The Couch Potato Presents: Trollheart Falls Into "The Twilight Zone"

[Trollheart]

Title: "The Hitch-Hiker"
Original transmission date: January 22 1960
Written by: Rod Serling, from the play by Lucille Fletcher
Directed by: Alvin Ganzer
Starring: Inger Stevens as Nan Adams
Leonard Strong as The Hitch-Hiker
Adam Williams as Sailor
Russ Bender as Counterman
Lew Gallo as Mechanic
George Mitchell as Gas Station Man
Eleanor Audley as Mrs. Whitney (voice)


Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Terror, death, pursuit
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating:

Serling's opening monologue

Her name is Nan Adams. She's twenty-seven years old. Her occupation: buyer at a New York department store. At present on vacation, driving cross-country to Los Angeles, California from Manhattan...Minor incident on Highway 11 in Pennsylvania. Perhaps, to be filed away under "accidents you walk away from." But from this moment on, Nan Adams' companion on a trip to California will be terror. Her route: fear. Her destination: quite unknown.

A mechanic fixes up a young girl's car after it has spun out, marvelling that she's alive at all. She follows him into town to get a spare tyre, but then gets shivers when she sees a hitch-hiker standing by the side of the road. When she points him out to the mechanic, he can't see him and when she looks again he is gone. She drives off, but keeps seeing him on the road. Somehow he always seems to be ahead of her. The guy in the cafe she stops at feels it would be unlikely anyone would be hitching on the turnpike.

When he actually approaches her, she drives off in terror, and when her car dies on a level crossing and she almost gets hit by a train, he is there again, thumbing, beckoning her, and she now is convinced he is trying to kill her. When her car runs out of gas in the night she tries to wake up the gas station owner but he's a prick and won't come down. Then she meets a sailor on the way back to his ship in San Diego. She asks him to accompany her, saying she will give him a ride back to San Diego (she's heading to LA anyway) but she has no gas. The sailor bangs on the door and he's not as easily put off as she was, so the old man has to give them the gas.

They set off, and it's not long before they come across the hitch-hiker. Nan tries to run him down, but the sailor says he saw nobody, and spooked by her reaction, decides to leave her and strike out on his own. She tries to persuade him to stay but he has had enough, and she is left alone. Reaching a diner she uses a payphone to call home, but is shattered when she is told her mother suffered a nervous breakdown when she heard of the death of her daughter in a road accident.

And now she knows.

The hitch-hiker is Death, and he wants to ride with her because she is dead too.

She never survived the accident, she was killed, and she's been running from the realisation of her death ever since.

Serling's closing monologue

Nan Adams, age twenty-seven. She was driving to California; to Los Angeles. She didn't make it. There was a detour... through the Twilight Zone.

The Resolution

Superb. The idea being created that the hitch-hiker is evil, deadly, menacing, is trying to get her to kill herself becomes nothing more than the inevitable realisation and acceptance that she has already died.

The Moral

You can't outrun death, and when it's time to go you have no choice.

Questions, and sometimes, Answers

Why was the gas station owner so ornery? Sure, he was annoyed at being woken up, but this is a young woman on her own in the dark in the night with no gas. Surely some form of male chivalry would beat in his heart, if not, the fact that she's pretty and he could be seen to do a good deed for her would be enough for most old men. Does he not worry that she might be attacked in the night? He can go back to bed and sleep soundly knowing that?

Picking up the sailor is surely a bad move, even in what I guess is the 1960s. The guy is young and strong, and she's very pretty. He kind of looms over her in the car, and the first time I watched this I thought, that guy is gonna attack her and then the hitch-hiker is going to come up and save her, showing that he wasn't evil after all. Didn't happen, but still: giving a ride to a randy sailor in the middle of nowhere, dead of night? Hardly smart, is it?

And if she is dead, how come everyone can see her? The mechanic, the old man at the gas station, the sailor, the guy in the cafe? How can she eat, and drink? How can she drive? How can she use the telephone?

The Times they are a-changin'

Yeah, like I say, wouldn't happen today. Single girl, very pretty, picking up a single male in the night on her own? Recipe for disaster.

Ten or Less Things I Hate About You

This is a new section in which I'll be detailing, if there are any, the aspects of the episode I didn't care for.

1. The irascibility of the old man, as mentioned in the Questions section - what's his deal? We'll see this later in another episode, proving I guess that for some dried-up old husks of men, even a pretty face can't melt a heart of stone.

2. The somewhat improbable circumstance of a young pretty girl giving a sailor a lift and not getting attacked. I feel this is a little too hard to swallow, keep your dirty thoughts to yourselves please

3. Her desperation to keep him there in the car with her, even going so far as to promise him a date. It's embarrassing.

4. The inconsistencies with her apparently being dead but still in the living world, able to interact with it.

[Trollheart]

Title: "The Fever"
Original transmission date: January 29 1960
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Robert Florey
Starring: Everett Sloane as Franklin Gibbs
Vivi Janiss as Flora Gibbs


Setting: Earth (Las Vegas)
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Addiction, obsession, madness, gambling
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating:


Serling's opening monologue

Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Gibbs, three days and two nights all expenses paid at a Las Vegas hotel, won by virtue of Mrs. Gibbs's knack with a phrase. But unbeknownst to either Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs is the fact that there's a prize in their package, neither expected nor bargained for. In just a moment, one of them will succumb to an illness worse than any virus can produce. A most inoperative, deadly life-shattering affliction known as the Fever.


A man and woman who have won a competition to spend a few days in Las Vegas argue as the husband, a stuffy Puritan type, disapproves highly of gambling and refuses to lighten up. Suffering her to spend the holiday, he nevertheless refuses to let her gamble. However when a drunk who has lost his shirt on one of the machines forces a coin into his hand and leaves him to play the machine, Franklin wins. Surprised, he determines to take the money he has won back to the hotel room, rather than, as he says these "baboons" would do, shovel it back in and lose it all. As he leaves though, he seems to hear someone call his name...

The voice continues to call him, and soon he can't sleep. He keeps watching the pile of coins, and eventually decides he can't keep them, must go back down to the casino and put them all back into the machine, lose them all, get rid of them. He's soon hooked though of course, and once the coins are gone he starts cashing cheques, trying to win back all the money he has lost. He becomes irritable, irrational, obsessive, standing at the machine till morning, convinced it will eventually pay out. Of course it doesn't, and when the arm jams as he puts in his last dollar, he loses it and accuses the machine of taunting him, of being alive, of deliberately breaking down so it wouldn't have to pay out. He pushes the machine over, and is escorted from the casino.

Back at the hotel, he keeps hearing the sound of the machine's voice calling his name, and when he opens the door it's there, advancing towards him, taunting him, laughing at him. He backs away, away - his wife tries to convince him there is nothing there - but he keeps retreating towards the window until he falls out of it and is killed. As a final insult, or joke, the last dollar he lost, the one that got caught in the machine, rolls out to land beside him.

Serling's closing monologue

Mr. Franklin Gibbs, visitor to Las Vegas, who lost his money, his reason, and finally his life to an inanimate, metal machine, variously described as a "one-armed bandit", a "slot machine", or, in Mr. Franklin Gibbs' words, a "monster with a will all of its own." For our purposes, we'll stick with the latter definition because we're in the Twilight Zone.

The Resolution

Poetic justice really. The man who rails against gambling becomes so addicted that he loses his reason and ends up falling out of his window to his death. Or, if you prefer, is haunted by a slot machine and forced out the window. Either way, gambling ends up being the death of him.

The Moral

Clearly, gambling is for mugs. Gamblers only play to lose, not to win. Quit while you're ahead.

Themes

Obsession and addiction play the largest parts in this episode. Once hooked, Franklin cannot stop playing the machine. He tells his wife this is because he has to win back the money he's so far lost, and as far as it goes, this is true. However, in reality he just can't stop playing. He's become a slave to the one-armed bandit, and could not more walk away than he could stop breathing.

Obsession and gambling usually go hand in hand, of course. Gambling is an obsession, an obsession with winning, or trying to win. While Franklin initially puts all the money he has won back into the machine, he can't leave it at that, and has to keep playing. He's now hooked, and the family fortune is being fed to what Homer Simpson once called Gamblor.

Madness features too, of course: did Franklin go crazy, thinking the machine was coming for him? Well of course he did... didn't he? His wife neither heard nor saw the machine, and you have to wonder how an inanimate machine with no power of propulsion could have somehow made it up to their room, and not only that, then been down on the ground beside the lifeless body of Franklin, to deliver the final insult.

Questions, and sometimes, Answers

On their arrival, the manager of the casino tells the couple they have "unlimited credit" (absolutely would never happen - casino would quickly go broke but that's what he says). If this is the case, why then does Franklin have to use his own money to gamble? Why, when he goes up to cash his first cheque, does the teller not advise him he has unlimited credit?

Considering how much he hates/hated gambling, why did Franklin go to Las Vegas, the Mecca of the gambler? Why didn't he let someone else go with his wife? And even if he had to go, did he realistically not expect his wife to want to gamble?

Iconic?

No, this is a one-off episode and I don't recall anyone else doing it.

Those clever little touches

When the gambling machine is coming for Franklin, seeming to call his name, a slot in its base is curved upwards, and looks like a mouth smiling or grinning. Also, when it "speaks", you can hear the sound of coins rolling in the sound, a little like in Pink Floyd's "Money".

Ten or less things I hate about you

1. The irascibility of Franklin, how he's determined not only to not enjoy himself, but to ensure his wife does not, either.

2. The plot hole where he has to use his own money. As I said above, he's supposed to have limitless credit. I suppose you could stretch a point and say that since the wife won the contest, she might have to be with him in order for that credit to be extended, but this is America in the 1960s: a man having to ask a woman for money? Ridiculous.

3. The unnecessary death. Franklin falls out the window, when he could just as easily died of a heart attack in the room. Although it's clearly obvious he's imagining the machine pursuing him, if somehow it was, then there's no way it could be down on the ground floor when he falls.

Personal Notes

This was the first of the "funny" Twilight Zone episodes, and while it's patently ridiculous it is good fun. It's nice to see Serling could preach on the evils of gambling without getting all high-handed about it, inject a lot of humour into what is essentially a very dark subject for a lot of people.

[Trollheart]

Title: "The Last Flight"
Original transmission date: February 5 1960
Written by: Richard Matheson
Directed by: William F. Claxton
Starring: Kenneth Haigh as Flight Lt. Decker
Simon Scott as Major Wilson
Alexander Scourby as General Harper
Robert Warwick as Air Vice Marshal Alexander Mackaye
Harry Raybould as Corporal
Jerry Catron as Guard
Jack Perkins as Mechanic
Paul Baxley as Jeep driver


Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Cowardice, bravery, second chance, time travel
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating:

Serling's opening monologue

Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time - and time in this case can be measured in eternities.

A British pilot from World War I lands at an American airfield in the present, and when taken to the commanding officer is told he is in 1959. Finding this hard to believe - duh - he mentions his friend "Mac", Alexander McKay, and is told with extreme scepticism for his story by the base commander that Air Vice Marshall McKay is in fact due there to inspect the facility. The pilot believes this impossible, as he tells them McKay is dead. He tells them that when he last saw McKay he was encircled by seven German aircraft, and later confesses that he himself is a coward, afraid to engage the enemy. He says he has to put on a face, because to be a coward is bad enough, but admitting to, or even worse, being proven one is a fate worse than death.

He's placed under "protective custody" while the base awaits the arrival of the Air Vice Marshall, though Decker is reluctant to meet his old friend, believing he will be recognised for what he is. Unable to understand how McKay can still be alive, when, as he tells the major, he left him to die, ran off, Decker suddenly gets it. The only reason Mac is alive has to be that he, Decker, changed his mind and went back to help him. He had to come 42 years into the future to learn the truth, that he could save him, but if he stays where he is then the chances are, the two men will never meet in 1959 because McKay will have died in 1917.

Desperate, he slugs the major and breaks out, racing to his aircraft. The major tries to detain him but he gets away, back up into the sky. A short while later, the major is being upbraided by the general for having let him escape when Air Vice Marshall McKay arrives. The major asks him about Decker, and McKay tells them the man saved his life back in World War I. Says he looked as if he was running out on him but then came back, took out three of the German fighters before they got him. In amazement, the general shows McKay the personal effects he had confiscated from Decker, and McKay, dumbfounded, confirms they belong to his old friend.

Serling's closing monologue

Dialog from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Dialog from a play written long before men took to the sky: There are more things in heaven and earth and in the sky than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, and the earth, lies the Twilight Zone.

The Resolution

A good one. A man who needs the courage to do what needs to be done finds it in the future, finding that his friend, who would otherwise be long dead, has distinguished himself in the next world war and risen in the ranks, and realises he has to go back to help him survive, facing his own cowardice and giving his life bravely.

The Moral

Everyone gets a second chance, it's up to them how they use it?

Themes

Cowardice, bravery, being given a second chance. Time lines, which should, of course, have shifted when Decker came to the future, meaning McKay should have been dead. And maybe he was; until that helicopter bringing him to the air force base landed, who knew who would have stepped out of it, depending on what Decker did? It's good to to see Matheson - this being entirely written by him - tackling the thorny idea of cowardice in the armed forces. It can't be that every young man who went to war did so with no fear, and while cowardice would be liable to get you killed as much by your own side as that of the enemy, it was surely a constant threat to those who fought for liberty.

I believe this is also the first time travel story, if you don't count "Walking Distance".

The Times they are a Changin'

Decker mentions that he has often thought of allowing himself to be captured by the Germans, remarking that pilots get the best treatment. Yes, back in WW I they did, seen as some sort of knights of the sky, gentlemen flyers, worthy adversaries. By the time World War II came around though it was a very different matter!

Personal Notes

This is the very first Twilight Zone episode in which Serling basically has no input, the story having been written by Richard Matheson (whose stories had been adapted for two previous ones) from his own work, "Flight".

[Trollheart]

Title: "The Purple Testament"
Original transmission date: February 12 1960
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Richard L. Bare
Starring: William Reynolds
Dick York
Barney Phillips
Warren Oates
Paul Mazursky
Ron Masak
William Phipps
S. John Launer
Marc Cavell


Setting: Earth (Philippines)
Timeframe: Second World War, 1945
Theme(s): War, prediction of the future, death, isolation, paranoia
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating:

Serling's opening monologue

Infantry platoon, U.S. Army, Philippine Islands, 1945. These are the faces of the young men who fight, as if some omniscient painter had mixed a tube of oils that were at one time earth brown, dust gray, blood red, beard black, and fear—yellow white, and these men were the models. For this is the province of combat, and these are the faces of war.

An officer in the US Army serving in the Philippine Islands in World War II seems to have developed the strange - and unwanted - power to divine when men are going to die. He sees a purple light in their faces, and knows they're marked for death. He confides this to his CO but of course is not believed. While visiting one of the wounded in the hospital, the officer, "Fitz" Fitzgerald sees the light in the kid's face, faints and sure enough when he regains consciousness he finds that the soldier has passed away in the bed. When he sees the light in the face of his commanding officer he is shocked, and tries to get the captain not to go on the raid, but the captain thinks he's just overworked and seeing things.

The captain is of course killed, and when Fitz is recalled to headquarters for observation, he sees in his shaving mirror the light in his own face, and knows he will never make it back alive. He is to be evacuated back home for medical evaluation, but soon after his jeep has disappeared into the jungle there's a loud explosion.

Serling's closing monologue


From William Shakespeare, Richard the Third, a small excerpt. The line reads, 'He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war.' And for Lieutenant William Fitzgerald, A Company, First Platoon, the testament is closed. Lieutenant Fitzgerald has found the Twilight Zone.

The Resolution

Not bad. No explanation of course, but then you seldom if ever get one in The Twilight Zone.

The Moral

Other than war is hell? I guess when your number's up, there's not a lot you can do about it.

Themes

The horror of war is the main one here, allied to the pain of being able to predict which men will come back from a mission, and which won't. So it involves combat and also a sense of precognition. Fear, too, which is of course endemic to war, but a different kind of fear. Fear from his own men, that he can see if they are going to die (and so, in some twisted way, they probably blame him for this) and fear, too, from the lieutenant, who feels he has become an albatross hanging around the neck of the squad, and refuses to tell the men whom he sees are marked for death that they're not coming back, but the relationship has changed, become strained, fraught with tension, and he must feel very isolated.

Iconic?

Not sure if it's the first to feature a sort of presentiment of death, probably not, but this would become a recurring theme in science fiction over the years. Wasn't there a movie called The Medusa Touch, or am I misremembering? What about Knowing? What about fucking off - well, how rude!


Personal Notes

Just one comment to make: the captain in this is called Riker, spelled that way, and I just wonder if Roddenberry had seen this episode and if it influenced his naming of Captain Picard's famous "Number One"?

Well, two actually. Isn't it interesting that Serling's closing quotes on both this and the last episode reference Shakespeare? No? Sod ya then.

[Trollheart]

Title: "Elegy"
Original transmission date: February 19 1960
Written by: Charles Beaumont, from his story
Directed by: Douglas Heynes
Starring: Cecil Kellaway
Jeff Morrow
Kevin Hagen
Don Dubbins


Setting: An asteroid
Timeframe: 2085
Theme(s): Death, Commercialism, social status
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating:



Serling's opening monologue

The time is the day after tomorrow. The place: a far corner of the universe. A cast of characters: three men lost amongst the stars. Three men sharing the common urgency of all men lost. They're looking for home. And in a moment, they'll find home; not a home that is a place to be seen, but a strange unexplainable experience to be felt.

Off-course and drifting in space, the crew of a spaceship locate an Earthlike planet and land. More than Earthlike - it's identical, except everything seems to be frozen in place. They're soon disabused of the notion that this could in fact be Earth by the older technology - it appears to be about 200 years in the past - and, more importantly and conclusively, two suns in the sky. When they encounter people, they too all seem to be frozen, and one falls over when one of the spacemen pushes him lightly. Hearing music, they rush to the bandstand but the music seems to be piped in, though there's a full band, standing like models.

They consider the possibility that time might be moving at a different speed for them. They decide to split up, to see if there is anyone living they can contact, but though they come across a party where a man is dancing with his wife, a beauty contest and a card game in session, nobody moves or talks, or responds. Then, unseen by the spaceman, one of the figures at the beauty contest does move, and smiles knowingly to himself. Meeting back up, the men go to check out houses, and are astonished to come across the old man who moved back at the beauty contest. He introduces himself as Jeremy Wickwire, and he explains that the asteroid they are on is a giant purpose-built cemetery.

Here, anyone who can afford it may have their body preserved in whatever fantasy or ambition they like, and because the company, Happy Glades ("The Biggest Mortuary Company in the World") promises eternal peace, forever, to its, ah, clients, the place had to be built out in space. And so it was, says Wickwire, in 1973. He reveals that he is not human, merely the perception of a computerised image, a caretaker that looks after the place and ensures its denizens are not disturbed.

But they have been disturbed, and as he serves the space pilots drinks, he asks them what their fondest wish would be. As they lose consciousness, he ensures that it comes to pass, arranging their dead bodies in their ship, so that they can feel as if they are heading for home.

Serling's closing monologue

Kirby, Webber, and Meyers, three men lost. They shared a common wish—a simple one, really. They wanted to be aboard their ship headed for home. And fate—a laughing fate—a practical jokester with a smile stretched across the stars, saw to it that they got their wish with just one reservation: the wish came true, but only in the Twilight Zone.

The Resolution

Clever. Although you have to question the likelihood that bodies, even embalmed ones, would stay in pristine condition - and in place - for two centuries, the idea of a huge, exclusive and expensive graveyard in space is an interesting one, and once you know that this is the case, there can never be allowed any sort of disruption, least of all from humans. Or at least, live ones.

The Moral

Man will never achieve peace, for he can never bring it about.

Themes

Death, nuclear war, commercial entrepreneurism, and social strata all figure in here. Happy Glades is only available to those who can afford its, no doubt exorbitant rates, and so, as ever, even the cemetery maintains the human societal hierarchy. There's mention of an "atomic war", supposed to have taken place in 1985, which is interesting on two levels. Given that this was written in 1953, that means that Beaumont foresaw this apocalyptic disaster occurring a mere thirty years in the future, and considering what almost happened in a mere ten years - the Cuban missile crisis - he could have been right. Also, he puts the date of the war at one year after that predicted by George Orwell in his famous novel.

The idea of creating the cemetery on the asteroid is not fully explained: who built it? He says it was built in 1973, but that kind of technology would have been unlikely to be achieved in twenty years, so did some alien race build it?

Oops!

Again, we're told the spacecraft is 65 million miles from Earth. That's not even halfway out of the solar system, so where are they supposed to be?

And isn't that...?



Jeff Morrow (1907 - 1993)

Famous as Exeter in the classic science fiction movie This Island Earth and also as Paulus in the Biblical epic The Robe.



Kevin Hagen (1928 - 2005)

Without question, the role he's remembered for is the likeable Doc Baker in the series Little House on the Prairie.

Questions, and sometimes, Answers

I know these are supposed to be fine, moral, upstanding specimens of humanity, but still, when one of them comes across a card game where all the players seem frozen (like everyone and everything else) and there is literally money everywhere on the table, thousands, surely, of dollars, he doesn't experience even the momentary temptation to take some, or all of it? Seems a little unlikely.

Who pays for the cemetery, for its upkeep and maintenance, now that the Earth has been mostly destroyed? The spacers say that it took nearly 200 years to get the planet back on its feet after the war, but if such an enterprise existed wouldn't everyone on Earth know about it? And these guys certainly never seem to have heard about it. How can it be such a well-kept secret? Don't they advertise?

Can you kill someone by pumping embalming fluid into them? I mean, I guess it would kill them, but wouldn't it be horribly painful? And Wickwire assures the men it will not hurt. Surely there could have been some other way to get rid of them? I know this is two centuries in the future, and they may have some more humane process for death that involves embalming fluid, but still...

Iconic?

Very much so. The idea of a purpose-built planet has been used many times since, in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for one, and this very story is closely mirrored later in a Star Trek episode called "Shore Leave". Different aim, same basic idea though. Similar attendant too. Also, to some slightly different extent, an early Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ("The Royale", I believe) in which aliens purpose-build a new home for a NASA astronaut who has been stranded far from his planet. I guess you could even attribute the last scenes in 2001 to it too, as Bowman is cared for by the aliens to whom the monoliths belong.

This also features a rocket-shaped exploration craft of the type which would become very popular in sixties science fiction movies and serials.

Those clever little touches

That Star Trek sound effect used on "Third From the Sun" is again in evidence in the opening scenes inside the spacecraft.

The Times they are a Changin'

Who would have thought that science fiction writers could have envisioned a basic space station being built in the 1970s, or that Earth would undergo a cataclysmic nuclear war in 1985? And yet, here we still are, bothering the galaxy with our presence over forty years later...

Personal Notes

So far as I can see, given that this was only 1960, I don't think any special camera tricks are used in the "suspension" effect, which means all the actors are standing or sitting still of their own accord, and if so, it's a testament to their acting that, while there are the odd almost imperceptible movements, as will happen when anyone tries to remain entirely still, they achieve the illusion really well.

[Trollheart]

Title: "Mirror Image"
Original transmission date: February 26 1960
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: John Brahm
Starring: Vera Miles as Millicent Barnes
Martin Milner as Paul Grinstead
Joe Hamilton as Ticket Attendant
Naomi Stevens as Cleaning Lady


Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Alienation, paranoia, madness, loneliness, parallel worlds, doppelganger
Parodied? Probably
Rating:

Serling's opening monologue

Millicent Barnes, age twenty-five, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes: not given to undue anxiety, or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fantasy. Like most young career women, she has a generic classification as a, quote, girl with a head on her shoulders, end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Miss Barnes' shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who, in one minute, will wonder if she's going mad.


It's a dark and stormy night (well, it is!) and a woman is waiting inside a bus depot but the bus is half an hour late. Worried, she checks with the ticket attendant, who snappily tells her that he has the same answer for her as he did the last time she asked: it'll be here when it gets here. She's surprised - as well as a little taken aback by his bluff rudeness - because this is the first time she's spoken to the man, but he is making the case that she has asked several times already, perhaps explaining why he's so irascible. Then she spots a bag at the check-in that looks suspiciously like hers. She puts the coincidence from her mind, or tries to, not wishing to incur the further wrath of the old guy behind the desk, but the idea won't leave her, and she has to have a closer look at the bag a few minutes later. Now she sees it is identical to hers ("Even down to the broken handle") and the guy says it is hers, and that she checked it fifteen minutes ago! She says no, it's like hers but - and as she turns to indicate her bag, which she had left beside her on the seat, it's no longer there.

She goes into the ladies to wash her face and meets a cleaner in there, who also swears she was in there just a few minutes before. Now she wonders if she's going mad. Why are two people both telling her she has done things she has not, that they've seen her before when she knows they have not? And how has her bag magically got itself checked in, when it never left her side? As she leaves the ladies in a huff though, she catches sight of herself in the mirror. Twice. She is standing in the restroom and also still sitting outside! When she goes outside, there is of course nobody sitting in her seat, however her case is back where she originally left it, and no longer checked in. As she begins to think she's losing her mind, another traveller arrives and she starts talking to him, glad to have someone to share her anxieties with, probably eager to be told she's worrying about nothing.

She introduces herself as Millicent Barnes, a secretary who has quit her job and is leaving town to start a new one, and he as Paul Grinstead. He listens to her story but can't figure out if she's crazy or not. He advances several weak theories for what might be happening, and then the bus arrives. As they go to get on it though, Millicent looks up and sees... herself, sitting there, already on the bus! She runs away in fright back into the depot and Paul pursues her, asking the bus driver to wait. However as she's in no condition to travel he decides to stay with her, telling the bus driver to carry on without them. When Millicent regains consciousness she is gratified to see she is not alone, and begins to relate a strange tale she once heard about parallel universes and how they can sometimes intrude into ours, with the version of us in that universe having to replace the original in order to survive. Paul listens, and says he's going to phone a friend (hah) who can drive them to their destination rather than wait for the next bus.

In reality, he's phoning the police, believing she's sick and needs help. While he's on the phone though, she goes into the ladies again, intending to hunt down the other version of her. Concerned when he hears her, from outside, seemingly talking to herself, he convinces her to walk outside with him and has the cops pick her up. As they drive away with her, he shakes his head. Then, as he prepares to spend the night in the bus depot, he looks up from taking a drink at the water fountain to see his bag has disappeared, and a man is running out of the door. A man who looks very much like him...

Serling's closing monologue

Obscure and metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomenon. Reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it 'parallel planes' or just 'insanity'. Whatever it is, you'll find it in the Twilight Zone.

The Resolution

Weirdly poetic justice. After deciding that Millicent is mad, Paul falls under the same spell as her, realising that against all odds, she was right, and that whatever parallel world her double came from, there's one of him there too, and it wants his life. He's left to rue losing his one ally, the one person who not only would have believed his now fantastical explanation of events, but might have had some knowledge as to what to do to stop them. Nobody will believe him now.

The Moral

As in many of these episodes, the words of Hamlet come back to haunt us: There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of...

Themes

The main one here is mostly paranoia, and the fear of going slowly mad, as everything Millicent has believed to be true, taken at face value, relied on, shatters and crumbles before her disbelieving eyes. The comfortable, safe world of reality and common sense has broken down into a nightmare existence of uncertainty, doubt and approaching madness. She can no longer trust her own eyes, and when she has made up her mind that she can, she can't get anyone to believe her. For the first time, the idea of parallel worlds is here also explored, the idea that we all exist in infinite and perhaps very slightly different (or even identical, as in this instance) planes of existence, and, too, the idea, not original to this series and long held in folklore, of the doppelganger, a twin (often said to be evil) that everyone has somewhere in the world.

And isn't that...?


Vera Miles (1929 - )

Another link to Psycho, as she played Lila Crane in both the original and the later sequel. She also, rather interestingly, featured in an episode of later "rival" anthology series The Outer Limits, and went on to have roles in some of the biggest shows of the day, including Mannix, Ironside, Marcus Welby, Bonanza, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-0, Alias Smith and Jones, Cannon, Columbo, The Streets of San Francisco and Fantasy Island, to name but a few.

Iconic?

I would say a cautious yes. I'm sure this is not the first time an "evil double" story was written (I suppose in some ways you can even liken that idea to Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask) but it surely echoes elements of Jack Finney's 1954 novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers  and its later adaptation to the screen in 1956, in the building fear and paranoia that nothing is as it seems, that there is evil afoot and that people are changing, but nobody believes it's happening. Of course, this idea would be carried on throughout science fiction, with such series as Star Trek using it to varying degrees of effect. It would, in time, become almost a cliche, the "evil twin" story, and turn into a lazy plot device for lazy authors.

Questions, and sometimes, Answers

Just exactly what legal right has Paul to call the cops and have Millicent (presumably) committed? Firstly, doesn't there have to be some sort of familial or relationship by marriage for that to work? Surely someone off the street can't just decide someone they've only met is mad, and needs to be incarcerated? And as well as that, should not the police be calling a doctor, rather than taking her off in their squad car? Seems a little precipitious to me. What do the guardians of the law know about the mental condition of people? And if they are taking Paul's word for it, why is he not required to accompany them and make a statement, sign something? Who's going to vouch for her lack of compus mentus in order to get her taken into an asylum, or even hospital? The cops?

If Millicent looked up and saw her doppelganger on the bus, and the bus departed, who was she talking to in the ladies afterwards? Another one? If the double had got off the bus, is it not likely the driver would have come in, asking if she was coming with them? And why would it get off anyway?

Personal Notes

He's an old guy, but I personally have a problem with the attitude of the ticket attendant towards Millicent. Yes, he's fed up with her constantly asking, as he sees it, the same questions, but even when she faints and is clearly in trouble, he seems unsympathetic, and when Grinstead tells him he's calling the cops, he becomes positively eager in a very disturbing way, as if he can't wait to see her locked up. So much for the older generation protecting the flower of the sex!

Parallels

This is a new section I'm starting today. As I mentioned in the intro, themes and situations and causes and morals are reused throughout the series, and when one episode can be linked or compared with a previous one, when the overall theme or idea fits or builds on something that has already been explored, I'll note that here.

"Perchance to Dream"

Although not the same thing, the idea of the double and of something or someone crossing over from another dimension  is reflected earlier in the episode "Perchance to Dream". Of course, in that case it's the world of dreams that becomes real when Edward Hall sees what he believes to be Maya from his nightmare in the shape of the receptionist. Still, the idea of something being here that should not be, something that belongs in another place entirely, links these two episodes I believe.

[Trollheart]

Title: "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"
Original transmission date: March 4 1960
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Ronald Winston
Starring: Claude Akins
Barry Atwater
Jack Weston
Burt Metcalfe

Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Alienation, paranoia, mob mentality, distrust
Parodied? Yes, frequently.
Rating: A++


Serling's opening monologue

Maple Street, U.S.A., late summer. A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor. At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43 P.M. on Maple Street...This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street in the last calm and reflective moment—before the monsters came.

There is a glow in the sky and a flash over quiet suburban Maple Street, and suddenly nothing electrical works any more. The phones are out, power tools are mute, clocks stop. Even the cars refuse to start up. As Steve Brand, one of the neighbourhood men, sets out to walk with his friend Charlie to the police station in town to check things out, Tommy, one of the local kids who has an interest in science fiction, tells him that he believes "whoever was in that thing that went overhead" doesn't want them to leave, and that's why they've shut off all the power. He says this is what happens in every book he reads about aliens. He further warns him that there may be aliens here now, infiltrating humanity and looking just like them. His story is greeted with derision - he's only an impressionable kid, after all - but in a very few moments eyes are beginning to narrow, heads are inclined and you can see the cogs whirring inside the minds as Tommy tells them these aliens look just like them and really could be anyone.

Suspicion is further reinforced when another neighbour, Les, trying to start his car has it fire up into life all on its own. The cold hard (and illogical but irrepressible) finger of accusation begins to point at him, the more so when the car mysteriously stops, again by itself. Questions begin to be asked: who is this family anyway? Why didn't Les come out when the "meteor", as they believe(d) it was, flew overhead? What do they know about this guy and his family? Real oddballs, according to Charlie. The mood gets dark and they go over to confront him, but Les insists he knows nothing. Steve tries to keep the peace, ensure everyone maintains a level head, but it's clear his calming, matter-of-fact influence will not last long. The seed has been planted, now it must grow and put forth its ugly and terrifying harvest.

Further accusations come forth. Why is Les always looking up at the sky at night, as if he's waiting for something? He tells them it's insomnia, but they move away from him as if frightened, as if they don't know him anymore, if they ever did. As if he's no longer one of them. As if he's the enemy. He warns them they're starting something terrible here, something that can't end well, but they begin to keep watch on him and his house as darkness falls. When Steve again tries to inject some common sense into proceedings, he's accused by Charlie of siding with the enemy, Charlie is then told by another neighbour that he isn't exactly cleared of suspicion either, and things begin to spiral out of control.

Accusations fly, Steve tries to show everyone - especially Charlie, whom he seems to have taken a dislike to, seeing how his neighbour is now reacting, leading the protests - that they are in danger of doing something stupid. Note: when a lot of stupid people get together with a stupid aim, that's usually the definition of a mob. Suddenly the sound of someone walking, and seized by fear and anger, and a definite idea that this is one of the aliens, come to kill them, Charlie shoots and kills the intruder, who happens to be another neighbour, Pete Van Horn, who had earlier gone off to check if the power was gone in the neighbouring street. As Pete lies dead at his feet, Charlie's house suddenly lights up, and suspicion swings to him. Why did he kill Pete? Was he afraid he was going to be exposed as the invader? Why have the lights come on just now on only his house? From being the leader, the rabble-rouser, Charlie has just become suspect zero, public enemy number one, and abruptly feels what it's like to be on the receiving end of unfounded suspicion.

As he runs to his house, people picking up rocks at throwing them at him, breaking his windows, Charlie swears he's not the alien, and points the finger at Tommy. It actually makes sense: nobody even thought of aliens till the kid came up with his crazy story, and he was the one standing behind Charlie as Pete walked up the road, urging him to do something, that here was the alien, come to kill them all. They chase him, but just then lights come on in this house, and then that house, and then another. Suspicions go from one to the other, people pick up rocks, grab guns, chaos descends as the inhabitants of Maple Street run this way and that, convinced this guy or that guy is the alien, the stranger among them, the one who does not belong. Steve's efforts to maintain order are useless and all goes to hell.

From a hill overlooking the street, two aliens nod, the one gratified that his demonstration has convinced the other that they do not need to expend manpower defeating the humans, that all they have to do is sow the seeds of discord and suspicion, and the earth people will destroy themselves. "They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find," one notes, "and it is themselves."

Serling's closing monologue

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices...to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill...and suspicion can destroy...and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own—for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.


The Resolution

Excellent, though you can see it coming. All it needs to turn people against each other is for an idea to be floated that someone is different, someone is responsible, someone is dangerous. Then just sit back and watch the carnage.

The Moral

Sometimes the monsters that are within each one of us are more terrifying and powerful than any we can dream up, or any that may exist.

Themes

There are definite parallels with the previous episode, in that alienation figures quite prominently here, as it did there, although here it's a mass thing, whereas in "Mirror Image" it was just one person, then another, having the experience, but both solitarily. There are of course very obvious nods to the paranoia that spread through Nazi Germany in the 1930s, when anyone deemed "undesirable" was suspected, arrested, often never seen again, where people were blamed for things they could not possibly have been responsible for, where the overwhelming fear and hatred of the "other" took over and drove a whole country mad. Also, naturally, the panic labelled "Reds under the bed" which took hold of America in the 1950s, as fear about Communist infiltrators was fanned to fever pitch. Anyone displaying the least hint of support for or tolerance of "reds" was labelled as one, or a sympathiser, with McCarthy ready to act as the Nazi judges had.

Themes of alien invasion, which also link back to the previous one, although that's seen as a "quiet" invasion rather than one announced by a sonic boom and a flash in the sky which knocks all the power out. Still, the idea that there are people or things out there is floated for maybe only the third or fourth time. Another theme would be intolerance; when someone is suspected - without good reason - the cry goes up "he's not like us!" and this is enough to damn him in the eyes of the neighbourhood. Trust, too, or the lack of it, or the very erosion of it, features, as everyone looks at everyone else and wonders just how far they can trust their neighbour, how well they know them, what they might be hiding, what they might really be like.

And isn't that...?



Claude Akins (1926 - 1994)

Sheriff Lobo himself!


Questions, and sometimes, Answers

How come Pete Van Horn took so long to come back? He only went into the next street, and the sun was shining when he did, so we assume early to late afternoon, yet it's dark before he returns. What the hell was he doing all that time?

What kind of science fiction comic books did Tommy read? Even in the 1960s, most would have been more concentrated on stories set in space. Some would undoubtedly have themes of alien invasion, but in EVERY ONE he read, the aliens impersonated humans? Surely not.

Iconic?

Not really, but the theme of often unfounded paranoia leading to mass panic and even murder has been used since, most notably to my knowledge in Philip K. Dick's story "Kill All Others."

Those clever little touches

I'm not at all sure it's meant, but both as Pete leaves and as he returns, the camera focuses on the hammer he carries strapped to his leg. Hammer being one half of the Russian flag, are they telling us something here? Given that the theme can very easily dovetail in with the fear of Communism taking over the USA, I feel it might be a subtle hint.

[Trollheart]

Title: "A World of Difference"
Original transmission date: March 11 1960
Written by: Richard Matheson
Directed by:  Ted Post
Starring: Howard Duff as Arthur Curtis/Gerald "Gerry" Raigan
Eileen Ryan as Nora Raigan
David White as Brinkley
Gail Kobe as Sally
Peter Walker as Sam
Susan Dorn as Marian Curtis
Frank Maxwell as Marty Fisher
Bill Idelson as Stagehand
Thomas Martin as Technician
Robert McCord as Camera Crew


Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Madness, despair, obsession, hope, parallel universes
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating: A+

Serling's opening monologue

You're looking at a tableau of reality, things of substance, of physical material: a desk, a window, a light. These things exist and have dimension. Now this is Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, who also is real. He has flesh and blood, muscle and mind. But in just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind.


Arthur Curtis is looking forward to his first holiday in years, and the birthday of his daughter. As he makes a call though, or tries to, the phone in his office is dead. As he walks outside to ask his secretary to call the phone company someone growls "Cut!" Suddenly one wall of his office has disappeared, to reveal a camera crew, director, a whole film studio all watching him. One of the men, presumably the director, irritably asks him how hard can it be to make a phone call, using the name Gerry, not Arthur. He introduces himself as Marty, and he is the director, and it seems Arthur, or rather Gerry, is in a movie. Gerry is playing the part of Arthur, except Gerry thinks he is Arthur, and has no memory of any film, does not know the director, does not realise or believe this is a movie. Up until a few moments ago, this was his life, his real life, not some role being played by an actor.

A man purporting to be his agent, Sam, tells him he's on his last chance and not to blow it. Marty tells one of the crew to phone for an ambulance, while Gerry - or Arthur, or whoever he is - goes to make his call. Suddenly though he can no longer remember his own number, and when he rings directory assistance they tell him there is no telephone registered at the address he has just given. Confused, scared, he leaves the studio - which moments before had been an office block, he remembers it; his own office, where he has worked for years - and is almost run over by a woman in a car, a woman who snarls that she is his wife. Ex-wife, actually, and he had better make sure she gets her alimony payments. Gerry/Arthur doesn't recognise her at all, and while Marty tells "Mrs. Raigan" that her "husband" is having a nervous breakdown and they are awaiting the arrival of an ambulance, Gerry/Arthur jumps into the car and drives off with his "ex-wife".

On the way he tries to convince her that he is not who she says or thinks he is, but she thinks he's just trying to get out of his divorce commitments, and when they drive to where his home should be, and even the road isn't there, she remains unconvinced. After all, he is an actor. Well, to her anyway he is. When he tries to ring his office and is told, again, no such place exists, he breaks down and passes out. When he comes to, his agent shows him the script for the movie he has been acting in, in which his character is called Arthur Curtis, and his wife, and his child, and the address he thinks he lives at, all match up. However that movie, he is told, has been cancelled due to the unacceptable behaviour of the lead actor - him - and they are at the moment tearing down the set.

Frantic to get back there, knowing somehow that if he can get back into that office, onto that set, things might be all right again, Arthur/Gerry drives at speed back to the studio where he sits in the empty chair at a desk which now contains two blank frames which used to house pictures of his wife and daughter. "Don't leave me here" he begs, hiding his face in his hands, and when he looks up he sees the photo frames have been again filled with the pictures of his family. Jumping up, he sees his wife - his real wife, not the divorced, money-grasping harpy he left behind at an unfamiliar place he was told was his home - and grabbing her, taking the airline tickets from his secretary, he hurries her out of the office, as a ghostly voice calls "All right! Let's get these tables and chairs broken down!"

Some short time later the agent appears, asking if anyone has seen Gerry, but nobody has.

And nobody ever will again.

Gerry Raigan is dead. Long live Arthur Curtis.


Serling's closing monologue

The modus operandi for the departure from life is usually a pine box of such and such dimensions, and this is the ultimate in reality. But there are other ways for a man to exit from life. Take the case of Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six. His departure was along a highway with an exit sign that reads, "This Way To Escape". Arthur Curtis, en route to the Twilight Zone.


The Resolution

In many ways, this is very like "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine", where Barbara, the fading actress, longed for a life on screen, while here Arthur Curtis, who is in fact (apparently) Gerry Raigan, wishes for his screen persona to be his real one. Both get their wish, in slightly different ways.

The Moral

I'm not entirely sure here. Maybe there's always a way out, or a way back?

Themes

Madness and obsession are here, large as life. Everyone thinks "Gerry" has gone mad, insisting he is the character he is playing in the movie, and he is obsessed with getting "home", though when he does reach the street where his house is supposed to be, there's nothing there. A sense of loss too, as "Gerry" fears he has lost his wife, his child, his job, his very existence, and sees it replaced with that of a drunken actor on his last chance, shackled to a harridan who only cares about getting her pound of flesh out of him. And then hope rises. He hopes, prays that if he can just get back to his "office" everything will be all right, everything will go back to how it was. And it does.

Tentatively, the idea of parallel universes is probably touched on here too. Perhaps in another dimension, the movie is about Gerald Raigan and he is rushing around telling everyone he is not Arthur Curtis...

And isn't that...?



Howard Duff (1913 - 1990)

Famed for his role as the attorney in the Dustin Hoffman movie Kramer vs Kramer, with Kevin Costner in No Way Out, he also appeared in Dallas, Charlie's Angels, Flamingo Road, East of Eden, Knot's Landing and Magnum, PI





Eileen Ryan (1927 - )

Appeared in many series of the 70s, 80s and 90s including Cannon, Matlock, CSI, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, ER, Grey's Anatomy and Prime Suspect, but arguably her greatest claim to fame is being the mother of the Penn brothers, Sean, Chris and Michael.


David White (1916 - 1990)

Best known for the series Bewitched, in which he played Darrin's boss. Also appeared in the 1960 Jack Lemmon classic The Apartment as well as the later Richard Pryor vehicle Brewster's Millions.

Iconic?

Marginally. Again, I doubt this was the first time this idea was used, but in the future the theme of someone living a life that turns out to be, or seem to be, false would be used a lot. You could probably link the likes of The Truman Show to this idea.

Parallels

As mentioned above, this episode is very close to the idea in "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine", with both characters seeking, and finding (in Raigan/Curtis's case, re-finding) sanctuary in a better life in what is a fantasy world. No explanation is given for either, but that has become and will continue to be par for the course with this series.

Personal Notes

This is only the fourth (check) episode so far not written by Serling, and the third I think written by Matheson.

[Trollheart]

Title: "Long Live Walter Jameson"
Original transmission date: March 18 1960
Written by: Charles Beaumont
Directed by:  Anton Leader
Starring: Kevin McCarthy as Walter Jameson/ Tom Bowen/ Maj. Hugh Skelton
Edgar Stehli as Prof. Samuel Kittridge
Estelle Winwood as Laurette Bowen
Dody Heath as Susanna Kittridge


Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Immortality, Subterfuge, Time travel (of a sort), Callousness
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating: A

Serling's opening monologue

You're looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours of dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive...In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn't come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon.


Walter Jameson is a history teacher who holds his subjects enraptured by his delivery, making it seem as if he was there in the times of which he speaks. His professor, Sam Ketteridge, invites him to dinner; as he leaves, a strange old woman watches him from behind a tree. At Ketteridge's house, it appears Jameson is engaged to his daughter, who is studying for her PhD. While she hits the books after dinner, Sam takes Walter aside and quizzes him on his age. He's forty-four, Jameson tells him, but Sam is unconvinced, saying in twelve years he hasn't seen Walter age at all. Now he brings out a book of photographs taken during the American Civil War, and shows Walter one which looks very like him. Pushed by Sam, he admits  it is him. When Sam asks him how old he is, he says he is old enough to have known Plato personally.

Now that his suspicions have been confirmed, Sam wants Walter to impart to him his secret, the secret of long life, perhaps immortality. But he is to be disappointed, as Walter tells him he doesn't know why he has never died, why he goes on, why he doesn't age like other men: he just does. He tells Sam that he too sought the secret of eternal life, and found it when he met an alchemist who wanted to experiment on him, for a price. Jameson paid the price, and lost consciousness. When he awoke the alchemist was gone, but the experiment had worked. He no longer aged, he could no longer die. He just went on living, but he laments that he did not become any wiser, any braver, any more honourable. More than anything, he wants to die, but he is too frightened to. He tells Sam he was a coward then, and he is a coward now.

This is illustrated in lurid detail when, knowing that it will only last a few decades for him, but unwilling to be lonely, he sticks to his plan of marrying Suzanne, even though Sam has now forbidden it. He looks triumphantly at the professor, knowing there is nothing her father can  say to her to change her mind, without seeming as if he has lost his reason. Back in his own house he is accosted by the woman who was hiding behind the tree, who says she is his wife from a previous marriage. Grown very old now, she can't explain why he has not, but she knows it is him, the man she knew as Tommy Bowen. She shoots him, and when Sam goes over to check out the noise, he finds Walter dying, and ageing. Ageing rapidly. Ageing till he's nothing more than dust.


Serling's closing monologue

Last stop on a long journey, as yet another human being returns to the vast nothingness that is the beginning and into the dust that is always the end.


The Resolution

Quite Dorian Grey-like, but a little simplistic and rushed in my opinion. I suppose he was eternal but not invulnerable, and in the end was as easy prey to a simple bullet as any of us. His sins caught him out in the end.

The Moral

Nobody lives forever, nor should they.

Themes

Eternal/long life is the main one here, something that would be revisited in films, books and series in the future, and which had previously been dealt with by writers as diverse as Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker. Selfishness, too, is here: Jameson knows he can only have a short time with Suzanne, but is prepared to marry her anyway to assuage his loneliness, if only for a comparatively brief moment in his long life. One might postulate that, were he to have children from the marriage, he could carry on the same with any daughters, though that is not mentioned nor even hinted at, and might not be in his makeup. I might have had a little more sympathy with him had he stayed with any wife until she had died, but his selfishness is shown in the fact that he clearly only stayed until each had grown old enough to no longer interest him, not till they died, as he is tracked down by one such, well, discarded wife as he went in search of a younger, fresher model.

Loneliness will almost always go hand in hand with immortality or very long life; if you're the only one who can live beyond the span  of a normal human existence, you're going to be on your own for a lot of your time.

And isn't that...?



Kevin McCarthy (1914 - 2010)

No, not that one! Interestingly, given my reference to the movie with regard to the previous episode, McCarthy starred in the original 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a clever cameo in the remake of 1978. He also resurfaced to play a role when Twilight Zone was made into a movie, in 1983. In between, he had the usual roles in the usual shows, like The High Chapparal, Columbo, starred in the remake of Fantastic Voyage, 1987's Innerspace and as Grampa Addams in Addams Family Reunion.

Iconic?

Nah. Stories about immortals or near-immortals have been around since the Bible - Cain, Noah, Methusaleh - and probably before, and have been absorbed into the likes of vampire stories and things like Highlander.


The Times they are a Changin'

Sam grins to Walter that his daughter is going to pass her exams, even if he has to spank her. You wouldn't get away with even saying that today, not even as her parent. Probably.

I'd also like to pass on my compliments to the makeup department. While the transformation scene as Jameson ages and then dies would be far better today of course, for 1960 they did a very  good job, and considering that Star Trek wouldn't start in earnest till eight years later, and even then had some, shall we say, questionable effects, this is kind of state of the art for the time.

Parallels

Though not the same stories at all, there is a link here with earlier episode "Escape Clause", as both men lament the brevity of human life, and while Bedeker did not consciously seek immortality, he was quick to grab it when it presented itself. Both men also found out that living forever (or in Bedeker's case, being impervious to harm, as his immortality didn't last very long) is not all it's cracked up to be.

Personal Notes

I feel the writer missed a trick here. When Walter shows Sam the diary of the Civil War soldier, Major Hugh Skelton, who turns out to be him, Sam should have noted that the writing was Walter's. After all, people's handwriting doesn't change over time, and Walter would have no reason to disguise his, especially in the middle of a war. Then Sam could have used this as incontrovertible proof that Walter was Skelton.

I also have a problem with how easily, in the end, Walter dies. For a man who, he says, has been around since ancient times, when even stubbing your toe could end in death possibly, when medical expertise was virtually nil, and then in addition, living through and serving in the Civil War, are we supposed to believe he never got hit, shot, wounded? Really? This is the very first time someone has shot him or threatened his life?

[Trollheart]

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 and Mars
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...?


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.



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", (how apt!) 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.



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.



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.

[Trollheart]

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...?


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.

[Trollheart]

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.

[Trollheart]

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.

[Trollheart]

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 her 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 when 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.

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.

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 Seldon, the same name given to the convict prowling the moors in Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles"?

[Trollheart]

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) and 1888 (possibly)
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.

(A curiously-worded intro, strewn with adjectives pertaining to war and destruction. Since this is not a wartime story, I'm not too sure why Serling uses such imagery. There is a war, of sorts, going on as a man tries to make a decision between slowly dying by inches and giving in to what may be an illusion in his mind, but I still don't see the connection).

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. Also, possibly, don't try to get off a moving train.

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...?

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.

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.

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. This is also the second story - not in a row, but close - which features a wife who is a gold-digger and contemptuous of her husband, whom she sees as a failure. Given that, in "A World of Difference", Arthur Curtis'/Gerry Raigan's wife was part of what may have been an alternate reality, and that here, Gart Williams ends up, possibly, in one, it's hard to discount the connection.