It is the weekend of July 4th. And as
long as I can remember at least one channel, cable or otherwise, will be
spending two or three days in another dimension. A dimension not only of sight
and sound but of mind. With that theme music, that narration, millions are
still crossing over into The Twilight Zone.
I don't know of any series that stretches this
far back into the dawn of television that still has such a hold on viewers more
than sixty five years after it debuted. We've been living in this world
since it debuted and I find it hard to believe there isn't a person living
today who hasn't seen at least one episode of it in their lifetime. And even
those few who might not have still know about it. Twilight Zone is one
of those phrases we all know about; have seen some kind of satire on in
Saturday morning cartoons, who've seen parodies of it on other television
shows; who couldn't hum the theme music even if they've never seen it. And I
certainly don't of any show from that far back in TV's history that is
continuously rebooted on an almost regular basis. It has been reimagined three
separate times almost every twenty years since his first left the air: in 1984
on CBS, in 2002 on the UPN, on Paramount Plus in 2017. And no matter much the
behind the scenes talent associated with, no matter who they get to star in it,
no matter who does the narration, it never lasts long.
Now I could argue part of the reason that doesn't
happen is because the talent can never match Rod Serling and his band of
assembled writers. But there's been some pretty good talent in several of the
versions. The 1980s version had such master craftsmen as Harlan Ellison and
George R.R. Martin working for it and Jordan Peele's films could have just as
easily come from the kind of school of story Rod Serling used to tell. And it's
not like the world we live in hasn't become darker with each new incarnation with
new bleaker threats that are their with each reincarnation of the show. Hell,
in the 21st century we've basically perfected sci-fi and fantasy so
well that it seems every other hit show on cable or streaming takes place in a
dystopian world. That might conceivably make the Twilight Zone superfluous.
That said I've watched a lot of television in my
life. Not just practically every episode of the original Twilight Zone as
well as quite a bit of the first two reboots. I've also seen a lot of the other
anthology series that followed it. I include not just Serling's own Night
Gallery but many of the anthology series that were around about the same
time as the 1980s version of the show and many of the ones that aired prior to
the UPN version. These include such minor classics as Tales from The
Darkside but The Hitchhiker, the 1990s remake of The Outer Limits
and the 2000s Showtime anthology Tales of Horror. Some were better
than others; some of the lesser ones had good episodes. I've learned some
things from all of them. And I think the reason that none of the reimagined
versions that have come (and let's not kid ourselves there will be others that
follow) have failed is because they all missed the key element from the
original.
Having watched and worshipped so much of the
original series I finally realized what made The Twilight Zone special
and that so many future anthology series missed. It's that for all of the bleak
and miserable settings of the overwhelming majority of the episodes Serling and
his colleagues were rarely cynical when it came to either their characters or
their plots. By that I mean while their settings were frequently dark and took
place in a despairing present or future, they used these settings to tell morality
stories. In these stories, the supernatural was used to punish the wicked and
reward the righteous. There were exceptions to that rule and many of them were
classics – 'Time Enough at Last,' 'It's a Good Life' 'Number 12 Looks Like Just
You' are among the most famous – but
that rule generally played out with the very best episodes of the original
series.
I could give quite a few examples of that to
prove my point but I think I will limit this particular article to three of the
best episodes in the series. One of them is the most famous; one of them has a
life far beyond the original series, but all of them prove my basic point. All
of them were written by Serling himself and that's not a coincidence. Not only
did he write 62 of the first 93 episodes of the series but of all the writers
his view of his characters was the most humane by far.
'Judgement
Night' was very early in the show's run – in fact it was the sixth episode
Serling wrote. It aired December 4th 1959. The episode is set on the
S.S. Queen of Glasgow. As Serling's narration tells us: "she is one day
out of Liverpool, her destination New York." There is a mood of fear on
the ship that 'washes over a deck like fog and ocean spray…For the year is 1942,
and this particular ship has lost in convoy (military protection during the
second World War for Allied Ships). For that reason "the Queen of
Glasgow is a frightened ship and she carries with her a premonition of
death."
The first passenger we meet is a German named
Carl Lanser, played by Nehemiah Persoff (who was born in Jerusalem). Lanser
can't remember how he got there, but he has the feeling he has met the
passengers before. As the night continues he has an increasing certainty that
an enemy sub is stalking the ship and a premonition, something will happen at 1:15
AM. He tries to tell the passengers and the crew of this but they ignore him.
Then at precisely 1:15 a U-boat surfaces. Lanser peers through binoculars and
sees the captain is…himself!
He runs across the deck, desperately trying to
warn the passengers and the crew, only to find himself now alone on it. The U-boat
torpedoes the helpless freighter and then the crew members kill the survivors.
Later that night Lt. Mueller is troubled by what
happened and talks to Kapitan Lanser. Lanser feels no remorse for what he has
done and scoffs at the idea that they should have given a warning. The lieutenant
suggests that they might all face eternal damnation. He says those passengers
might die only once, but the crew will have to relive it over and over for
eternity. The episode ends with a close up of Lanser and then cuts back to the
beginning with Lanser awake on the ship.
Serling's summation demonstrates his beliefs:
"The S.S Queen of Glasgow, heading for New
York and the time is 1942. For one man, it is always 1942 – and this man will
ride the ghost of that ship every night for eternity. This is what is meant by
paying the fiddler. This is the comeuppance awaiting every man when the ledger
of his life is opened and examined, the tally made and then the reward or the
penalty paid. And in the case of Carl Lanser, former Kapitan Lieutenant, Navy
of the Third Reich, this is the penalty. This is the justice meted out. This is
judgment night in the Twilight Zone."
Serling, it's worth noting, had fought in World
War II though in the Pacific Front rather than the Eastern One. Many of his
best episodes would deal with the war and his feelings of justice towards the Nazis.
In his mind this was the kind of cosmic justice his stories would frequently
play out and it does for Lanser, who will always have to relive the great evil
he has set out.
The next episode aired in Season 2 and is
rightfully considered one of the show's all time masterpieces. Airing on
November 11th 1960, it's called alternatively 'Eye of the Beholder'
or 'A Private World Of Darkness'.
The episode tells the story of Janet Tyler who is
known as Patient 307. She is treated by a doctor and two nurses. All of them
speak mournfully of Tyler, who they all say has a hideously abnormal face that
has made her an outcast. She has made eleven visits to the hospital for
treatment for her condition – the maximum allowed by the state. If it fails she
must be sent to a village where others of 'her type' are forced to live.
Throughout the episode Tyler (voiced by Maxine
Stuart) sounds in horrific agony, her desire to just be normal underlying
everything. Finally she convinced the doctor to take the bandages that encircle
her face off to see if the treatment has succeeded. The doctor finally agrees
and slowly the bandages are removed one at a time. (The wondrous effect was achieved
by director of photography George T. Clemens wrapping a fishbowl in bandages
and hanging over the lens to make it seem like we're seeing the world through
her point of view." Finally the last bandage comes off.
"No change!" the doctor says in horror.
"The operation has been a failure." Tyler is exceptionally beautiful
(she's played by Donna Douglas, who would eventually play Ellie Clampett on The
Beverly Hillbillies. We see the faces of the nurses and doctors and they
are horribly misshapen, asymmetrical, with the noses resembling snouts. Tyler
runs from her room in despair and anguish as we hear the voice – and finally
see on the screen – of the Leader of the State, speaking of a glorious
conformity.
Finally she runs into a room where she meets
Walter Smith, a strikingly handsome man in charge of an outcast village in the
north. He has come to take her there. She wonders why she has to look like
this. And he tells her of an old saying: "Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder."
A calmer Donna leaves the hospital with Walter.
The staff is lined up to say goodbye to her. None of them speak with judgment,
all of them speaking with sympathy. This was a decision, I should add that was
not in Serling's original script. He wanted the doctors and nurses to be
presented as unsympathetic. The director Douglas Heyes, one of the best directors
the show had, thought that would be a tip-off. Indeed he actually cast the
episode by not looking at the actors. "I kept my back to them until after
I heard them," he said later. "because what I wanted from the doctors
and nurses was the most sympathetic voices I could hear."
Heyes' decision was the correct one as is his
incredible skill in filming the episode. It's blocked so effectively and so
well done that's it not until the climax of the final reveal that the viewer
realizes they've never seen the faces of any of the people in the hospital. And
as a result this came together for what is one of the greatest episodes in the
show's history.
And there's something telling in Serling's final
narration:
Now the questions that come to mind. Where is
this place and when is it, what kind of world where ugliness is the norm and
beauty the deviation from that norm? The answer is it doesn't make any difference.
Because the old saying happens to be true. Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, in this year or a hundred years from now, on this planet or wherever
there is human life, perhaps out among the stars. Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder. Lesson to be learned…in the Twilight Zone."
What's clear in the episode is how impartial Serling
is with his judgement. Conformity is considered important but so is perception.
Maybe that's why you can take the final scene of Janet leaving the hospital in
one of two ways. The doctors are genuinely sympathetic to her fate…or they're
glad to have this abnormal freak gone from their hospital. It's all in the eye
of the beholder.
The last example I will submit is one that has
become iconic outside the show: Season 3's 'The Little People'. Both The
Simpsons and South Park have satirized and I imagine so have other
shows. But in both cases they missed the forest for the trees, though that's
kind of the point of satire.
Airing on March 30, 1962. The show is set in the
space age on a planet millions of miles from Earth. The crew has two members: Commander
William Fletcher (Claude Akins) and his co-pilot Peter Craig (Joe Maross). Their
ship has been damaged by meteors and they have to set down in a canyon to
repair it, or they will be marooned forever with no hope of rescue. There's
tension between the two men as Craig doesn't like following orders.
While Fletcher works on the engines Craig
investigates the terrain. He discovers an Earth-type civilization populated by
people no taller than ants. We never see them but we will occasionally hear them.
Craig tries to keep this secret but Fletcher finds out. Fletcher is in awe of
this as an explorer. Craig, however, gives in to his worse influences,
believing himself a god fit to rule over them. He demonstrates it by randomly
stamping on their houses. Fletcher shoves him aside: "You're not God, but
you've probably convinced them to believe in the devil." He then pleads
for their forgiveness. (Akins has a knack for being the voice of reason; in the
classic 'The Monsters are Due on Maple Street', he plays the one neighbor who
tries to convince his neighbors not to give into hysteria and become a mob.)
By the time the ship is repaired, 'the little
people' have built a giant statue of Craig. He tells Fletcher he's staying,
pulling a gun on him. "There's no room for two gods." Fletcher blasts
off and leaves him behind. Craig's behavior is maniacal is his ranting. Then,
however, another ship arrives. Two spacemen arrive, humanoid in appearance,
towering over him. Hysterically he screams at them to go away. Drawn by the noise,
one of them picks him up and inadvertently crushes him. They go to complete
their repairs, throwing him to the ground as the way we would throw a bug.
The last image of 'The Little People' makes it
clear just how glad the title characters are he is gone. They tear down the
statue they were forced to erect now that their 'god' is dead.
Serling has the last word as always:
"The case of navigator Peter Craig, a victim
of a delusion. In this case, the dream dies a little harder than the man. A
small case in space psychology that you can try on for size – in the Twilight
Zone."
(In hindsight, a lot of Serling's summations had
their share of dad jokes but delivered with a dark edge.)
Obviously one can read whatever real life
psychology one wants as to Serling's reference in this story about real life
references to heads of state. In this case, I suspect it has more to do with
Serling's attitudes towards the bullies and ogres of the world and their own
personal inferiority complexes that cause them to strike out.
I have focused on Serling's work in this piece
but I could refer it to the two other major writers who produced the most
episodes: Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Neither had the same warmth
for their characters that Serling did but both of them used their stories to
talk about human nature and the human spirit.
We see this in Matheson's favorite script 'Steel'
in which Lee Marvin plays 'Steel' Kelly, the manager of a B-2 fighting robot
who is promoted him in a fight to get money for repairs. The battle ends predictably
but even seeing him pummeled to a pulp he manages to keep going. The final narration
says that no matter what:
Man's potential for tenacity and optimism
continues, as always, to outfight, outpunch and outlive any and all changes in
his society, for which three cheers and a unanimous decision rendered…
That's pretty optimistic even by today's
standards.
Charles Beaumont had a similar view in many of
his stories. Take one of the show's attempts for an hourlong piece in 1963: 'Miniature'.
The episode tells the story of Charley Parkes (a very early performance by
Robert Duvall, a shy bachelor who doesn't fit in. He goes to a part of the
museum and sees a lifelike mechanical doll, playing Mozart on a harpsichord. He
learns not only is the doll carved out of wood; it doesn't play music. Charley
looses his job, begins to spend more and more time at the museum, and
eventually falls in love with the doll. He's temporarily institutionalized and when
he gets out runs to the museum. He finds the doll weeping tears of loneliness.
He tells her he understands; he's always been alone.
Eventually his family comes to the museum and
there's no sign of him. The guards peeps in – and there are two miniature
figures inside. One of them is the doll – and the other is Charley.
Beaumont had his own issues in life but in
scripts like this and a few others, he believed that there is someone for
everyone and there is a place for us in the universe.
The reboots of The Twilight Zone and indeed
so many of the anthology shows that have followed in its wake never get is that
they focus too much energy on the final reveal and never about a message. Indeed
for so many of these shows, particularly Tales from the Darkside and The
Outer Limits remake, the final twist is not to reveal a sense of justice
but to demonstrate the failures of humanity as a whole. The wicked are punished
but so are the good. Sometimes even when they do everything right they still
end up failing and not just their loved ones but in most cases humanity ends up
paying the ultimate price.
Serling's Twilight Zone believed in a moral
universe with a kind of clarity to things even in the darkest times. And one
can't argue that Serling was looking at the world with rose-colored glasses: he'd
already seen the Holocaust and the Red Scare play out (he wrote about both directly
and indirectly on The Twilight Zone), there was the constant threat of
nuclear annihilation (also a major player in so many great episodes) and no one
was sure how the civil rights battle was going to come out during the early
1960s. No one would consider The Twilight Zone a feel good series and
there were episodes where Serling's narration did take the tone of moralizing.
But that was for a reason: Serling was arguing for his audience not to give up
the fight, that even in our darkest hour we have to keep trying to find the
light. Serling's successors believe sincerely the war is over and the good guys
have lost. Serling would argue that's exactly the time to keep fighting.
That may be the main reason I'm always drawn back
to the show, whether it's in a marathon or when it airs in syndication late at
night. It's not 'just' that it's one of the greatest series ever made; it's
that it reminds us there's something optimistic about in a way that even some
of the best television these days rarely tries for. It tells us in a dystopian society;
the individual can still make a stand against the oppressors. It tells us that
for those who choose to judge the horrible, they will face a retribution far worse
than any they might think. And it tells us that even after the world ends, there's
still a chance if we can just let go of the thinks that divide us. (I've referred
to specific episodes; I'll leave the curious viewers to find for themselves.)
All we have to do is go to the middle ground between science and superstition
that lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. There
we can find it in stories that are timeless as infinity.
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