrificing something for what might seem to be better, but then turns out not to be. And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Bean_1965.JPG Orson Bean (1928 - 2020) Well known on game shows, Bean was known for appearing on the panel of I’ve Got a Secret, What’s My Line, To Tell the Truth, Super Password and Match Game. He played Loren Bray on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman for six years and also guested on many other shows, including Modern Family, Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother and The Closer. He was a regular on Desperate Housewives and was also a stand-up comedian and magician. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Lane_actor.jpg Charles Lane (1905 - 2007) This man has done so much film and TV work Wiki has to sort it into decades! His biggest claim to fame though seems to have been as Judge Petrillo in the American spoof soap, um, Soap. he also appeared in - among so many other programmes - Little House on the Prairie, The Odd Couple (series), The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, Dark Shadows and was the voice of Georges in Disney’s The Aristocats. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...er_Ed_1964.jpg Florence MacMichael (1919 - 1999) Best known for her TV appearances on the show Mister Ed. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...cropped%29.jpg William Schallert (1922 - 2016) Another man with a stack of credits behind him, including both the original Star Trek and later Deep Space 9, also The Waltons, Desperate Housewives, Bewitched, Land of the Giants, Get Smart, The Partridge Family, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Little House on the Prairie, Lou Grant, Highway to Heaven, Matlock, My Name is Earl, How I Met Your Mother and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Also appeared in the Twilight Zone movie and Innerspace, among others. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ito_Scotti.JPG Vito Scotti (1918 - 1996) Character actor who appeared in both The Addams Family and its rival The Munsters, as well as Lassie, Dr . Kildare, My Favourite Martian, Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, Happy Days, Charlie’s Angels, Who’s the Boss?, The Golden Girls, Columbo and tons more. Also in two Herbie movies and, interestingly, provided the voice for one of the Italian cats in, you guessed it, The Aristocats. Questions, and sometimes, Answers A few. When in his new persona, and having just got a raise, Bevis declares his intention to go play with the kids in the street. He’s just arrived in work; where does he think he is? Does he believe that now he can do as he likes? If Hampstead was watching over Bevis, why did he allow all the bad luck? Why not just subtly change things - at least organise the payment of his rent and ensure his car didn’t get towed away? Why wait until he appeared to his protectee, as it were? Ten or less things I hate about you 1. The title. Come on! Couldn’t he come up with something more inspired than the guy’s fucking name?? Personal Notes It may not be the same, but it’s close - James Bevis’s name is just one letter removed from Henry Bemis, who was the main character in “Time Enough at Last”. I know that was from an already-written story, but did Serling have to mirror the name so closely? |
Title: “The After Hours”
Original transmission date: June 10 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Douglas Heyes Starring: Anne Francis as Marsha White Elizabeth Allen as Saleswoman James Millhollin as Mr. Armbruster John Conwell as Elevator Man Patrick Whyte as Mr. Sloan Nancy Rennick as Ms. Keevers Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Fear, alienation, confusion, consumerism, selfishness, amnesia, paranoia Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A++ Serling's opening monologue Express elevator to the ninth floor of a department store, carrying Miss Marsha White on a most prosaic, ordinary, run-of-the-mill errand. Miss Marsha White on the ninth floor, specialties department, looking for a gold thimble. The odds are that she'll find it—but there are even better odds that she'll find something else, because this isn't just a department store. This happens to be The Twilight Zone. A woman takes a lift to the ninth floor in a department store, looking for a gold thimble, but ends up in a pretty deserted shopfloor. An assistant appears and seems to have the very thing she’s looking for - and only that. There is no other merchandise at all. She also calls the woman by name - Marcia - but the buyer does not know the seller, and believes the reverse to be true. A strange sense of disquiet has taken hold of her since she first set foot on this floor, and now it intensifies. As she leaves, the saleswoman asks her if she is happy, but she snaps back that it’s none of her business. The lift arrives and she goes back down, but as she does she realises the thimble is defective. So the lift attendant takes her to the floor for complaints. Next we see the manager’s officer, where one of the floor managers is explaining to his manager, a Mr. Sloan, that the woman returning the thimble claims she got it on the ninth floor. Sloan looks at him as if he’s an idiot: didn’t he explain that the building only has eight floors? Yes he did, the floor manager insists, but she won’t be put off. She is sticking to her story. Sloan agrees to see her himself. While she is re-explaining herself to him, and getting quite agitated that nobody believes her, she sees the shop assistant who served her and calls to her, but just then someone picks her up, and she sees to her horror that the “assistant” is a mannequin! She faints, and is taken into a room to recover, but things being busy as they are she is forgotten about when the shop closes, and she wakes to find herself locked in alone. As she runs through the store looking for help, she knocks over a dummy, and sees that the face is that of the lift attendant who ferried her up and down earlier. Suddenly voices begin to call her name, many voices, telling her to remember who she is, to climb up, doesn’t she remember? She thinks one of them moves. She runs, terrified, into the lift, which automatically takes her to the ninth floor, where she again meets the “woman” who served her here. As she brings her onto the ninth floor from the lift, all the other dummies come to life and follow her as she helps the crying Marcia walk, as she begins to remember. She remembers she is a mannequin herself, that each of them gets a chance to live, for a month, as a human, but that she was due back yesterday and has overstayed her time. The saleswoman, whose turn it is, heads off and this next morning Marcia is again a mannequin. Serling's closing monologue Marsha White, in her normal and natural state, a wooden lady with a painted face who, one month out of the year, takes on the characteristics of someone as normal and as flesh and blood as you and I. But it makes you wonder, doesn't it, just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask . . . particularly in the Twilight Zone. The Resolution Absolutely superb. When I saw this first I think it was the eighties remake, and even then it floored me (no pun intended). What a clever story, one of the best yet. The Moral I don’t know: to thine own self be true? All good things come to an end? Themes Fear is the main one here, and a nagging sense that something just is not right. A sort of creeping dread that there is some fundamental truth which is just out of your grasp, but that if you can uncover it, will make sense of everything. Consumerism too, I guess, being based in a department store, and the inevitability of things being as they are. Selfishness too, supposedly, if we imagine Marsha deliberately overstayed her time, or maybe a touch of amnesia? And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-publicity.JPG Anne Francis (1930 - 2011) Famed for her role in the classic science fiction movie Forbidden Planet, she also starred in the first ever TV series about a female detective, Honey West, for which she won a Golden Globe. She was also in Funny Girl, starring opposite such greats as Omar Sharif and Barbara Streisand, and later with Burt Reynolds in Impasse. She also appeared in, among others, Murder She Wrote, Matlock, The Love Boat, Dallas and the Golden Girls. Questions, and sometimes, Answers How is it that the saleswoman had the thing Marsha was looking for, the gold thimble? How did she know she would be coming up to the ninth floor (although that was where the mannequins were stored) looking for exactly this item? Did she fail to give her a receipt as she knew the purchase was not being made by a living person? Ans why was the thimble defective? To force her back to the ninth floor? But she only ended up back there after hours. If the saleslady had already “metamorphosed” into a living being that day, and could serve Marsha on the ninth floor, how was it she was a mannequin down on the main floor? Really now, how did Marsha get forgotten about? Surely women faint all the time in shops, and have to be moved to rooms to rest. Does nobody check these things? Are they not afraid of being sued for, I don’t know, mental stress, unlawful imprisonment, whatever? If Marsha is not real, how did she have a mother, for whom she was buying the thimble? Or had she just made that up? Are we looking at a Norman Bates sort of thing here? Why is the lift attendant so brusque and unhelpful, almost hostile to Marsha? Is it because he knows she has forgotten who she is, or is it that he is romantically involved with her, as seems to be the case when she “remembers”? Iconic? Not really, but I was reminded of this story when the new Dr. Who began, and all the mannequins came to life. Different thing altogether, but brought this to mind. The Times they are a Changin’ Marsha buys a 14-carat gold thimble for the princely sum of 25 dollars (including tax). Also, the lift is attended, someone employed to do nothing more than stand there and press buttons to take people where they want to go. That ended a long time ago. Personal Notes A great story, very innovative, but on the face of it very cruel too. The idea of someone experiencing real life for a month, and then having to go back to being a dummy seems harsh. I would imagine there have been, or will be, other rebel dummies who will refuse to go back when their time is up. Useless factoid: The music here is the same music that was used in the opening episode, “Where is Everybody?” Given that this is almost the last episode, that there were mannequins in that one too, and that, in the end, the world the character inhabited turned out to be more than met the eye, I find that interesting. |
Title: “The Mighty Casey”
Original transmission date: June 17 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Robert Parrish and Alvin Ganzer Starring: Jack Warden as McGarry[2] Robert Sorrells as Casey[2] Abraham Sofaer as Dr. Stillman[2 Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Robotics, sports, gambling, cheating, doing Trollheart's head in! Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: C Serling's opening monologue What you're looking at is a ghost, once alive but now deceased. Once upon a time, it was a baseball stadium that housed a major league ball club known as the Hoboken Zephyrs. Now it houses nothing but memories and a wind that stirs in the high grass of what was once an outfield, a wind that sometimes bears a faint, ghostly resemblance to the roar of a crowd that once sat here. We're back in time now, when the Hoboken Zephyrs were still a part of the National League, and this mausoleum of memories was an honest-to-Pete stadium. But since this is strictly a story of make believe, it has to start this way: once upon a time, in Hoboken, New Jersey, it was tryout day. And though he's not yet on the field, you're about to meet a most unusual fella, a left-handed pitcher named Casey. Oh crap no! Not baseball! Even worse than boxing, worse than jazz, worse than most things I can think of. Sigh. All right then, personal prejudices to one side. Let’s get this thing started. A crappy baseball team (no I don’t mean that; they really are useless, worst in the wor - ah, country) are looking for a new catcher, and find one in a strange tall man who seems to have a grip of iron. He’s brought to the field by a Doctor Stillman, and seems to almost have to be directed what to do by the doctor. Of course he’s a robot, which the doctor confides to the coach, and which the kid, the robot, Casey, amply demonstrates by his prowess at baseball. Of course the team suddenly start winning all their games, but then Casey gets “beaned” (takes a ball to the head? Don’t ask me, ask Wiki - it doesn’t hate baseball like I do. No, it doesn’t know either, or perhaps care. Let’s assume that’s right) and has to be taken to hospital. While there, obviously, his true nature comes out and the doctor examining him says he’ll have to report this to the baseball commission, who, not surprisingly, take a dim view of any team employing a robot. Well,. It’s hardly fair, is it, and surely against the rules. Then Doctor Stillman says, if a lack of a heart is the problem, as the baseball commissioner says it is, then he can give Casey a heart. With his new heart, Casey returns but now he can’t endanger the other team; he feels compassion and so is no longer any use as a pitcher. Trollheart’s note: Jesus Christ on gluten free toast with marmalade! Get me OUT of here! Serling's closing monologue Once upon a time, there was a major league baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs, who, during the last year of their existence, wound up in last place and shortly thererafter wound up in oblivion. There's a rumor, unsubstantiated, of course, that a manager named McGarry took them to the West Coast and wound up with several pennants and a couple of world championships. This team had a pitching staff that made history. Of course, none of them smiled very much, but it happens to be a fact that they pitched like nothing human. And if you're interested as to where these gentlemen came from, you might check under 'B' for Baseball - in The Twilight Zone The Resolution I’m too depressed to even comment here. Jesus - well, you know the rest. The Moral Don’t give a robot a heart. Themes Robotics - only I think the second time we’ve heard of robots, since the female robot in “The Lonely”, and again some sort of moralising about how emotions kill them. Very interestingly, the coach here - Jack Warden - is the same actor that played the man marooned on the asteroid in that episode, Corry. So he’s been involved with both the robots in the series so far. Sport of course is the other theme, bloody baseball - making this again the second sport-themed one, following on from “The Big Tall Wish”, and I guess cheating (for make no mistake, that’s what it is) can also be considered a theme here. And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ack_Warden.jpg Jack Warden (1920 - 2006) An impressive list of film credits, including iconic movies such as From Here to Eternity, 12 Angry Men, Heaven Can Wait, All the President’s Men and Shampoo, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, as he was for Heaven Can Wait. On television he starred in the series NYPD (but not Blue), Crazy Like a Fox, Jigsaw John and The Bad News Bears. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...sney_c1968.jpg Robert Sorrels (1930 - 2019) This is a new one. Guy was convicted of a double murder and jailed in 2005, died in prison. Interestingly, some of the movies he appeared in included All Fall Down, Ride to Hangman’s Tree, Death of a Gunfighter and his final movie, Nowhere to Run. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../99/Sofaer.jpg Abraham Sofaer (1986 - 1988) Played Joseph of Arimathea in The Greatest Story Ever Told, was in Quo Vadis? and also guested on episodes of Star Trek, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and The Outer Limits. Questions, and sometimes, Answers Oh so many. How did a man in the 1960s manage to build a perfectly humanoid robot, and then give it - not an approximation of a heart, we’re told, but a real human one - when we can’t even begin to come close to that sort of technology in the twenty-first century? Maybe the guy was an alien. Who knows? Or cares? Useless factoid: This is the only time (so far) I’ve seen two different directors work on an episode. Personal Notes My own hatred for and antipathy towards baseball aside, this has to be one of my least favourite episodes. It’s just so stupid. Look, I’m all for suspending my disbelief, but this is asking too much. On a more sombre note, it seems the role of the manager was originally to have been played by another actor, Paul Douglas, but on the day shooting ended he passed away, had been sick all the time he had been filming. Serling decided apparently this cast a cloud over what was meant to be a frivolous little happy episode, and recast the role. Now, I’m not saying that was the wrong thing to do, but I feel it was a little unfair to take the man’s final performance and consign it to the cutting-room floor. I wonder what he would have wanted? This is why there are two directors, as mentioned above - the original one, Ganzer, was not available for the reshoot. I don’t know if this is unique to The Twilight Zone, but I haven’t heard of two directors before. |
Title: “A World of His Own”
Original transmission date: July 1 1960 Written by: Richard Matheson Directed by: Ralph Nelson Starring: Keenan Wynn as Gregory West Phyllis Kirk as Victoria West Mary LaRoche as Mary Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Magic, omnipotence, hubris, love Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A- Serling's opening monologue The home of Mr. Gregory West, one of America's most noted playwrights. The office of Mr. Gregory West. Mr. Gregory West—shy, quiet, and at the moment, very happy. Mary—warm, affectionate...And the final ingredient: Mrs. Gregory West. A man seems idyllically, even nauseatingly in love with his wife, until we suddenly discover the woman making a martini for him and sitting on his lap is not his wife; she is outside, about to barge in and tear apart the little love nest. However, when Mrs. West enters the house and looks triumphantly around of there rival, there is nobody to be seen. Where is the young woman who only a moment ago she saw sitting beside her husband? She couldn’t have got out; there’s only one door and Mrs. West just came in by it! She’s at a loss, and Gregory of course offers no explanation, as she has not accused him of anything. Yet. Now she tells him about the woman she saw, but he just laughs, and she can’t prove anything as she can’t find any trace of the girl. When she catches him out though, he has to explain and tells her that, unbelievable as it may seem, the characters from his plays have begun to come to life, and that is what she saw. She of course does not believe him (who would?) and goes to call to have him committed, but he stops her and shows her how he does it, while she tries to get away. Describing the character into his tape recorder, he brings her literally to life, and she walks into the room. Of course, the wife thinks it’s some set-up (at least she doesn’t call it a gag!) so Greg has to show her it’s real by cutting off the piece of tape on which the character, Mary, is described, balling it up and throwing it in the fire, whereupon Mary vanishes. Before she does, though, she begs Greg not to: she seems distressed, as if being erased from existence is painful and traumatic for her, but he has to prove he’s telling the truth. Besides, she’s not real is she? She’s only a character in one of his plays, right? Oddly enough, even after seeing this with her own eyes his wife does not believe it, and goes to leave. Gregory has to convince her further, by creating an elephant in the hall. Now she surely can’t fail to understand. But she stubbornly sticks to her idea that he is crazy, even after the elephant disappears. I mean, where did she think it came from? Finally he has no choice, and reveals to her that she too is a character, and if she’s determined to leave him, why then he has no alternative but to throw her tape into the fire and erase her. True to her scepticism, she refuses to take heed, to believe that she could be a character created by the playwright, and when Gregory goes to put the tape back in the safe from which he took it, she contemptuously grabs it and flings it on the fire. And that’s the end of her. Lamenting that he made her too strong, too cold, too perfect, Gregory is about to recreate her when he has second thoughts, and brings Mary back again to be his wife. A nice aside at the end, when Serling appears and begins narrating the end, then Gregory waves a finger at him warningly, takes out his tape and throws it on the fire, whereupon Serling vanishes. Serling's closing monologue Leaving Mr. Gregory West—Still shy, quiet, very happy... and apparently in complete control of The Twilight Zone. The Resolution Perhaps predictable, but still quite enjoyable. Everyone in Gregory West’s circle, it seems, it a character created by him. Which has to make you wonder about his own character as a person. Does he have to be surrounded by perfect people all the time? The Moral There really isn’t one here that I can see, unless it’s “And God created Woman”. Sigh. Themes Omnipotence would appear to be the main one: whatever Gregory West wants he can have, just by describing it with the powers of a talented playwright. But there’s a small amount of hubris too, though it does not backfire on him but on his “wife”, who realises too late that she is also created by him. Love, too, as in the end that’s all West is looking for, though if this is the case why he put up for so long with a sharp, snippy wife like he has is anybody’s guess. I suppose he does or did love her, as he didn’t put her tape on the fire, she did that and he even tried to get it back. Nevertheless, he learns his lesson and does not recreate her, instead going with the more compliant (and younger and prettier) Mary. Magic of a sort here too. An unexplainable process creates these characters, and there’s no other way to describe it than magic, taking the power of the imagination and making it real. I suppose you could also throw in the legend of Doubting Thomas, or in this case Victoria. She’s seen with her own eyes how this works and still persists in refusing to believe it, and pays the ultimate price in the end. And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._publicity.JPG Keenan Wynn (1916 - 1986) A huge career in movies, including some pretty big ones - Dr. Strangelove, Stagecoach, Finian’s Rainbow, Once Upon a Time in the West - as well as work on Kolchak the Night-stalker and Dallas, Fantasy Island, Taxi, The Bionic Woman, Alias Smith and Jones, Hawaii Five-0, Quincy and so on. He was also the son of Ed Wynn, who played the role of Lew Bookman in “One for the Angels”, the second episode we looked at here. Questions, and sometimes, Answers The wife asks the husband if he has a secret door installed. If he had, would he be likely to tell her? It would be secret, after all. That’s the whole point of a secret, so that nobody knows. Especially the wife! I read how he came about it, but surely Stephen King, an avid horror and science fiction fan, must have seen this episode, and therefore it had to have been, even subconsciously, an influence on his short story “Word Processor of the Gods”? Iconic? Is it possible that a young John Cleese watched this and saw the wife patting the walls, and included it in the episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil pretends to do the same while trying to find out if a guest has a girl in his bedroom? It’s so similar, the intention even the same, the excuse literally being “I’m checking the walls”... Ten things or less I hate about you 1. Gregory West’s smiling face is annoying; that sort of self-satisfied, knowing look that says I could destroy you now if I wished. 2. As I note below, this is very demeaning to women, though of course it is 1960. But I wonder if they ever rewrote this, putting the woman in Gregory’s place? 3. Victoria’s stubborn refusal to believe is, well, hard to believe. Even after she’s seen Mary vanish before her eyes, seen an elephant appear in the hall, she still thinks it’s some sort of trick. Is she stupid? Personal Notes It’s a light-hearted story, not meant to be taken seriously, and perhaps, in my opinion, not the best way to end the season, but I find its chauvinistic, not to say misogynistic tone disturbing. The man can have any woman he wants, and if they don’t suit he can, essentially, kill them, and then if he wants bring them back to life, killing and resurrecting them as many times as he wishes. There’s no evidence this hurts the characters, but Mary alludes to it, saying it frightens her. And he is burning the tape, after all. |
Boy somebody was busy yesterday. :D
This will be a two parter, five today and the rest of season one tomorrow. Execution: Interesting theme when a condemned man is inexplicably sent into the future. I do like the twist where a modern day crook, who kills the previously condemned man, ends up transported into the noose meant for that same condemned man. Pity you never watched Gilligan's Island. You can have it though, we had to endure that show in reruns for decades. Incidentally, Russel Johnson seemed to always play brainiacs, didn't he? You'll see him in another TZ later (Rating: A-) The Big Tall Wish: This is an especially interesting, and brave Twilight Zone, because it featured a predominately African-American cast when it wasn't cool to do so. You missed an "Isn't that" though. Ivan Dixon would be best remembered for playing Kinchloe on Hogan's Heroes a few years later. Anyway, great episode and kind of sweet in its own way (Rating: A) A Nice Place To Visit: This episode has a special place on my heart because this is the first Twilight Zone I truly remember. This is where Beaumont is starting to get into his groove as well. Sebastian Cabot is menacing as the "angel" Pip and it makes up for Larry Blyden's overacting (and if you think he's bad here, check out his other Twilight Zone, Showdown with Rance McGrew). Blyden doesn't take away from the premise though and Cabot, who went as far as to dye his hair and beard white, more than makes up for Dryden's overacting chops. One of my favorite TZs (Rating: A+) Nightmare as a Child: This one is eerie and psychological at the same time. My thought is Helen is seeing her repressed memory. Either that or it is a doppleganger of herself as a child warning her that she's in trouble. Either way, it has you thinking throughout. I like this episode (Rating A-) A Stop At Willoughby: Another favorite of mine. In some ways, it's a lot like Walking Distance but with, perhaps, more tragic undertones. Misrell is a beleagured middle-aged executive who desperately wants to get out of the rat race and finds his oasis in the magical town of Willoughby circa 1888 if I got the year right. As it turns out, Willoughby is just a vehicle for Misrell's suicide by way of jumping off the train... or is it? (Rating: A+ ) Will wrap up first season tomorrow. You're hard to keep up with, Trolls :D |
Okay, to catch up again.
The Chaser: Did I mention the Twilight Zone didn't do comedy as well as the other genres? Well, sorry to disagree with you on this one, Trolls, but this is one of them. Shackleford seems about as desirable as the Trix rabbit and Leila is so self-centered, it's amazing she didn't marry herself. And couldn't they have come up with a better name than Professor A. Daemon? (rating: C) A Passage For Trumpet: Now we're getting to who I think is the best Twilight Zone actor. I'm talking about Jack Klugman (later of the Odd Couple TV Series and Quincy M.E) and he's excellent in all four episodes he was in. This, arguably, may be his best as a washed up musician who gets a second chance at life. A shout out also to John Anderson, who plays the angel, Gabriel. I think this is my favorite episode of the first season (Rating A ++) Mr. Bevis: Again, Serling isn't necessarily the best comedy writer. At least they had the good sense to use Orson Bean as the lead and he's such a likeable character it's hard to rate this one as badly as The Chaser. Still, it's not particularly funny or even all that well written despite the efforts of Bean and Henry Jones, who plays the guardian angel. So, it doesn't do that much for me. (Rating B-) The After Hours: Another rare Twilight Zone where the female lead shines. This time it's Anne Francis, a familiar face of the period and already a veteran of sorts. And she's excellent here as the befuddled shopper who is being tormented by mannequins only to realize that she herself is one just coming back from a vacation. Very likeable episode and strangely sweet at the end (Rating: A) The Mighty Casey: Well, we agree on this one, Trolls. This episode truly does suck. Did I mention Rod Serling sucks at comedy? And there is no one to save him here. Jack Warden doesn't have the affability Orson Bean had in Bevis, and Casey, well, he is a robot isn't he? Even a die hard baseball fan has to go for the barf bag after this one (Rating: D-) A World Of His Own: Like I said, Rod Serling sucks at comedy. Fortunately, Richard Matheson doesn't, at least not here. As such, the first season ends on a good note. Keenan Wynn carries this premise quite well. Yeah, I can see the misogyny in this (It is 1960 after all) but you can't help but like the guy and maybe even feel a little sorry for him (he seems a bit lonely to me), I also like Phyllis Kirk as the high maintenance wife. This is the first on camera appearance of Serling and he's actually perfect as West has to make him disappear as well. Of all the "comedies", this is probably the best (Rating: A) See you in the next season, Trolls. :D |
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Trollheart’s note: this (gasp) took a whole lot (wheeze) more out of... me... than I… expected…! Call (gasp) 999. No, not (urgh) 911! I… live… in… Irelaaaaagghhhhh!! Between Light and Shadow: An Overview of Season One So we’ve reviewed all of the first season of a show that would go on to become not only one of the most successful and popular science fiction/speculative fiction shows on television, but which would be copied, cited, parodied and used by so many other shows, both science fiction and not, and whose title and theme would enter the human experience in such a way that anything odd or unexplainable would have people humming the title tune. We’ve dissected all the thirty-five episodes, and what have we learned? Let’s see. Things are rarely what they seem This appears to be a constant factor running through most of the series. We first encounter the weird, untrustworthy nature of reality in the opening episode, where everything the spaceman sees has been manufactured in his own mind, then Barbara’s closed world of fading glory on the screen turns out to be a portal to another life in “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine”, while in “Perchance to Dream” a man is driven to suicide, though only in his dreams. Apparently, he suffers a heart attack and dies in the doctor’s office. A more horrifying and true nightmare grips the space pilots in “And When the Sky Was Opened”, as each begins to forget the other as they cease to exist, till none of them are left, even the memory of them wiped out, and in “Third From the Sun” we discover that, though Earth-like, the planet the people are escaping a nuclear holocaust from is an alien one. Decidedly un-alien, in fact, Earth, is the landscape the stranded astronauts wander in “I Shot An Arrow Into the Air”, until the survivor, having killed the others to, as he sees it, survive, realises he was home all along, and the girl who thinks a sinister hitch-hiker is stalking her finds out too late that he is Death, and she has passed on. It is an alien planet - or rather, an asteroid - that the travellers encounter in “Elegy”, but they’re unaware that it also is a massive cemetery, and they have disturbed its peace and must pay the ultimate price, a woman realises her evil double is trying to claim her existence in “Mirror Image” and then there is perhaps the ultimate example this first season of things not being what they seem, when the residents of Maple Street realise they have become the very monsters they fear. In “A World of Difference”, Arthur Curtis’s world vanishes to be replaced by one he hates, and can’t bear to live in, while Conrad is forced to live in the one he finds himself on, a prisoner in a zoo on Mars in “People Are Alike All Over”. Reality itself shifts in “The Big Tall Wish” and even the afterlife can provide nasty surprises in “A Nice Place to Visit”, though “Nightmare as a Child” shows too that dreams can be very real, and frightening. A secret world lives in “The After Hours” as mannequins take turns coming to life, and finally even the wife is a construct in “A World of His Own”. You can’t cheat death/fate/the devil This is amply proven many times. Walter Bedecker, intending to live forever in “Escape Clause”, backs himself into a corner from which there is only one way out, nothing can be changed in “Walking Distance”, and fate has the last laugh in “Time Enough at Last”, as well as in “Elegy”. No matter how many faces he puts on, Arch Hammer can’t avoid death, no more than can Nan Adams in “The Hitch-Hiker”, as death calmly and patiently pursues her. Fate gives Lt. Terry Decker a second chance to redeem himself and save an old friend in “The Last Flight”, but to do so he has to sacrifice his own life, and “The Purple Testament” marks Fitz, taking him as one of its victims after he has seen the presentiment of many men dying. Walter Jameson, having cheated death for thousands of years, finally ends up being undone by his own callousness and cruelty, succumbing to the most cliched death possible, at the hands of his angry wife, while the noose waits for Caswell, in 1880 or 1960, in “Execution.” Henry finds you can’t cheat fate if the person you want to cheat it for doesn’t believe in “The Big Tall Wish” (or, to Disneyfy it slightly, “if your heart is not in your dreams, some requests are too extreme”) and when Valentine thinks he has cheated fate and ended up in Heaven despite a life of crime, he finds out this is very much not the case, and fate has, as always, balanced the books. Trying to make the object of his affection fall in love with him proves hazardous in “The Chaser”, committing suicide doesn’t solve Joey’s problems in “A Passage for Trumpet” and Mr. Bevis finds that, on the whole, he prefers his life as it is, warts and all. Or can you? Like most things in The Twilight Zone, nothing is really set in stone, and while there are many tales of people trying to change their luck, and failing, occasionally it does work. Look at, for instance, Barbara in “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine”. She manages to escape to a better world, as does Arthur in “A World of Difference”, and Gart Williams (technically) in “A Stop at Willoughby”. Technically, too, I guess you could say Bookman cheats, literally, death (or, if you prefer (sigh) Mister Death) in “One For the Angels”, when he manages to divert him from his secondary purpose, or, perhaps it might be more accurate to say, re-aligns him back on the road he was travelling originally, the taking of Bookman’s life. Denton is a harder prospect, in “Mr. Denton on Doomsday”. Does he cheat fate, or does (Henry J.) Fate cheat him, or does Fate in fact save him? He could, theoretically, go in either column, while in “Time Enough at Last”, Bemis seems to have cheated fate, outlived all those who disparaged his reading, yet fate in the end has the final laugh at his expense. The Sturka and Riden families certainly cheat their own fate, and escape death, in “Third From the Sun”, and even Decker in “The Last Flight” does indeed get a chance to cheat fate by giving himself to death and changing the outcome of the future. Love doesn’t conquer all While it’s true that love is a strong force in almost any story, The Twilight Zone often shows us that love by itself is not always enough. Take Corry in “The Lonely”, who falls in love with the robot Alicia but in the end accepts its loss in order to escape his prison, or Shackleforth in “The Chaser”, who learns all too late that total love and devotion can drive you crazy, and not in a good way. Not quite love as such, but the bonds of friendship and trust snap as easily as three-hundred-year-old chains in “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” once paranoia takes hold, and Marsha’s - possible - love for the lift attendant in “The After Hours” is not enough to stop her wanting to remain human, until she’s more or less forced back. A World of Pure Imagination I expect this show was one of the first in which audiences were asked to just accept a lot of stuff on face value, willing the old suspension of belief to the nth degree. If someone got murdered in a cop show, the characters - and by extension, the audience - wanted to know why and how. If a family broke up in a romantic drama, the reasons had to be stated. Apart from cartoons though, science fiction - certainly early science fiction anyway - as well as “creature-feature” style horror movies were allowed to just be; nobody asked how The Blob got here or questioned how it survived in space or where it came from, it just was. And so with The Twilight Zone. Despite my desperate nit-picking, worrying at the fabric of the stories and demanding explanations, sometimes there just weren’t any, or at least, none were advanced. You just had to believe. How and why does Death (oh this is the last time I’ll say it, I swear! Mister Death then!) find his way to a nondescript New York street to pick up a similarly nondescript street seller and take him to the afterlife? Doesn’t he have better things to do? Where does the gun come from that gives Denton back his courage, and in the end, his life, too? How does Barbara escape into a world of old movies? How does Martin Sloan end up going back in time to his childhood? How can the devil live in Walter Bedeker’s bedroom? Why was Edward Hall being pursued by a maniacal woman in his dreams, and how does Kapitan Lanser end up on the ship he sunk, returning there again and again? None of these questions will be answered, nor should they. We can ask them, but we know in reality there will be no explanation afforded. There can’t be. If everything was explained two things would happen: the world would be very much a duller place and it would quickly become evident that the things we have seen happen could not in reality have happened, and the illusion would be destroyed. So we allow ourselves this conceit, to accept that some things happen because they happen, because the reason behind them, if any, is well beyond our ken. Or, as an obscure writer from the sixteenth century put it, because there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. Which is just as it should be. So questions like what made the space pilots disappear one by one after their supposedly successful voyage into space, what power motivates Pedott in “What You Need”, how Arch Hammer can change his face and a dead woman be pursued by the personification of that death in the guise of a hitch-hiker, or how a one-armed bandit can push a man to fall to his death, are never to be answered. Nor will enquiries on the subject of a World War I fighter pilot arriving in 1960, a soldier in World War II gaining the power to foresee death, or why and how doppelgangers sudden break through into our world. Dealt with similarly will be the questions how can a man be a character in a movie but then actually live that life, how can a man live as long as Walter Jameson has, and how can a kid have the power to change the outcome of the future? Ask in vain, too, why overworked Gart Williams see a nineteenth-century village on a train line and ends up dying for the vision of a better, more simpler world, or where Professor A. Daemon came from. Question not the existence of guardian angels, animated mannequins or even a man who can make people come to life simply by describing them. There are no answers to these questions, or perhaps there is one, one which covers all eventualities and makes a certain kind of sense. All these things happen, all these things are possible, because it is The Twilight Zone. |
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https://y.yarn.co/8493fee0-2f3b-443f...eebf7_text.gif Go no further, if ye be not of great nerdly quality! Turn back, young errant knight, if statistics, charts and graphs be not thy thing, if numbers bore ye or waffling to the nth degree doth send thee into a coma. Thou hast been warned. If thou art of stout heart and firm brain, proceed at thine own risk. If thou dost take no heed of these warnings, and doth possess not the stomach for such arcane knowledge, then https://thumbs.gfycat.com/TheseDimwi...ng-max-1mb.gif Statistics I thought it might be interesting to look at some numbers, so here they are. Quality of episodes Based on my own rating system, here’s how they break down in season one: A++ 6 A+ 6 A 13 A- 5 B+ or below 5 Admittedly, those are only based on my personal ratings, but overall this is still impressive reading. What we can see is that of the thirty-five episodes of season one, thirty of them all rated at the very least an A, and 12 rated A+ or higher. On the other end of the scale, a mere five fell below the high watermark I’ve come to expect of this series, and even though it doesn’t differentiate, I can tell you that only two of them were miserable C ratings. That’s pretty much unheard of for a show starting off, especially one tackling a premise that had been, pretty much untouched up to then. Try this with even the original Star Trek and I guarantee you’ll get a lower figure of top quality or even very good episodes. It’s often hard for a show to find its feet, and its audience, in its first season, but from the outset The Twilight Zone seems to have captured the imagination of its viewers, and would only go - mostly - from strength to strength as it was renewed for future seasons. Themes This is just a general thing. As each episode can be said to have, as shown in the reviews, several themes, I’m just choosing the main, overarching one (time travel, justice, crime etc) on which to base these. Alienation: 26 Of course I’m going to explain and detail this figure. Note: since i have a pain in my, um, face writing episode titles, I’m just going to use the abbreviations here. I’m sure it’ll be clear enough. So… WIE? The astronaut feels alienated here because he appears to be alone, cannot contact anyone and everyone around him seems frozen in time. From the beginning, a dark, scary, unsettling atmosphere is laid down which, while it will not be prevalent in every episode, will permeate the larger majority of them. Sometimes, as here, the alienation will be shown for what it is, something not necessarily to be frightened of, and sometimes, it will not. MDOD: Surely the main character here feels alienated? Laughed at, abused, drunk most of the time and trying to get drunk the rest of the time, he has a memory of the man he used to be, but nobody cares and it seems unlikely to him that he will ever be that man again. TSMS: Barbara feels cut off from the world (truth is, she has cut herself off from it) and unable to face a cruel and changed outside, where nothing is how it used to be. She longs for the old days, and feels a stranger in this time. WD: Our man here feels a stranger, too, in his own past, unable to make anyone understand or accept who he is, unable to change that past, longing for it yet knowing it to be long gone. He’s like a ghost, flitting through the memories of his own childhood. EC: Bedeker I guess feels a kind of alienation too, possibly twice: the first time when he thinks he is dying of everything under the sun, then when he makes his deal and finds nothing can kill him, but more to the point, nothing can excite him any more. Hard to feel any sympathy for the selfish old bastard though. TL: A man who certainly feels alienated, in every sense of the word, is Corry, imprisoned on his own personal asteroid without another human being to keep him company. TEAL: Hard to say whether Henry Bevis feels alienated, but given that nobody wants to hear about his books, I guess you’d have to say yes. He certainly feels that way after the world is destroyed and he’s the only person (apparently) left alive. PTD: Edward Hall feels very alienated, as nobody will believe he is being hunted in his dreams by a psychopathic murderer. JN: Although he doesn’t initially know why, Lanser feels he should not be where he is, and knows something terrible is about to happen. He can’t explain this to anyone or get them to understand, so in his fear he is alone. AWTSWO: Forbes feels a growing sense of alienation and fear, as his memories don’t tally with anyone else’s, and events seem to be changing at a rapid rate. ISAAITA: The crew all feel alienated, having crashed and believing themselves lost on some asteroid millions of miles from home. THH: Unable to convince anyone of the sinister intentions of the hitch-hiker, Nan Adams feels increasingly alienated and alone. TLF: Thrown forward in time, Lt. Decker feels very alienated and out of place in 1960. TPT: Able, through no fault of his, to see which of the men are to die, Fitz becomes alienated from his comrades, a pariah among them. MI: Millicnet Barnes feels scared and isolated as weird things continue to happen around her, and even her new companion will not believe her. TMADOMS: One by one, each suspect becomes alienated - literally - from his fellows as suspicion falls upon them. AWOD: Trapped in a world which seems to be a movie set, Arthur Curtis feels a growing sense of alienation. PAAAO: By the end of the episode, Conrad certainly feels alienated - again, literally - when he realises he is an exhibit in a Martian zoo! EX: Like Decker in TLF, Caswell feels out of place and out of time when he is snatched from 1880 and brought into 1960. TBTW: Bolie must feel alienated in a world in which he can no longer compete, in which he is washed up and forgotten about. ANPTV: On his arrival in “Heaven”, Valentine feels very alienated, wondering what’s going on and how he is somehow in this great place? By the end, his alienation has taken on an entirely different complexion! NAAC: As she begins to be disturbed by the presence of Marky, Helen feels alienated too. ASAW: Gart Williams feels very alienated, both by his high-pressure job and by his cold, unsympathetic wife. APFT: Like Bolie in TBTW, Joey Crown feels cut off from his erstwhile passion, alienated in a world that no longer seems to want him. MB: After his guardian angel resets the day, Bevis begins to feel progressively more isolated from the people who had been his friends. TAH: Unaware she is a dummy, Marsha feels alienated as things seem to get weirder for her in the shop. Locations other than Earth: 6 (with caveats, see below) Surprisingly, not that many. Or maybe not that surprisingly. The Twilight Zone was not, after all, billed or sold as a space or science fiction show, and while, as time went on and its popularity - and presumably its working budget - increased, there would be more forays out into space and onto distant planets, here we wait a long time, relatively speaking, before we even see a story set off our homeworld, and there aren’t too many following it. I suppose as well it might have been that Serling, or the network, wished to avoid driving away those who were not “into” sci-fi, and who assumed they’d be watching a show where spacemen in unconvincing silver suits battled equally unconvincing monsters and flew unconvincing rocket ships into unconvincing starfields. The Twilight Zone was always - and continues to be - first and foremost, about the story and the characters, and most times these can be handled on Earth, even in the present, as well as out on some godforsaken rock in space. TL: This is of course the first, set on a desolate asteroid being used as a prison for one man. It also features, unsurprisingly, the first appearance of space ships, and again unsurprisingly, they’re pretty standard as to what film sci-fi was visualising them as. This is also one of the only stories concerning robotics, but more of that later. TFTS: Although we’re made believe this is Earth, we find out at the very end, indeed in the last words of the episode, that it is some unidentified alien planet from which the people are fleeing, heading towards our homeworld. EL: Strictly speaking, an asteroid, but still not the Earth, though it’s made look just like it, for the benefit of the rich, um, inhabitants. PAAAO: Following the trend of the times, this is set on Mars, the first Twilight Zone episode to be based there. ANPTV: Technically speaking, I suppose, you could include this one, though whether Hell is Earth depends I guess on your own personal beliefs and experiences! APFT: And similarly, given that most of it takes place in Limbo, maybe this could be considered too. Revenge and/or Justice: 11 Sort of interchangeable in a way, revenge and justice tend to be fairly recurrent motifs in the show, since, as Serling likes to moralise, most if not all of the characters either end up getting revenge or being revenged upon, or finding justice or being brought to justice, one way or another. The clear message here is: crime does not pay and your sins will eventually find you out, sometimes in surprising, even terrifying ways. EC: Probably the first in terms of the latter, where a selfish narcissist gets what’s coming to him. TEAL: You could say I guess that Bemis gets his revenge in this one, though it’s a two-edged sword for him. PTD: Certainly seems to involve revenge, though for what I don’t know. JN: Justice and revenge in this one, if you consider God - assuming you believe Him to exist - to be a vengeful one. Or maybe it’s just karma. Or the Great Pixie. Whatever. WYN: Certainly a sense of justice here - not quite revenge, as who can imagine such an inoffensive, friendly little man wishing ill on anyone? - but the bad guy gets his comeuppance in the end. TFOUAD: Definitely justice here, for a man who has used and abused both people and personalities for his own ends. ISAAITA: Justice for the remaining astronaut, when he sees he has killed his friends for nothing, and perhaps revenge for them from the grave. LLWJ: Revenge here takes the shape of a gun held by a spurned wife, ending a life that has spanned more than two thousand years. EX: Revenge and justice both loom large here, for both victims. ANPTV: As they do here, with the ultimate revenge and the ultimate justice meted out after death. NAAC: Revenge is had by Helen on her mother’s murderer and justice is finally seen to be done, the most final justice of all. |
Fear: 22
It’s not at all surprising that in a show like The Twilight Zone, though not marketed as scary really, fear plays a large part; whether it’s fear due to not knowing what’s going on (or indeed, knowing exactly what’s gong on!), fear of discovery, fear of consequences, fear of being stalked, fear of realising something you suspect and do not want to be true, the shadow of fear stalks through at least this season, and surely subsequent ones, like a giant stalking thing. Sometimes those fears are realised, sometimes shown to be nothing to worry about, and sometimes left slightly ambiguous. WIE? Again, fear plays a large part here, escalating to paranoia and eventual mental breakdown, the result of enforced and prolonged isolation. MDOD: Again, fear is a factor here. Initially not so much, as Denton is too drunk to care what’s done to him or what’s said about him, but when he finds the gun and begins to regain his self-respect, the fear that his old reputation will come looking for him, forcing him to kill again (or be killed) surfaces. TSMS: Barbara fears that her best days are gone, and they’re not coming back, and wonders how she is supposed to survive in this strange new world, while her agent fears for her sanity as she closets herself away with her memories. There’s fear, too, when he finds her gone and can’t understand where she has disappeared to, until he sees her on the screen. EC: Fear only plays a short part in this one, when Bedeker has himself convinced that he, a perfectly healthy man, is dying. Later there is no fear as he is invulnerable and immortal, though right at the end he does fear being incarcerated for “life”, nobody realising how long his life is going to be. TL: Corry fears he will never get off the asteroid, and then at the end he fears that he will not be able to take Alicia with him. TEAL: For a relatively short moment, Bemis fears being alone on the Earth, and contemplates suicide. He probably also quite rightly fears his martinet wife. PTD: Hall fears he will be killed if he falls back asleep, but also fears remaining awake, knowing he cannot do so forever. JN: Fear runs through this like water rushing into a sinking vessel, as Lanser’s fear grows, the hour of retribution once again at hand, though he cannot remember what it is he fears. AWTSWO: Forbes fears as things he knows to be true change and warp, and people seem to be getting written out of time. He fears when he can no longer see his reflection in the mirror, and when Harrington vanishes from the phone box. WYN: Peddot fears the influence of Renard, whom he knows is going to end up killing him. TFOUAD: There’s fear - finally - when Hammer faces “his father” and realises he is going to die if he can’t again change his face. TFTS: The two families fear both the approaching holocaust and also the chance that they will be caught and stopped in their escape. ISAAITA: All the crew fear dying on this “lonely deserted asteroid”, little realising they are home in the desert and only miles from salvation. THH: The fear is almost palpable as Nan Adams tries desperately to avoid the odd hitch-hiker who won’t leave her alone. TLF: Decker fears what will happen if he does not go back in time and make things right. TPT: Fitz fears looking into the eyes of his men, knowing he will see which of them is going to die. MI: Millicent is terrified by the strange happenings, and the fact that a doppelganger is pursuing her. TMADOMS: Fear rules the roost here, propelling the residents of Maple Street into a witch-hunt and turning them against their own. There are two types of fear in this episode: fear of the alien invasion and fear that one of the townspeople may be in league with them, or indeed alien themselves. AWOD: Arthur fears he is in the wrong world, and will never get back to his own. PAAAO: Conrad fears what they will encounter on Mars, fears when the hatch won’t open, has his fears assuaged only to have them come right back at the end when he realises he is trapped. NAAC: Helen fears the strange girl, and then her mother’s murderer as she struggles against him. TAH: Marsha fears that the shop seems very strange and the assistant is acting oddly. Deep down, she probably also fears that she has to go back to being a mannequin. Loneliness: 12 Even if few of the episodes are set off-world, The Twilight Zone is mostly a lonely place, with one character struggling against the odds, or trying to make sense of a senseless situation, and you can be just as lonely on a deserted rock in space as you can be in a crowd of people at home. WIE? Again we’re back to the pilot, where loneliness features heavily, though it’s mostly overshadowed by fear and panic. TSMS: You would have to assume Barbara feels lonely, living in her own private world of past glories and old achievements. TL: Not as lonely as Corry, of course, on his personal asteroid prison. TEAL: Or indeed Henry Bemis, after the holocaust as he wanders the ruins of Earth. He must feel very lonely indeed; for a moment, he was about to have all the company fiction and other books can provide, and then in an instant it’s all snatched away, and he’s left alone, in every sense of the word. THH: I’m torn as to whether or not to assume Nan suffers from loneliness. It’s a lonely business, certainly, driving across the states unaccompanied, but given the company that’s trying to join her, maybe she’s better off being on her own? Then again, given that the sailor won’t believe her story, maybe there’s a sense of being lonely there. TPT: When you can tell who’s going to die and who’s going to live, it stands to reason people are going to want to steer clear of you, just in case. MI: And when nobody believes you that something very weird and inexplicable is going on, that’s going to make you lonely too. TMADOMS: Nothing like feeling lonely in a crowd, though, especially a crowd of people who just recently were your friends and neighbours. AWOD: Arthur finds himself a lonely figure whom nobody will believe, somewhat like Millicent in MI. LLWJ: It’s a lonely life when everyone around you keeps dying and you live on. PAAAO: Space is a lonely place, but it’s lonelier yet when you’re stuck in a cage on your own on a strange planet. APFT: And it’s lonely too when you’re thrown on the scrap heap and nobody wants your talents any more. Robotics: 2 I hardly need to detail them, but given that the idea of robotics is approached from extremely opposite ends of the scale in each, maybe I will. TL: A robot female is delivered to the prisoner to keep him company. He falls in love with it and in the end sees it as a real person when he is released, however in the end he accepts it is just a machine and must be left behind. TMC: A robot baseball player is used by a crooked baseball coach to win games, but has to be fitted with a human heart and in so doing gains, for some reason, human emotions, making it useless as it no longer wishes to play baseball and hurt opposition players. Spaceflight: 8 Not necessarily referring to off-world adventures, but any episode in which spaceflight is used, alluded to or even envisioned goes here. So we have WIE? In which the astronaut is training for an imminent mission to the moon. TL: Where supply ships land to deliver the goods needed to keep the prisoner alive (and presumably one brought him there originally too, and one takes him away at the end). AWTSWO: Not technically spaceflight I guess, but close enough. The ship exits Earth’s atmosphere, and is said in the episode to be the first craft ever to do so. TFTS: The two families steal an experimental craft capable of going into space, in order to escape the coming holocaust on their homeworld. ISAAITA: Although we never see the spacecraft, we’re told the astronauts stuck in what they don’t know is the Nevada Desert have crashlanded after their spacecraft crashed. EL: The spacemen arrive on the cemetery asteroid on their way back from a mission and land their ship there; they also end up being positioned, diorama-like, there in death. TMADOMS: At the very end we see the aliens get into their spacecraft, having incited the residents of the street into a panicked, paranoid frenzy. PAAAO: A rocket ship takes off for, and crashlands on, Mars. Aliens: 4 Not terribly surprisingly, given a) the pretty low budget for the show, b) the embryonic nature of prosthetics and c) the fact that the show is not really about aliens, we don’t see too many, at least in the first season. The term aliens here does not include the likes of guardian angels, djinn or devils. Nor does it include Death, Fate, or men who can shapeshift or doppelgangers from a parallel universe. TFTS: For the purposes of this category I’m including the Riden and Sturka family, who are, technically, at least to us, aliens. EL: I’m unsure whether I should include Wickwire, as it was never explained just what he was, but I think on balance we can assume he was some sort of alien. I think he may have been a computer program. Um. TMADOMS: Although we only see them at the end, the aliens invading are the impetus for all the hoo-hah that takes over Maple Street. PAAAO: Our first Martians, even if they look like refugees from The Greatest Story Ever Told! Insanity: 14 For our purposes here, insanity refers to either someone coming to the brink of, or actually going insane or thinking they are, or being driven to that point by another party. WIE? At the end, the astronaut’s mind snaps due to the overwhelming pressure of loneliness and he goes mad. It is however only temporary. TSMS: It’s never actually said out loud, but Barbara is slowly going insane as she sits in the dark and watches her old movies, wishing for the past. TL: No surprise that Corry is pushed to the edge of insanity, living on his own for most of the year. TEAL: It can reasonably be assumed that Bemis goes mad at the end, when his precious books are snatched away from him by a cruel twist of fate. PTD: Did Hall go mad or did his heart just give out? I guess we’ll never know, but he was certainly approaching the precipice of madness. AWTSWO: Forbes certainly feels he’s going mad, as nobody will believe him that there were three of them and now only he is left. Although not for long. ISAAITA: Corey must go mad at the end when he realises they’ve been on Earth all along, and he didn’t need to murder anyone to survive. THH: Nan wonders if she is going insane as the hitch-hiker closes in on her. TF: You’d have to imagine that Franklin goes mad, as he believes he sees the one-armed bandit coming for him and ends up falling out of the window to his death. MI: Millicent believes she is going mad, though by the time she has (somehow) figured out what’s going on she is, ironically, taken in as a madwoman by the cops. TMADOMS: Paranoia is a kind of madness, and it infects almost everyone on Maple Street. AWOD: Arthur thinks he is going mad, as everyone tries to convince him he is a drunken actor and not the man he thinks he is. NAAC: Until her memories come back, Helen must think she’s going mad as the strange child seems to know so much about her. ASAW: The jury’s out as to whether Williams went mad, just jumping out of the train, thinking he was entering Willoughby, or whether he really did somehow transfer his consciousness/soul there. TAH: Marsha thinks she’s going mad, little realising she is not even human. |
Redemption: 9
Although many of the episodes, even here in the first season, are dark and somewhat unremitting and unforgiving, there is room for redemption and salvation. MDOD: The clearest and indeed earliest example being Mr. Denton, who gains his self-respect back and also need no longer fear challengers to his prowess. TSMS: Can it be considered redemption for Barbara, who disappears into the world in which she wants to live? Maybe. TL: Redemption comes, finally, for Corry as he is pardoned and allowed leave the asteroid prison. TFTS: Salvation is available to the Sturka and Riden families as they escape their doomed planet and head to a new life on Earth. TLF: Decker finds the courage to gain redemption by sacrificing his life in the past to save his friend in the future. AWOD: Arthur manages to find redemption when he makes it back to the world he believes is real, though everyone else seems to think it is that of a film script and a character in that film. NAAC: Salvation for Helen as the murderer of her mother is both identified and brought to swift and brutal justice. ASAW: And whether he actually got there or died en route to a place that did not exist, Williams seems to have found redemption in Willoughby. APFT: Joey Crown is saved from Limbo and from a dismal existence on Earth, and allowed a second chance. Pressures of modern life: 4 As I noted in the review of one of the episodes, the 1950s and 1960s saw the rise of the business executive, with things like Madison Avenue springing up and people no longer working just for a wage but to make a career. This led to intense and often brutal competition, both between and within companies, and gave birth to the kind of stress that could end a career, or even a life. WD: It’s the pressure of his high-powered job that sends Martin Sloan back to the carefree days of his boyhood, though in the end he makes it even worse, ending up with a limp for his troubles. TEAL: The pressures of his bank job, to say nothing of those at home from his social-climbing wife, make Henry Bemis take refuge in the sanctuary of books. ASAW: Gart Williams is increasingly unable to deal with the stress of his job, and pines for a simpler time, when the pace of life was slower. MB: Mr. Bevis does not do well with the hurly-burly of modern life, and as a consequence (before the day is reset) is fired from his job. Immortality: 5 The great goal of man, to live forever. But this always comes at a price, and to some extent could dovetail with the next theme, though we’ll keep them separate. TSMS: Barbara attains a kind of immortality, living forever now on the silver screen, where she will always be young and never age. EC: Walter Bedeker seeks immortality, but is in the end bored by it and ends up painting himself into a corner by being far too clever for his own good. JN: I guess you could say Lanser has also attained a kind of immortality, though he would probably prefer not to have done. LLWJ: Walter Jameson is the longest-lived man in history. Until he pisses off the wrong woman. ANPTV: Valentine, like Barbara and Kapitan Lanser, also becomes immortal in the very worst way. Greed and hubris: 8 Where there’s ambition and desire there’s greed, and usually hubris too, which is why I’m grouping them together here. A story with a moral can only be such if the hubris of the main character - or someone else - is shown to its fullest extent. Here we have the people who thought they could have what they wanted at no price, never realising that of all places, The Twilight Zone extracts the highest tolls for the bounties it confers. EC: As I said, there might, and probably will be, some crossover between these and the last theme, and here we have a classic example both of greed and hubris, as Bedeker tries to stack the deck in his favour, but realises too late that the devil always finds a way to win the game. Do not bet against the House! TEAL: Perhaps not greed but definitely hubris, as Bemis realises that his own frailties have led to his disappointment and loss. JN: The hubris of the Kapitan is rewarded by having him relive it every single night for eternity. WYN: Renard’s greed and hubris is his undoing, as he fails to be happy with what the pedlar gives him and wants to make money out of his talent. TFOUAD: And in a similar way, hubris ends up being the downfall of Arch Hammer, who thinks he can circumvent any situation by choosing the face that best suits it, but makes the wrong choice in the wrong place. TF: I reckon you could say Franklin’s snottiness about gambling is a kind of hubris, and it certainly is newly-awakened greed which leads to his death. LLWJ: Jameson believes he will live forever (and why not, given how long he has already lived?) but treats those around him as lesser beings, toys to be played with, and it is this hubris that fails to credit the possibility of one of these used people coming back and ending his long life. AWOHO: The only place I can see where man’s hubris does not turn against him, where Gregory West believes he can control everything in his life, and does. There’s no real comeuppance in this story, unless you consider Victoria’s hubris in refusing to believe she is a made-up character - and even when his wife is proven to be not real, he just shrugs and creates a new one. Deal with the devil/Demons and Angels: 8 While the theme of meeting and dealing with the devil would run, not throughout just this series but fantasy and speculative fiction in general for centuries - and had done, well before Serling put pen to paper to create The Twilight Zone - the first season only has a handful of episodes involving the Fallen One, so I’ve paired this with episodes which feature or refer to angels and also demons if any. Also Death and Fate, and any other supernatural agencies. OFTA: Bookman has a date with Death (no I’m not saying it any more, deal with it) which he does not relish keeping. MDOD: Denton is helped turn his life around by Fate. EC: Bedeker literally makes a deal with the devil, and ends up regretting doing so. THH: Nan is pursued by the personification of Death, in the form of a hitch-hiker. ANPTV: Valentine thinks he’s dealing with an angel but finds out to his cost he could not be more wrong. TC: Roger goes to see a man whose name is Professor A. Daemon. Yeah. APFT: Crown is helped in the afterlife by an angel. Again, yeah. MB: And a guardian angel helps Bevis re-run the worst day of his life. |
I dimly recall seeing a few of the episodes of TZ (I preferred The Outer Limits).
Sometimes Serling's monologues annoyed me, especially the closing ones, where he felt the need to explain what the point of the story was. If it's well written and well acted, summing up is redundant and a little bit condescending to the viewer. I believe several (perhaps most) of the Twilight Zone stories were adapted from print short stories. "What You Need" is a particularly good tale, although I have only read the story, not seen the TZ episode. There is a certain amount of pathos in the fact that the inventor had to kill the main character, not because he had yet done anything wrong, but because of what he would otherwise do some time in the future. |
I don't care about the themes, I wanna see episodes, Trolls!
I don't know if I 've read any of the short stories to be honest, Bob, but a majority of the episodes are some of the best TV you're ever going to see and it's easily the best thing to come out of the early sixties, especially the first three seasons. Yes, Serling could be pretty preachy and that may have been his Achilles heel, but you can't argue with the concept of something like The Obsolete Man for example. I like Outer Limits (the original) too, by the way. |
Space exploration: 7
As discussed under the off-world theme, in at least this, the first season, there isn’t as much spaceflight and going to new planets as you might expect from a show many took to be, perhaps mistakenly, a science fiction one. However there are a few. Note: for the purposes of this category, explorations of the afterlife, the future or the past are not included, only efforts - successful or otherwise - to go into space. WIE? While still taking place on Earth, this first episode does explore (sorry) the idea of going to another world, even if it’s only the boring old moon. TL: Not strictly speaking exploration, but worthy of inclusion as, had he the interest to, I suppose Corry could explore the barren asteroid he’s been condemned to live on. Not that there’s much to explore there, but, you know. AWTSWO: Certainly takes as its opening theme the idea of exploring the space outside the Earth (outer space, in other words). TFTS: Has the protagonists leaving their own, unnamed planet to try to reach ours. ISAAITA: Although they are actually exploring Earth, the crew believe they’re on an asteroid and that they have been into space, even if they never made it beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. EL: Begins with the characters on the way home from some sort of space exploration. PAAAO: Has the two main characters head to Mars. Time Travel: 7 Surely needs no explanation from me. There are few in the first season, so I’m going to be including elements where the possibility is that someone has travelled backwards or forwards in time, even if that is not definitely proven or stated to be the case. TSMS: I think it’s fair to say that on the face of it, Barbara travels back in time to her glorious heyday, where she will now live. WD: Martin Sloan goes back in time to his childhood. JN: Lanser can be said to be getting transported back in time to the moment of the sinking, this happening constantly and, we assume, for all eternity. TLF: Decker comes from 1915 to 1960 in order to right a wrong outcome and change the future. EX: Caswell is dragged forward in time to meet his death in 1960 instead of 1880. ASAW: Whether it happens or not in reality, Gart Williams thinks he has gone back in time when he reaches the stop of Willoughby. MB: Technically he goes back in time, if only twenty-four hours. The Afterlife: 5 Episodes which specifically and clearly show or reference what is beyond the veil. This theme will get more prevalent and complicated, not only as the series develops, but as new iterations of it appear down through the decades. OFTA: Death takes Bookman to, presumably, Heaven at the end. TSMS: I’m tempted to include this, as Barbara has obviously passed on to some sort of cinematic afterlife, but I don’t think I can as it’s not clear enough. JN: We have to assume Lanser is in Hell, so therefore that qualifies. THH: As Nan is in fact dead, though no afterlife is shown this can also be accepted as an example of same. ANPTV: Probably the most clear example we have in this season of what may await us after death: if we’re very unlucky, or deserving of such a fate. ASAW: Can we accept Willoughby as a version of the afterlife? Well. given that Williams sees it twice while still alive, I’d have to say no. Can’t count this one. APFT: But Joey Crown certainly sees Limbo, at least, and meets the Archangel Gabriel, so this one can be counted. What’s the percentage of serious episodes versus ones meant to be taken in a humorous vein? Serious ones: WIE?/MDOD/TSMS/WD/TL/TEAL/PTD/JN/AWTSWO/WYN/TFOOAD/TFTS ISAAITA/THH/TLF/TPT/EL/MI/TMADOMS/AWOD/LLWJ/PAAAO/EX/TBTW/NAAC ASAW/APFT/TAH Humorous ones: OFTA/EC/TF/ANPTV/TC/MB/TMC/AWOHO So that’s 27 serious versus 8 not, showing that the overall tone of the show was more sombre and serious than flippant, and that lessons should be learned from the programme. What about the leads? How many episodes had male leads, and how many female? Let’s see. Male: WIE?MDOD/WD/TL/TEAL/PTD/JN/AWTSWO/WYN/TFOOAD/TFTS/ISAAITA/TLF TPT/EL/TMADOMS/AWOD/LLWJ/PAAAO/EX/TBTW/ASAW/APFT/OFTA/EC ANPTV/TC/MB/TMC/AWOHO Female: TSMS/THH/MI/NAAC/TAH So that’s a mere 5 with female leads, compared to a massive 30 in which male characters take centre stage. But for 1960 this is not at all surprising. Let’s just break that down a little further though. Of the ones with male leads, how many of those episodes even featured a female character? OFTA has the little girl who is to die in Bookman’s place, and her mother also, very peripheral characters, though the former is the device through which Bookman is motivated to try to cheat Death and ends up surrendering his own soul. MDOD has the barmaid Denton (presumably) falls in love with. WD has Sloan’s mother, though she plays little part in the story, it being again a mosly male-driven plot. EC has the long-suffering wife of Walter Bedeker, who gets treated very badly, and is in fact killed in an off-hand and very casually cruel way by the selfish git. TL only allows a woman as long as she’s a robot and does what she’s told, however of all these so far it’s the most quasi-sympathetic (and ironically strongest) role for a woman in one of these stories, as Alicia gives Corry back his dignity and his sense of purpose, his will to live and even allows him to find love of a sort. Unfortunately when he’s done he just dumps her, but you can’t have everything. TEAL brings us two female characters, neither of which are in the least sympathetic. There’s the irritated lady customer at the bank to whom Bemis tries to explain the workings of Dickens, and then there’s his shrew of a wife. And both (along with everyone else) get killed. Heavy message? PTD again casts a woman in the role of the bad guy, or girl, as it were. While there are essentially two female characters in this, they’re both the same actress so I would count them as one. I guess you could say that this is the first episode in which a woman, while not the main character, triumphs over the man, in that Hall dies of a heart attack supposedly brought on by Maya’s pursuit of him in his dreams. Like Alicia in TL, a strong female character, if for the wrong reasons here. JN has only one female character, the sergeant (though there may be other, unnamed ones at tables - I don’t count them if they’re there - who plays little more part in the story than as a device to enable Lanser to pour out his troubles to. AWTSWO has a nurse, and also a girl in a bar, (two I think) but they’re very much surplus to requirements for the story. Oh, and Forbes’ wife, who sort of fulfils the same criterion. WYN has one female character, at the beginning, and though she is the first the pedlar approaches and so we think she might be a major one, she’s gone pretty quickly, used as nothing more than a way to demonstrate Peddot’s powers of precognition. TFOOAD gives us one female, the woman ready to run away with the dead musician whom Hammer is impersonating, and again, she’s gone long before the second act. TFTS tries to make the women a little more important, but the wives are reduced to nodding and looking worried, and only the Sturka daughter gets to do anything, actually being the one who rescues them from the clutches of Carling when it looks like they have been caught. So maybe one more strong female character. TF is taken over entirely by the husband, with his wife as a scared and worried onlooker. TMADOMS shows the women bowing to the judgement of their men, and while some accuse, they only do so with the approval of their husbands, so you couldn’t call any of them strong characters, and by the end they’ve descended into one amorphous mob anyway. AWOD does make an effort. The wife - shrewish and grasping again - in the so-called “wrong” life of Arthur Curtis is well written, btu again she’s a negative stereotype, whining about alimony and her ex-husband’s drunkenness. The other wife, the “real” one, is a pastiche of fifties housewifery and seems to have no real qualities of her own. There’s also the secretary (in both worlds, though in the “wrong” one she’s playing a part) but she doesn’t do much but make phone calls and smile. LLWJ has just two female characters (other than possibly TMADOMS, I count no more than three in any episode), one of which is the fiancee of Jameson, so demeaned that her father jokingly (we assume) threatens to spank her, the other a previous wife of Jameson’s, who eventually kills him, so I guess that makes her a strong character. There’s also a very brief cameo for a female student, but hardly worth mentioning. PAAAO: Introduces perhaps the first sympathetic female character in a male-driven episode, though she is unable to go against her male superiors to help the poor Earthman. She does however display more, um, humanity than any of her people. TBTW has only one female, the mother of Henry and (it’s said) the fiancee of Bolie. There are various women out on the street, but again these are just extras. Henry’s mother gets a small slice of the story, but it’s again dominated by the males, in this case young and old. ANPTV only makes room for women if they’re floosies, good-time gals, broads or skirts. Very fluff, very eye-candy, very superfluous. I’m not sure they even speak. ASAW again has a shrewish wife who berates her husband and blames him for not giving her the life she had expected. There are also office workers, but none of them matter to the story much. TC has a shrew, who first wants nothing to do with Roger and then becomes happily enslaved to him, enslaving him in the process, which I have to admit is pretty clever. But I don’t think Leila can be considered a strong personality in this episode. APFT brings in a love interest for Joey, but right at the end, and only to show that his life is about to turn for the better. MB has a snappish landlady who evicts Bevis (though in the redo she thanks him for having paid months in advance) and a sympathetic office worker, as well as a resident in the lodgings from which he is being evicted. AWOHO shows the utter disdain Gregory has for women, as he writes/creates ones that suit his own personal tastes, though he does try to stop his wife from throwing her tape on the fire, and even considers recreating her, changing his mind when he realises he can instead have the submissive and pretty and undemanding Mary. And before we leave this category, let’s take a quick look at those female-centric episodes. How does the heroine fare, how is she painted in each? TSMS shows us a belligerent, haughty woman refusing to live in reality, getting by on her memories and eventually being sucked into them. THH really has Nan as a scared, confused girl trying to avoid a nasty hitch-hiker, even enlisting the aid of a tough, strong sailor in her attempt to get away. Hardly a strong figure. MI gives us another scared woman, but one who has a mind of her own and has sussed out what is happening, when she is unexpectedly (to her anyway) betrayed by the male, who rather fittingly ends up suffering her fate as he realises she was quite sane. TAH shows us the selfish side of a woman (even if she’s not real) and her willingness to risk everything for the chance to remain as she is. NAAC has another frightened woman, but she does take charge and, while it may be accidentally, triumphs over the male killer, so that has to make her a strong female character. That makes uncomfortable reading. Of the mere 5 episodes featuring female leads, more than half portray her as a weak, nasty or incompetent figure, making the unmissable comment that really, women should not be allowed out on their own. Sad. How many episodes written entirely by Rod Serling, how many based on the work of others and how many written without his input (other than as I guess story editor/executive producer/man with the final say)? The first seven are all his work then TEAL is the first where he bases his story on the writings of another person. After that we have the first written without him (a Charles Beaumont story) in PTD, then him again and then the next six are based on the writing of other authors. The sixth of these is followed by a sequence of 1,2,1,2, by which I mean one written by him, one written without him, and repeat, then he writes the next two before ceding writing duties for the next two, with the one after that based on a short story, as is the next, then one without his input sandwiched between three of his own writing, followed by the first where he doesn’t even write the teleplay, but takes the reins for the next four, while leaving the closing episode to be written by another author, into which he has no input on the story. So that makes a total of 19 written solely by Serling 9 which he writes based on the writings of others and 7 which are written by others without his input That’s still pretty impressive, giving him overall 80% of the writing credit for the first season. While it’s a little simplistic perhaps to say “good” or “bad”, which episodes end well - either for the character(s) or us - and which end badly? I count 11 ending what I consider as well, or happy, and they are OFTA: Much as I dislike this episode, I have to admit in the end Bookman sacrifices his life to save the little girl, and so earns a kind of redemption, so it would be considered a “good” ending. MDOD: Despite its dark tone, ends well and certainly can be said to be a happy ending. WYN: Despite Renard dying at the end, he is more or less identified as the bad guy in this one, and so I’d say that yes, this is, all things taken into account, a happy ending. TFTS: The families manage to escape and are heading to a new life so that’s definitely a good ending. TLF: Although Decker’s decision in the future will lead to his death in the past, his actions will save his friend, and so that has to be a positive ending. AWOD: Arthur Curtis finds his way home, giving us an unexpectedly happy ending. NAAC: Again, though there is a death at the end it’s the death of a murderer, and Helen gets her memories back, so this is a good ending. ASAW: I’m a little torn on this one. Essentially, Williams gets his wish and ends up in Willoughby, out of the rat race. But then we see his dead body, adn he’s out of the human race too. But overall I think it’s a happy ending, for him at least. APFT: Joey Crown gets a second chance, so that has to be a happy ending. MB: Bevis chooses in the end to be who he was in the first place, problems and all, and while a simplistic one, it has to be regarded as a good ending. AWOHO: Gregory gets the wife he wants, and all is well in this final happy ending. Well, that should leave 25, more than twice as many, ending badly or darkly, should it not? Let’s check it out. WIE? While there’s a happy resolution - the astronaut is not alone - he does go a bit mad, and the problems of the intense loneliness of deep space remain, so on balance this one I would consider a dark ending. TSMS: While you could argue this is a happy ending, I don’t agree. I feel Barbara turned her back on the world and ended up being consumed by her past, and for her agent at any rate it’s a bad ending, as she’s gone. WD: Sloan achieves nothing, but adds a limp for the rest of his life which he didn’t have before his trip back through time, so that has to be a bad ending. EC: While we want the little **** to die, or be left living forever in jail, Bedeker does end up having to give up his immortality, and far sooner than he would have expected if at all. That then makes this a dark ending to a bitingly satirical episode. TL: Corry escapes but has to turn his back on the robot that has made his life on the asteroid bearable, and there’s a palpable sense of pathos and tragedy to the ending of this one. TEAL: Perhaps the darkest of all dark endings, as not only is the world destroyed but Bemis’s chance to be alone with his books is taken from him with cruel caprice. PTD: Hall dies. Can’t get too much darker than that. JN: Except I guess if you’re condemned to relive one terrifying night you’re responsible for, all down through eternity in your own private Hell. AWTSWO: Or when you are literally erased from existence, no memory or trace of you remaining. TFOOAD: Another death, another dark ending. ISAAITA: Corey finds he has killed his crewmates for nothing. There’s no coming back from that. THH: Death claims his dominion. TF: A stupid, funny episode ends in tragedy. TPT: More death and despair here. EL: And more here, with a twist. MI: Millicent is committed while Paul realises too late she was right all along. TMADOMS: Chaos explodes in smalltown America as neighbour turns on neighbour and everyone is a suspected alien. LLWJ: No matter how long you live, remember the words of the bard: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! PAAAO: There’s really no way to put a positive spin on ending up as an exhibit in a Martian zoo! EX: And if death follows you eighty years into the future, you know it’s not going to be your day. TBTW: What could have been a sappy, happy ending turns sour because one man can’t believe in magic. ANPTV: Even the nicest most gilded cage is still a cage. TC: Trapped, not in a loveless relationship, but a suffocatingly close one, there’s no escape for Roger. TAH: Hard to feel good about the sudden revelation and realisation that you’re a shop dummy. So that’s 24, not 25. Why? Because I deliberately left TMC out, as I can’t decide (or care) whether it’s a happy or a sad ending. In some ways it’s happy, as the robot gets to live with a human heart and there is an intimation that he ends up becoming part of a team of all robots. On the other hand, his career playing against human opponents is over, and so are the hopes of the shitty baseball team of dragging themselves into the big leagues. But again, as I say, I don’t care. Leaving that one out then, we still have over 70% of the episodes ending darkly, sadly or badly, in terms of their tone. For a family show, that’s, as they say, pretty dark, man. And it will only get worse. |
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How many famous actors, or actors who went on to be famous, did we meet in season one?
MDOD: This is the first where we can say there are any real actors who had, or would go on to, achieve fame. We have Martin Landau, Doug McClure and Jeanne Cooper, so that makes 3, and all in one episode! Then Ida Lupino and Martin Balsam in TSMS, so that’s 5, Ron Howard makes 6 when he appears as a kid in WD, Jean Marsh and Ted Knight in TL bring it to 8, Burgess Meredith in TEAL and Richard Conte in PTD rounds it out to 10. Patrick McNee in JN, Rod Taylor, Sue Randall and Jim Hutton in AWTSWO bring it to 14, Fritz Weaver and Denise Alexander in TFTS make 16, Jeff Morrow and Kevin Hagen in EL run the total to 18, and Vera Miles in MI and Claude Atkins in TMADOMS give us 20. Howard Duff, Eileen Ryan and David Whyte in AWOD move it to 23, Kevin McCarthy in LLWJ makes 24, then Roddy McDowall, Vic Perrin, Susan Oliver and Paul Comi in PAAAO push it to 28, and Russel Johnson and John Lormer in EX take it to the round 30. Morgan Brittany and Joseph Perry in NAAC increase the total to 32, James Daly, Howard Irving Smith and Jason Wingreen in ASAW make it 35, while George Cooper Grizzard Jr and John Herrick McIntire in TC lift it to 38, and Jack Klugman and John Anderson in APFT make it 40. Orson Bean, Florence MacMichael, Charles Lane, Vito Soctti and William Schallert in MB bring the figure up to 45. Anne Francis in TAH and Jack Warden and Abraham Sofaer in TMC make it 48, Keenan Wynn in the final episode of season one, AWOHO, leaves us one shy of 50, at 49. That is one impressive list! Look at the big names! Klugman. McDowell. Howard. Lupino. Meredith. Landau. McClure. Serious stuff. The final thing I want to do before I close is to check the Bodycount. That’s right: how many people died overall in season one? I should say, how many people are shown as dying? And this can be stretched to people losing their minds, just for the heck of it. In later seasons when I’m doing the overview we’ll be adding these and doing a cumulative bodycount, so we can see how many died over the entire series. Could be fun! For now, though… WIE? - 0 OFTA - 1 (Bookman) MDOD - 0 TSMS - 1 (Barbara - all right, technically she’s not said to be dead, but she may as well be) WD - 0 EC - 2 (Bdeker and his wife) TL - 0 (Unless you count a) Alicia which you can’t as she’s a robot and therefore not alive or b) Corry’s victim, which I’m inclined not to) TEAL - 0 (I seriously can’t count all of Earth’s population, and while yes obviously his wife, his manager, that annoying customer etc all died, it seems a pointless exercise so we’ll gloss over this one) PTD - 1 (Edward Hall) JN - ? Not sure how to approach this one. Obviously Lanser dies, but later, possibly after the war, and I have no idea how many crew and passengers the Queen of Glasgow was carrying, so it’s hard to make a stab at it. TOTAL SO FAR (with some caveats) = 5 On we go. AWTSWO - 3 (Technically, as it turns out they are seen never to have existed, but we know they did, so let’s include them) WYN - 1 (Renard) TFOOAD - 3 (We know of the musician Johnny Foster, the musician whose identity Hammer takes, Virgin Sterig, who again he robs the face of, and then Andy Marshall, though in reality that person never died, Hammer just took his appearance, so he himself is number three, and in actuality it’s the three of us, not the four of us are dying) TFTS - 0 (Again, the assumption is the whole planet, or most of it, will die, but we don’t even know the population of the planet so must ignore those deaths). ISAAITA - 7 (The ship had a crew of 8; 4 died on impact, Corey killed 3 more) THH - 1 (Nan is already dead when the episode begins, though she doesn’t know it) TF - 1 (Franklin is the only one to die here in Vegas) TLF - 1 (Decker goes back in time to give his life to save his friend) TPT - 4 (Obviously it’s far more than that, but given this is wartime and we know nothing of the size of Fitz’s platoon, we can’t get an accurate count so can only look at the ones we actually see die. That’s the soldier in the bed in the hospital, Fitz’s CO and Fitz and presumably his driver at the end) TOTAL NOW STANDS AT 26 EL - 3 (All three crew are murdered by Wickwire) MI - 0 TMADOMS - 1 (The only one we see actually die is Peter Van Horn, who is shot as he returns to Maple Street that evening) AWOD - 0 LLWJ - 1 (Walter himself) PAAAO - 1 (Marcusson dies on the ship) EX - 3 (Caswell, the professor and the thief) TBTW - 0 ANPTV - 1 (Valentine) TOTAL IS NOW 36 And finally NAAC - 2 (Helen’s mother and Selden) ASAW - 1 (Williams) TC - 0 APFT - 0 MB - 0 TAH - 0 TMC - 0 AWOHO ? (Hard to say; if Victoria was a construct of Gregory’s mind, could she die? He could just bring her back again, as he did Mary). FINAL TOTAL = 39 So there are - leaving out world populations, ship’s crews and marine battalions - more people killed in the first season of The Twilight Zone than there are episodes! So ends our first foray into one of the most important and influential television programmes in history, and certainly in science fiction history. Five years on, a new and different phenomenon would take the world by storm, using and building on many of the themes expressed here, and looking to Serling’s moralistic, teaching nature for guidance on how to handle their own show, which would itself become a template and marker for science fiction and drama. By the time Star Trek debuted The Twilight Zone would have finished its five-year run (five-year mission?) and Roddenberry, Shatner, Nimoy and Co. would take up the baton, taking television audience where no man had gone before, and in the process predicting much of the future. Like Star Trek though, The Twilight Zone would not stay dead and has been revived three times, the most recent being last year, although it must be said I found personally the quality of the episodes to be far below par, even compared to later incarnations of the show. But that’s all for later and we’ll get there in due course. Feel free to continue to engage me and each other in conversations about the show - there’s certainly enough there to talk about - and I’ll be back before you know it. Literally, if I can get this darned time machine working! See ya some other time! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tytheclown.png |
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No, no! You can't get rid of me that easily! I have more statistics to impart! Here's a graph (look at it!!) https://c.tenor.com/8JWIvddTsO4AAAAM...shake-fist.gif showing what I consider to be the progress of the show over the first season, in terms of quality. It's pretty simple: ratings are from 1 to 10 at the side and each episode is numbered at the bottom, the red line shows how good, or bad, each episode was and how the quality fluctuated, or remained solid, or even rose, over the course of the season. Spoiler for Big-ass boring graph - click at your peril:
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If that's your EKG, boy are you in trouble :D
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Wait! Wait! Don't go! I have more!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/29/d5...7cab079208.gif And here is my how I rated the episodes, numbering them from 36 (worst) to 1 (best) 36. The Mighty Casey 35. Mr. Bevis 34. A Passage for Trumpet 33. The Big Tall Wish 32. One for the Angels 31. The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine 30. Mr. Denton on Doomsday 29. The Fever 28. A World of His Own 27. The Chaser 26. A World of Difference 25. Nightmare as a Child 24. Walking Distance 23. The Last Flight 22. Execution 21. The Purple Testament 20. The Four of Us Are Dying 19. Perchance to Dream 18. Long Live Walter Jameson 17. Judgement Night 16. A Nice Place to Visit 15. Where is Everybody? 14. What You Need 13. Escape Clause 12. People Are Alike All Over 11. Elegy 10. The Lonely 9. Mirror Image 8. And When the Sky Was Opened 7. Third from the Sun 6. Time Enough at Last 5. A Stop at Willoughby 4. The Hitch-Hiker 3. I Shot an Arrow Into the Air 2. The After Hours 1. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street |
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You rates A Passage for Trumpet 34th? Even better, you rated it an A- while you rated One For the Angels a C- and it came in at number 32. Now that's an accomplishment. :D
Anyway, A Passage For Trumpet is my favorite TZ of the first season (love Klugman) followed by A Stop at Willoughby. Do agree with you on Mighty Casey though (and you even rated that better than One For the Angels, albeit barely). Can't think of a TZ that bad until the final season. |
Statement: Trollheart is currently being given oxygen in the ICU. We told him not to overdo it, but did he listen? Does he ever? He was barely able to walk when he arrived at the hospital and it's only the mercy of god that we were able to get him stabilised in time.
He will not be doing any interviews or anything more strenuous than lifting an eyebrow for some.... what? He's done what? Discharged...? That man is going to kill himself! Fine, fine: I wash my hands of the idiot. What? Oh, I think there's a need for a hospital in the age of the Crimean War. Can't let that bitc - ah, brave lady Nightingale take all the glory now, can we? Engage time warp circuits (NO NOT the bloody dance! Stop that!) - time warp circuits engaged - ah, well, I guess, um, ENGAGE! |
Which is the episode where two spacemen on an alien planet find a race of tiny creatures with their own fully developed civilisation, and they come to revere one of the men as a god, and construct a full-sized statue of him?
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The Little People. That one is wicked.
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Okay then, time to get going again. Before we do, a few overall comments. From season two onwards, Serling no longer just narrates the introduction, but appears on screen, either as part of the episode or just standing off-centre, as it were. I'll be explaining how he enters each episode as we go. Closing narration is still just a voiceover though. Whereas season one suffered from occasional changes in opening titles, season two is more cohesive and together, however I feel the "new" titles give the impression of being rushed, as if Serling has to speak against a clock. He's talking about "a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination" and then suddenly he seems to almost gasp out "There's a signpost up ahead! Your next stop, The Twilight Zone!" It just seems, well, wrong to me, but there it is. We saw some of these titles, as I say, on a few of the season one episodes but now they're here to stay. In selecting candidates for the "And Isn't That...?" section I've tried to ensure that, while not every actor or actress is well known enough that everyone would know him or her, I chose people whose contribution to TV and film would remind people who they are, even if I don't know the show or film in question, or the person. So for instance, someone might say "Oh! That guy from Gilligan's Island" or "Right! I remember her from Leave it to Beaver" or whatever. In general, if the person is not, or was not, an actor I've tended to shy away from them, with some notable exceptions. I've also drawn the border at the 1950s (occasionally mentioning work before then if relevant) as overall (no offence meant to any octogenarians or nonagenarians here of course) the people reading this are unlikely to remember or recognise work from before then. Because they were mostly the only shows around at the time, a huge percentage of these actors worked on western or cowboy shows, but many of these won't be known to our generation, and anyway I can't note every single appearance of every actor on every screen, so if I've missed something important about someone let me know. I'll obviously also highlight any genre links that can be pointed to. I've changed a few things to my format since season one, and added others. You'll see these as we go along, but the main change is I've removed the "Iconic?" section as I really don't think it works for most episodes. I've replaced it with "Possible Inspiration For" which I think speaks for itself. I think that's more or less it. Sorry for the wait, but https://media.tenor.com/images/ed6bb...2b27/tenor.gif |
Note: I'm still working on these, and a ton of other stuff as well, so don't expect the rush of episodes that constituted season one. In general, if I get one a week posted I'll consider it an achievement.
"You're in the desert now, you idiot! You're gonna need water!" Title: “King Nine Will Not Return” Original transmission date: September 30 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Buzz Kulik Starring: Bob Cummings as Captain James Embry Gene Lyons as Psychiatrist Paul Lambert as Doctor Jenna McMahon as Nurse Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Dislocation, loneliness, time travel, death, responsibility Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A Serling’s opening monologue This is Africa, 1943. War spits out its violence overhead, and the sandy graveyard swallows it up. Her name is King Nine, B-25, medium bomber, Twelfth Air Force. On a hot, still morning, she took off from Tunisia to bomb the southern tip of Italy. An errant piece of flak tore a hole in the wing tank and, like a wounded bird, this is where she landed, not to return on this day, or any other day. Captain Embry, officer in command of a USAF B-25 Bomber which has crashed in the desert wakes to find himself alone in the wreckage. He has no idea where his crew are, and can’t remember bailing out (there’s no sign of a parachute), so if he didn’t then how come he’s alive? And where is the rest of his crew? He searches the hulk of the plane but there is no sign of them. Then he thinks he sees one of them in the cockpit as he investigates a dropped canteen outside, which seems to be belong to another of them, but the crewman vanishes and he realises it was just his imagination. But it’s not his imagination that he’s still alone in the unforgiving heat, with no supplies and little water, and no idea of how he got there, or more importantly, how he’s going to get out of here. Embry begins to entertain the notion that he may not even be here, may be dying out in the desert and just hallucinating all of this. Then he comes across a grave marker for one of the crew, and a moment later jet fighters streak across the sky. He’s never seen such aircraft before. And yet… he knows what they are. He can name them. He shouldn’t even know what a jet is - in 1943 even the Nazis were only experimenting with them, and the US would not have had any jet aircraft, but he can recall what these planes are. His mind begins to snap under the strain, and he talks to an invisible crew, telling them that they have to get the plane back in the air. He even tries to physically lift it himself. Breaking down entirely, he wakes up in a hospital bed, where the doctors are talking about him, saying that he was supposed to have captained the bomber, but King 9 had another captain, and now it has somehow mysteriously reappeared in the desert after seventeen years. It’s in the newspapers, and they reckon the story must have sparked off old memories, perhaps guilt at not having gone on that fateful flight in which all of the crew were lost, and driven Embry into some kind of psychosis. They assure him that he couldn’t possibly have gone back to the desert, and yet, when his clothes are brought in by the nurse, sand is found in his boots. Serling’s closing monologue Enigma buried in the sand, a question mark with broken wings that lies in silent grace as a marker in a desert shrine. Odd how the real consorts with the shadows, how the present fuses with the past. How does it happen? The question is on file in the silent desert, and the answer? The answer is waiting for us - in the Twilight Zone. The Resolution It’s a good one really. It’s not made clear as the episode goes on if Embry is actually in the desert, dead or dreaming, and even at the end we’re not sure. Using the newspaper report as a catalyst for his “return” is clever, what psychiatrists and criminologists today would call a trigger event. The Moral I don’t see one, maybe guilt can do terrible things to a person? Serling's Appearance Here, for the first time (other than the jokey one in the final episode of the previous season) we see Serling in person, as he appears in the sand just to the right of the crashed bomber. Themes Madness is once again centre stage, or at least, the possibility of madness. How else to explain it when you’re standing outside your crashed bomber in the desert, alone and with no idea how you survived? As the pressure mounts on Embry his mind cracks, and we’re led to believe this is what wakes him up in his hospital bed. But what about the boots? War is another theme, as this is one of only a few so far episodes set in or against the backdrop of war, and that old chestnut, loneliness, comes back to haunt us. One of the worst things man can go through is an extended period of being alone, with nobody to talk to and nothing to do, no way out, which is why solitary confinement is seen as such a harsh punishment. Mystery is a staple of the show, and there’s certainly a mystery to be unravelled here, though like most Twilight Zone episodes, there’s no simple solution at the end. Another theme played very strongly on here is that of responsibility and duty of care. Several times Embry shouts out to his crew that he is responsible for them, that as captain he is supposed to take care of them. It’s almost like a frantic father worrying about losing his children. Quite touching really, given the usual hard-man attitude espoused by airmen and how they’re usually portrayed. Makes Embry’s character more approachably human and fallible, and someone we can identify with. And isn’t that…? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...mings_1956.jpg Robert Cummings (1910 - 1990) Apart from perhaps having one of the most unfortunate names in showbusiness, it seems he was one of the great “also-rans” of Hollywood. He starred opposite Betty Grable in her last movie and was also in Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, and yet he always seemed to be, according to himself, second choice for movie roles. He was tapped for Bewitched (which surely would have made his name) but didn’t get it, though he did later guest in one episode, and though he had his own eponymous show on TV in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and got to officiate at the opening of Disneyland alongside Ronald Reagan, and had two stars on Hollywood Boulevard, to say nothing of gaining no less than five Primetime Emmy nominations and winning one, he doesn’t seem to have liked making movies. He often said to his wife that he wished there was some other way he could make a living. Mildly interestingly, given the theme and setting of this episode, Cummings starred in two movies with desert in the title and two to do with flying, as well as one with king in the title. Yeah, I know: big deal, but you see, I notice these incidences of serendipity. Oh, and he was also in The Flying Nun… okay, okay, I’m going, I’m going! One more thing: he actually was a pilot. Yes I know where the door is, thank you very much! Gene Lyons (1921 - 1974) Like most actors of this era, he played in lots of western/cop TV shows, but our interest in him would lie with his role in Star Trek’s “A Taste of Armageddon”, and I personally remember Ironside, the wheelchair-bound detective (very much ahead of its time) on which he was a regular. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...28actor%29.gif Paul Lambert (1922 - 1997) Remembered for the original Planet of the Apes movie as well as Spartacus (alongside Kirk Douglas) and (often uncredited) roles in Apocalypse Now, Death Wish II, American Graffiti and All the President’s Men. Questions, and sometimes, Answers The radio on the B-25 crackles, but though Embry talks into it, giving his details, nobody answers. Is this because the frequency is no longer used or recognised, or because this is a dream/vision and he’s not really using the radio at all? How is it that the plane has suddenly appeared in the desert after all this time? There’s no evidence around it of its having been, for instance, covered by sand dunes that have blown away to reveal it, indeed the ground all around it is flat and even. Those clever little touches The plane is called King 9, shortened to K9. K-9 - canine? And like a faithful dog, it appears it’s been waiting for its master all this time in the hot desert sand. Parallels I find it a little disappointing how similar this episode is, in its basic essence, to the season one episode “The Last Flight”: a pilot from the past (in that case, World War I) comes into the future (the show’s present) and has no idea how they got there. There are, of course, major differences between the two stories but I would have preferred something more original to kick off the second season. I also mark very clear lines back to the pilot episode: we have almost a one-man story here, with two other characters only showing up at the very end and fulfilling pretty minor roles (and one nurse with one line), he has no idea what’s going on and faces going mad. He even nods back to “Where is Everybody?” by considering that he might be imagining all of what’s happening. It also closely parallels the ending of the pilot episode, where both men are completely alone in a world which turns out to be one of their own imagination (though the ending of this one does cast doubt on that), both looking for other people but only encountering what you could term as ghosts, or maybe impressions of living beings. Embry sees mirages and visions, whereas the guy in the first episode of season one sees what appear to be models, when he sees anyone at all, otherwise it’s half-glimpsed suggestions of people - a movie theatre without a projectionist, a cigar left behind seemingly in a hurry, music that seems to be a band but there’s nobody there. Finally, there are loose parallels too to “I Shot an Arrow Into the Air”, as the setting is the desert and there is only one person left to try to navigate it; also the idea that it is somewhere (or when) else is used here, though in the other episode it was assumed to be an alien asteroid. Here, it’s assumed to be 1943 when in fact it’s 1960. A canteen of water - vital kit of course for desert survival - also features in both episodes, as do graves. Sussed? A new section, in which I’ll discuss how predictable, or not, the story was, and if I guessed what it was about after, say, the first five minutes. In this case, no, not at all. I had no idea what was going on. The WTF Factor And another, in which I’ll assign each episode a rating of 1 to 10, based on how much of a twist (and an unpredictable one) there is in it. Factor here is 9 Personal Notes There are several firsts as the new season opens. The famous theme is used for the first time, as well as Rod Serling’s actually appearing in each episode instead of just doing the voiceover, though only (at least here) at the start. It’s also the first time I’ve seen an episode of the show where the vast bulk of the dialogue is silent, which is to say, takes place inside Embry’s head as he’s thinking, sort of talking to himself. The only actual spoken dialogue are a few outbursts from him when he’s trying to find his crew, and then the scenes in the hospital. It’s quite clever because in a way, Cummings as Embry fulfils the role of Serling in creating a kind of running narrative. I find myself wondering at the title. Given that there is mystery and an element of fantasy here, could Serling be making an oblique reference towards the third and final part of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings? Also, there is a nod back to Dickens here surely, when Embry, finally losing it, sinks to his knees and grasps handfuls of sand, which turn out to be the sheets of his bed in the hospital, almost exactly as Ebenezer Scrooge claws at the soil of his own grave and then wakes up in his own bed. And again, when the doctor tells Embry he’ll be all right now; isn’t this the same feeling Scrooge has when he realises he is not after all dead? |
Note: Will do my own quickie reviews for every five episodes Troll does (It is his journal after all :D). Will say that seasons two and three are the peak of the TZ reign. So many great episodes in those two seasons.
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“No matter what you wish for, you must be prepared for the consequences”
Title: “The Man in the Bottle” Original transmission date: October 7 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Don Medford Starring: Luther Adler Vivi Janiss Joseph Ruskin Olan Soule Lisa Colm Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): Desperation, greed, wish fulfilment, magic, redemption Parodied? Multiple times Rating: A - Serling’s opening monologue "Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Castle, gentle and infinitely patient people whose lives have been a hope chest with a rusty lock and a lost set of keys. But in just a moment that hope chest will be opened and an improbable phantom will try to bedeck the drabness of these two people's failure laden lives with the gold and precious stones of fulfillment. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Castle, standing on the outskirts and about to enter the Twilight Zone." The last refuge of the truly desperate: the pawnbroker. The problem is, you can be the people’s friend, or you can be a businessman, but you can’t be both, not and still make a living. Mr. Arthur Castle is, however, the former, or tries to be, so that when a woman comes in offering a clearly worthless glass bottle for pawn and looking for a dollar, her situation affects him so that he gives in, knowing himself to be a fool. But he’d rather be a kind fool. So he pays the money and wonders what he’s going to do with an old bottle nobody would pay a cent for, never mind a dollar? But sometimes, kindness is its own reward. And sometimes, not. As his wife gently berates him for being so soft, Arthur knocks the bottle off the counter and the top pops out. And that’s not all that pops out. A thin stream of smoke slowly issues from the neck of the carboy, resolving into a man, who tells them he’s a (say it with me) genie, and can grant them four wishes. Rather foolishly - and obviously wanting to test the veracity of the man’s claims - Arthur wastes his first wish on a trivial matter: the replacing of glass in a broken display case. But when he sees the glass repair before his eyes, suddenly neither he nor his wife are quite so sceptical any more. His wife, however, is scared of the genie, believing him evil, or else worrying that her husband is selling his soul, but Arthur rather predictably asks for a million dollars, which he gets. Suddenly his wife is no longer worried, as the money rains literally down from the sky. Rather nicely, the Castles don’t misspend their money, but use it to help their struggling friends and neighbours, however the big bad taxman steps in, and the IRS tell them they owe virtually all the money to the government. Oh, don’t get me started on the government! Now the truth starts to hit home, as it does in any story with genies - there’s a sting in the tail. All wishes come with real-world consequences which must be faced, and if you’re the wisher you must think extremely carefully and box clever not to be outfoxed by the simple circumstances that will attend your wish. Also, as his frustration grows, Arthur becomes more irritable, less tolerant of his wife, snappy and agitated as he tries to think of a sure-fire wish that won’t come back to bite him and make him wish (sorry) he hadn’t asked for it. His greed is now infecting his wife, who finally succumbs when he decides he wants the genie to make him “the ruler of a powerful country” and puts what caveats he can think of upon the wish, and of course you can see where this is going. When he realises he has been turned into Hitler, he remembers that he has one last wish, and as ever, uses it to undo his last wish, returning to the honest, but broke, pawnbroker he was in the first place. Suddenly his life doesn’t look so bad. Serling’s closing monologue A word to the wise, now, to the garbage collectors of the world, to the curio seekers, to the antique buffs, to everyone who would try to coax out a miracle from unlikely places. Check that bottle you're taking back for a two-cent deposit. The genie you save might be your own. Case in point, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Castle, fresh from the briefest of trips into The Twilight Zone. The Resolution When it comes to genies, we all know how it’s going to end, and when Arthur makes his penultimate wish, it’s way too obvious what’s going to happen. For 1960 yeah, maybe, but to us worldly-wise and jaded viewers of “what-if” stories, nah. Poor. The Moral As with just about every genie tale, the moral is twofold: careful what you wish for, and be happy with what you have. Themes Desperation plays a close role in the lives of the Castles, as they struggle to meet their commitments, pay the bills and keep afloat. It’s like a dark shadow just glimpsed over the shoulder, waiting, reaching, stretching to drag them both down into the abyss. Magic has to be an element, as there’s a genie and wishes involved, and of course where there’s a genie there’s greed, and nobody ever wishes for world peace or love to all men. I’m sure I wouldn’t do that myself. When it comes to wishes, we’re all selfish and insular. Oops! Ah, does Serling not know his history? Hitler died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and yet here his general gives him poison to take. And isn’t that…? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ler_in_DOA.jpg Luther Adler (1903 - 1984) A lot of these older actors have, by the time 1960 rolls around, already played major roles in film and later TV, but as most of these will be unknown even to my generation (Naked City, The Untouchables, 77 Sunset Strip etc) I’m going to see if from here on in I can pull out some interesting nuggets of whimsical information about their career, such as in the last episode, where Robert Cummings had roles in films whose themes or titles had to do with deserts or aircraft. So here, while Adler played in the above shows and also Mission: Impossible and Hawaii Five-0, and appeared in many movies, none of them are big names we would know. However he did star in The Magic Face and Cast a Giant Shadow, each of which could indirectly refer back to genii, but the most interesting is a movie he did in 1975, which was titled The Man in the Glass Booth, which is only one word and indeed three letters removed from the title of this episode. Weird, huh? He also has that kind of face that made me think I definitely knew him, but I realise now I don't. Possibly also interesting, given how he ended up in the story, that both his first and surname seem German… Oh, and I read further too that he played Hitler in two movies, one of which was that one The Magic Face. Spooky! And he was Jewish! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ravel_1962.jpg Vivi Janiss (1911 - 1988) And the coincidences just keep coming! Or should I say, Cumming, as believe it or not, she was married to (drum roll please) Robert Cummings, who we met in the previous episode! No, really. And not only that, in an episode of private eye/comedy series The Rockford Files in 1977, she played a pawnshop owner! You couldn’t make this stuff up! Seems we met her in the season one episode “The Fever”, but I don’t think I noted her as really, beyond the links to the previous episode and this, her film and TV life doesn’t really mark her out. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...MxGGw&usqp=CAU Jack Ruskin (1924 - 2013) Some Star Trek credits here: Ruskin played in four of the franchises, the original series as Galt in “The Gamesters of Triskelion”, Deep Space 9 as the Klingon Tumek in “The House of Quark” and “Looking for Par’mach in All the Wrong Places” and as a Cardassian in “Improbable Cause”, Voyager as a Vulcan Master in “Gravity” and in Enterprise in the episode “Broken Bow”. He was also in the movie Star Trek Insurrection. Apart from that rather impressive roll call, he was in the classic movie Robin and the 7 Hoods, the cult TV series Get Smart, as well as both The Six Million Dollar Man and its spinoff, The Bionic Woman and the movies Prizzi’s Honor and Indecent Proposal. One thing that really strikes me as I do these bios is the fact that someone who may play the smallest, most insignificant part in an episode could have the brightest and most famous career, or at least be a well-travelled actor. So it is with this guy, whose total contribution to the episode is about two minutes, if that. He plays the IRS man (oh boo yourself!) but his resume is impressive. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../Olansoule.jpg Olan Soule (1909 - 1994) With a staggering 7,000 radio commercials and ads under his belt, 60 movies and credits in over 200 TV shows, Soule is probably best known for being the voice of Batman in various animated series, a role which gave him fifteen years of employment, from 1968 - 1983. He also appeared in shows such as Mission: Impossible, Bonanza, The Six Million Dollar Man, Fantasy Island, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Addams Family, Little House on the Prairie, Dallas and Bewitched, and was in movies like North by Northwest, Days of Wine and Roses, The Cincinatti Kid and The Towering Inferno, as well as two classic cult sci-fi movies, This Island Earth and The Day the Earth Stood Still (uncredited in both). Questions, and sometimes, Answers Obviously it’s done for dramatic effect, but why does Arthur have to be Hitler in the bunker at the end? If the genie had been kinder, he could have put him into the dictator’s body during the height of his power. Yes, it would have been abominable to have inhabited that twisted consciousness, but at least he could have “enjoyed” being Hitler for a few years. And do we assume his wife has taken on the persona of Eva Braun? Overly vindictive, I feel. As only his last wish was undone (though he said he wished everything was back as it was) are we to assume that all the money he gave away remains? Did his taxes go to the IRS? And is it even possible that the tax on a million dollars could be almost a million dollars? What is that: like 98% tax? Surely that’s not right, especially in the 1960s? Why four wishes? For story purposes, sure, but general myth and story tradition holds that a genie grants three wishes, not four. Special bargain, one time only, never to be repeated, act now before it’s too late? The Times they are a Changin’ Or not, actually. People are still desperate for money and as you’ll see from such shows as Pawn Stars and Hardcore Pawn, the humble pawnbroker still does a roaring trade. When the bank laughs at you and the credit union kicks you out, your last option before throwing your lot in with the unscrupulous loan sharks or payday loan companies (same thing really) is to head down to that famous sign and see what the man in the shop can do for you. Sussed? I’d have to say yes. It’s hard to come up with a new twist on the old genie story. After all, it goes right back to the 1001 Nights/Arabian Nights (and maybe further), and always takes the same tack: the wisher ends up realising he has been tricked, or not read the small print closely enough, and his last wish undoes everything and sets all back to how it was. Once Arthur made his third wish it was painfully obvious what was going to happen. Had it been his fourth, that might have been better. The WTF Factor Low, 4 at best. Hardly even deserves that. Very very predictable. Personal Notes There is at least some change to the standard genie story, with the creature this time emerging as the bottle opens, not when it’s polished - kind of hard to imagine why Arthur might have bothered polishing an old bottle, which is probably why it was changed - and then at the end the smashed bottle reconstitutes itself, waiting for the next victim. And is there really any need for his narration in the bunker? “Oh no! I’m Hitler!” Is there seriously anyone in the world who doesn’t know that face? Completely and absolutely superfluous and, I feel, a major insult to the viewer’s intelligence. It did however set up a nice parody decades later when Futurama came on air and used stories from The Scary Door as introductions to some of the episodes. |
Quote:
Or you have the case of the guy who, on rubbing the lamp, sees the genie emerge and hears him say "Greetings, master! In return for releasing me from my prison, I shall grant you one wish, any wish you like." "Hang on" says the man. "In every story I have ever heard, the genie grants the person three wishes. What happened to the other two?" "Well, you do get three, but let me explain... you did originally get three wishes, but you don't remember the first two, because your second wish was to undo the first one and make everything like it was before, so no one except me knows that you have already used up the first two. This is actually your third wish." The man looks sceptical about this, but there is not much he can do about it, and having just one wish is a lot better than none... so he thinks long and hard about what to wish for, and finally says: "I know what I want. I've never had much luck with members of the opposite sex. I want to be absolutely irresistible to women!" "Abracadabra!" cries the genie, and there is an explosion of light and thunder. "Done!" he says. "And my work is done too, and so I leave you." Just before flying off in into the distance, he softly intones "Funny. That was your first wish too." |
Like it, like it! :)
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qNCQJzgSS...25281%2529.png |
Then there's the old one. Genie appears, offers man one wish. Man thinks about it and then says "All right, I have it. Build me a bridge to take me to Heaven so I can meet God."
Genie looks at him with pity. "That is impossible. Try again." Man thinks again, hard. Then he nods. "Okay then, what about this? I want to understand women. I want to know what they mean when you ask them what's wrong and they say "nothing". The cold, angry silences. The lost temper. How they remember important dates you forget, and how they can bring up something you said in the heat of an argument years ago and use it against you. I want to know what goes on inside their heads, what they think about, how they feel." Genie sighs. "How high did you want that bridge again?" |
“Anyone ever tell you what you look like? You look like a man trying to catch the subway at five o’clock: you always look like someone’s trying to squeeze you through a door.”
Title: “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room” Original transmission date: October 14 1960 Written by: Rod Serling Directed by: Douglas Heyes Starring: Joe Mantell as Jackie "John" Rhoades William D. Gordon as George Setting: Earth Timeframe: Present (at the time) Theme(s): desperation, second chances, violence, crime, redemption Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no Rating: A Serling's opening monologue This is Mr. Jackie Rhoades, age thirty-four, and where some men leave a mark of their lives as a record of their fragmentary existence on Earth, this man leaves a blot, a dirty, discolored blemish to document a cheap and undistinguished sojourn amongst his betters. What you're about to watch in this room is a strange mortal combat between a man and himself, for in just a moment, Mr. Jackie Rhoades, whose life has been given over to fighting adversaries, will find his most formidable opponent in a cheap hotel room that is in reality the outskirts of The Twilight Zone. Nervous is right. When we first meet him, Jackie Rhoades is biting his fingernails, waiting for a phone call which then comes. It appears to be someone above him, a boss or something, and when Jackie asks what the caller, whose name is George, wants, what his plan is, Jackie falls over himself trying to reassure this George that he is not trying to “cop out”. I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and say this is a criminal who’s been told to wait in a hotel room for instructions on where and when to pull a job. Jackie is very concerned about the heat outside, and the length of time he’s been left waiting, but his impatience and frustration has been interpreted by “George” as a reluctance to carry out the plan, whatever it is. Jackie tries to assure him this is not so. George hangs up, and the nervous man gets even more nervous; the appearance in person of George does not calm him down, in fact if anything it makes him more ill-at-ease. He talks about how he’s one job short of being put away, and asks George if there is something easier he can do? Not this time though. George assures him it will be no shakedown, no delivery to a fence, no: this time he wants him to step up to the big leagues. He’s going to kill a troublesome old bar owner who won’t pay up the protection money. He hands Jackie a gun, but the smalltime crook recoils from it, saying he has beaten people up before (but always, he says, from behind - “I ain’t got no guts!”) but has never killed anyone. Doesn’t know if he can do it. But George is not interested. He’s using Jackie as his hitman precisely because he has never done this before. He’s on the cops’ radar for nickel and dime stuff, but nothing big, so he won’t be suspected when it goes down. When George leaves, warning Jackie that if he doesn’t do the job he’ll be killed himself, Jackie has a conversation with himself in the mirror. Until the mirror reflection of him comes to life. Uh-huh. There it is, another, harder, tougher, less compromising and certainly less nervous version of himself, berating him from beyond the glass. The reflection tells him it is part of him, an older, long-forgotten part, an aspect of his being that could have made it big, but when the time came to take a fork in the road, Jackie went the way of the smalltime hoodlum, and now he has a chance to finally correct that. Thinking - unsurprisingly - that he is going mad, Jackie tries to first talk to and then avoid his reflection, but it’s in every mirror he looks in. As he can’t avoid it, he starts talking to his reflection (well, continues talking to it, but properly now) as it tells him about all the bad choices he has made in his life, how he could have been a good man, a good husband, stayed out of jail, made something of himself. His reflection it seems is that, for want of another word, good part of him that Jackie suppressed and never let out, that he ignored and resisted, and now he’s going to get killed, and with his death the reflection will die too. He wants to take over, live Jackie’s life properly, the way it should have been lived - a good life, a happy life, a successful life free of crime and guns and the Georges of this world. Thinking he has worked out the trick, Jackie pushes the dresser on which the mirror is standing away, but there’s nothing behind it. Desperately, he spins the mirror on its hinge and suddenly…. When George returns to berate Jackie for not killing the old man, it’s a new Jackie he finds. He’s beaten up, kicked out and the new Jackie tells the old - now imprisoned in the mirror and wondering what will become of him - that a whole new chapter of his life has been opened. He leaves the four dollar room, never to return. Serling's closing monologue Exit Mr. John Rhoades, formerly a reflection in a mirror, a fragment of someone else's conscience, a wishful thinker made out of glass, but now made out of flesh, and on his way to join the company of men. Mr. John Rhoades, with one foot through the door and one foot out of the Twilight Zone. The Resolution Very predictable, and clumsily handled, I feel. The story has been leading up to the mirror Jackie taking over, and that’s exactly what happens. Bah. The Moral Make a change with the man in the mirror? Serling's Appearance It’s interesting to see that while, in the last two episodes, Serling's entrance was rather mundane - walking in the desert or into the pawn shop - the kind of thing where if you didn’t know who he was you might just assume he was an extra, in this one the perspective skews. We see a top-down view of the room with Jackie lying on the bed, and Serling superimposed over it, standing, so that it seems like he floats above the room. Maybe it’s meant to convey his godlike presence as the agent of fate or whatever, but it’s odd. Later we also see Jackie in top-down mode, but this time without the narrator. Themes Madness, as Jackie thinks he’s gone insane, talking to his own reflection. Also desperation; he knows he has nothing to look forward to, and fears what will happen both if he kills the old man on George’s instructions and if he does not. Second chances as he is given the opportunity to live a life he could have had, had he made better choices. Crime, a recurrent motif in the show, is here too, and I guess you could also add in magic or even doppelgangers, with redemption finally taking centre stage. And isn't that...? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ew_York_02.jpg Joe Mantell (1915 - 2010) Best known for being the speaker of the final line in the classic 1974 Jack Nicholson movie Chinatown - “Forget it, Jake: it’s Chinatown!” Mantell also had a role in Hitchcock’s The Birds, albeit a small one, and, well, that’s kind of it really. Again I thought I knew him but I don’t. Questions, and sometimes, Answers Is it not a little silly how easily George - whom we’re led to understand is a big time crime boss, a kingpin, allows George to defy him and doesn’t even retaliate? Sure, the biggest bullies are usually the biggest cowards, but why doesn’t he shoot him, or get some of his guys to do so later on? But he just folds, and runs off. As if. Iconic? Not at all. Those clever little touches There’s a good line in dialogue, kind of stolen later by Police Squad! When he’s talking to his reflection Jackie says “nobody tells me what to do!” A moment later the phone rings and it’s George, and with all his pent-up anger suddenly deflated out of him, he mumbles “sure George, I’m doing what you told me to do.” Sussed? No, not really. I was thinking along other lines. When Jackie’s mirror image started berating him I thought this might be where he found the guts he said he hadn’t got to do the job, and that it might in fact have given him confidence and made him a tougher criminal. Guess that would have been a poor message to put out though. The WTF Factor Another low one, maybe a 4 again. Personal Notes This and the first episode have been masterclasses in one-person acting. It’s got to be hard, acting a scene in which there is nobody else, so much more so when it’s a whole episode, but both actors pull it off very well. Great. Now I read that the whole reason for there being only two actors in total was to save costs! That’s my bubble burst then. Oh well, it doesn’t invalidate the powerful solo performance of Joe Mantell. |
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