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TV

[April 7, 1963] The Twilight Zone, Season 4, Episodes 9-12

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by Natalie Devitt

This past month on The Twilight Zone has been quite the experience. It has included anything from deals with the devil to time travel. It has also thrown in parallel universes and wish granting genies just for fun. If any of those things sound familiar, there may be good reason. The show does seem to be rehashing some old ideas. So, has The Twilight Zone finally run out of steam, or is it just offering new interpretations of some old classics? After four seasons one thing is for sure: anything is possible in The Twilight Zone.

Printer’s Devil, by Charles Beaumont

What is the price you would pay for one last chance at achieving a dream? That is the question that Douglas Winter, played by Robert Sterling, has to wrestle with in Printer’s Devil. Douglas is the editor of a failing newspaper called The Courier. Faced with the possibility of the paper, to which he has dedicated his life, folding, Douglas contemplates suicide. He drives himself out to a local bridge in the middle of the night, hoping to end it all there.

At the bridge, he meets a mysterious stranger named Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith is played by Twilight Zone favorite Burgess Meredith. Mr. Smith offers Douglas everything he needs in order to keep The Courier in business. In no time, the paper is beating its competition to the latest scoop. In this surprisingly strong update of Faust, Douglas begins to question if his paper’s success is worth the price he will have to pay Mr. Smith, who is really the devil in disguise.

A story about someone selling their soul to the devil is hardly a new one. The episode’s writer, Charles Beaumont, knows that and has fun with the cliché in his script. Mr. Smith even makes jokes about the rumors that violinist Niccolò Paganini sold his soul to the devil to become a virtuoso. In addition, the script does not waste time revealing that Mr. Smith is the devil. In fact, during his first scene on screen, Mr. Smith is shown lighting his crooked cigar with his fingertip, so the viewer is aware of Mr. Smith's diabolic nature from the get-go. The story spends most of the time focusing on the characters and their motivations, which I feel helps to make this version of a classic bargain work surprisingly well.

The story’s script is made even better by Burgess Meredith’s mischievous performance as Mr. Smith. He really seems to relish his role without being hammy as he tells Douglas that no modern man could possibly believe that he could sell his soul to the devil, and that the contract he drew up for Douglas’ soul was just him being an eccentric old man.

This episode offers a new twist on an old tale. I give it three and a half stars.

No Time Like the Past, by Rod Serling

Dana Andrews stars as Paul Driscoll, a man who thinks he has the solution for the problems that plague the world today. He uses a time machine in hopes of altering the past and preventing the world’s current problems. He tries going back to Hiroshima in 1945, just in time to warn people about the atomic bomb. There, he is dismissed as being crazy, so he then tries going back to Berlin in 1939 to assassinate Hitler. His plans are foiled, so he travels back to 1915 to stop the RMS Lusitania from being torpedoed by a German U-boat. Once again, things do not go as planned.

Douglas’ failed attempts to alter the past cause him to conclude that the past cannot be changed. He decides to time travel one last time, this time to Homeville, Indiana in the year 1881, where he says he plans to go, “to live, not to change anything.“ It is a place where he could be free of the all the problems in the present day. Only, once again, things do not go quite as well as he hopes.

It turns out that the good old days are not quite as good as he imagined they would be. Bad things continue to happen all around him, and he still is powerless to do anything. Even if he could change things, he considers the possibility that his actions cause a chain reaction for things to change for the worse. One thing is certain, though. Having come from the future, he can predict every historical event or disaster before it actually happens, which has its disadvantages.

This is another story with a familiar theme — the episode Back There tread similar ground. That said, this episode is not bad, but it takes a while to get going. At first, it jumps from time to time, with transitions not as smooth as they could have been. Once the story does stay for a while in a single time period, as it does in 1881, the episode improves dramatically.

This episode was a perfectly fine way to spend a Thursday night. It deserves three stars.

The Parallel, by Rod Serling

Robert Gaines, played by Steve Forrest, is an astronaut who has returned to Earth from space. He blacks out shortly before landing, but he somehow manages to get land and everything seems fine at first. As he tries to transition back into everyday life, he finds that life back on Earth is not quite the way he remembers it. His house is a little different, his wife seems uncomfortable when he shows her affection, his colleagues cannot remember his proper ranking at work, nobody knows that John F. Kennedy is president, and one day, his daughter tells him that she does not know who he is. Robert comes to the conclusion that he must have landed in a parallel universe, but not everyone agrees with him.

This is an episode that really uses the hour long length to its advantage. It uses the extra time to build suspense as the people closest to Robert begin to question his sanity due to all of his theories about parallel time. Additionally, a number of sequences, including one in a hospital and some at the space station, use a lot things like low key lighting and lots of shadows to intensify the atmosphere of fear and suspicion in a manner similar to that used in film noir and horror films.

Unfortunately, the ending was not quite as strong as the rest of the episode, but overall this episode was pretty good. It earns three stars from me.

I Dream of Genie, by John Furia, Jr.

I Dream of Genie tells the story of a perpetually unlucky nebbish named George Hanley, played by Howard Morris, who purchases an oil lamp. While trying to clean the lamp, he accidentally rubs it and releases its genie. Out of his lamp, the genie reveals himself to be a cranky old man, who does not look or act like your traditional genie. For example, he wears modern western clothing. The genie tells George that he will grant him only one wish. George works through his options in fantasy first, so as to make the best decision. He imagines himself married to a beautiful secretary from work, then being rich, and finally, becoming the President. Sadly, even in his dreams, he cannot seem to catch a break.

When I realized that this episode would be a comedy, I was excited about the possible change of pace. Perhaps it would provide some much needed relief from the darker and more serious tones of the previous episodes. I could not have been more wrong. The generally good acting can save even the worst episodes of this series, but that is not the case this time around. The acting was so over the top, and not in an entertaining way. This was especially the case in scenes where George is trying to win the love of his coworker, Ann. The fact that this episode was an hour long made it even harder to watch. To make matters worse, George’s final wish does not reward the viewer for not changing the station.

The Twilight Zone has made better episodes about lonely and down on their luck men who finally seem to get a chance to turn their lives around. Incorporating comedy into this series has been a risk that often does not seem to pay off. This episodes was sadly not an exception to that rule.

All I can give this episode is one star, which I hate to admit is probably being generous.

The Twilight Zone revisited some familiar stories and themes this time around, which actually seemed to work most of the time. It remains to be seen if this will continue to be the case. I will just have to keeping on watching to find out. I hope you'll join me — both misery and joy love company.



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[April 2, 1961] Uprooting itself (The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episodes 17, 19, 20, 21)

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Twenty years ago, even ten (and zero in some places), science fiction was all about the twist ending.  Aliens would seed a dead planet with life only for it to turn out…that planet was EARTH!  Or folks might spend a story in a struggle to stay alive, only to find out THEY WERE ALREADY DEAD!  And so on.  Stories would usually end with a shock sentence, often with copious slammers (!!!)

But the genre matured.  Characters, writing, and fully explored concepts appeared.  These days, the "gimmick" often takes the back seat, facilitating rather than dominating the story.

The Twilight Zone, the science fiction/fantasy/horror anthology created by Rod Serling, is generally a cut above anything else on TV.  This includes its pale competitors like One Step Beyond and Way Out.  Unfortunately, several times in the first season, and more frequently in this, the second season, the show has aped the gimmick stories of print sf.  The result is a run of predictable, sub-par episodes.  There is light at the end of this tunnel, however – the most recent episodes have returned the focus to interesting characters and genuine drama. 

First, we have to get there:

The episode preceding the lackluster The Odyssey of Flight 33 was the lackluster 22.  In it, a young dancer has been committed to hospital for an apparent case of nerves.  She repeats a chilling dream: she awakens, a glass crashes to the floor, she follows a nurse to the hospital basement, and there she finds the nurse waiting behind a door marked "22" – the morgue.  It is a clear case of precognition, though no one believes her, including herself.  At the episode's end, the dancer, wide awake, is about to board a plane.  Just before she does, something crashes to the terminal floor, and she notes the plane is number 22, its stewardess the nurse of her dreams.  She falls in hysterics and watches wide-eyed as the plane takes off without her…and explodes over the runway.

It sounds a lot better when I type it than when you watch it, which is the problem.  It's yet another of the episodes captured on videotape rather than film, an unsuccessful experiment I hope is ended soon.  The acting is a notch too broad, particularly the sardonic, uncaring doctor (though perhaps this is intended to make us think that even the dancer's waking scenes are dreams).  In short, good concept, mediocre presentation.  Two stars.

Burgess Meredith is back for the silly Mr. Dingle, the Strong.  Take the most nebbishy of folks and give him the strength of Superman; then sit back and watch the fun unfold.  Of course, you can't leave it there, so rob him of his powers at a critical juncture to ensure maximum humiliation. 

It's somehow not awful.  In particular, the strength effects are nicely done.  Lots of scenes with a scrawny fellow lifting heavy objects, punching holes in walls, etc.  Also, the aliens that bestow strength are genuinely hilarious.  Bad concept…but good presentation.  Three stars.

The dreary Static, in which a regretful old man tunes into the past on a magic radio, could have been good.  Like any bad gimmick story, it draws out far too long without developing the characters beyond bare pencil sketches.  Videotape doesn't help this one either.  One star.

Things end on a high note, though.  The Prime Mover is an excellent character study that starts right – with the focus on the players, not the twist.  Ace Larsen is a fellow who feels down on his luck, despite co-ownership of a little coffee shop, the love of a lovely co-worker, Kitty, and the unflagging friendship of the other owner, Jimbo Cobb.  It's Ace's desire for more, what he considers his due, that promises to be his undoing, especially when it turns out Cobb has the power of psychokinesis, able to manipulate items with his mind.

They end up in Vegas, with Ace raking in the dough at the craps and roulette tables.  With winnings totaling $200,000, both Kitty and Cobb urge Ace to pack it in, but Ace wants one more game, even if it means losing Kitty, and perhaps, sight of what's really important.  At a high-stakes craps bout with a notorious gangster, Cobb "blows a fuse" right as Ace lets his fortune ride.  Ace is left with nothing.

Or is he?  The event proves a watershed for the basically good-hearted Ace.  He laughs off the loss, returns back to the restaurant and proposes to Kitty, who accepts.  As a coda, we see that the seemingly simple Cobb hadn't lost his power at all.  It was all orchestrated for Ace's maximum benefit.  Now there's a friend. 

The episode works because the gimmick, Cobb's psionic ability, is almost incidental.  It isn't even revealed until almost a quarter-way through.  While I was pretty sure Ace was going to lose his winnings in the end, I was delighted to see that it wasn't the point.  Excellent acting and cinematography help, too.  Five stars.

More good news: the succeeding episode was also good…but you'll just have to wait until the next round-up to read about it!

Coming up, Part 2 of my article on the Women of Science Fiction.  Expect it day-after-day-after-tomorrow.

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TV

[Dec. 15, 1959] Between Superstition and Knowledge (Twilight Zone 4-week wrap-up)

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This Friday night was a bit of a repeat performance of last week's: another trip to the German delicatessen in Escondido, another beer, another coffee and dessert.  This time, I was in the most enjoyable company of my wife, and we had an avid discussion of what it is to be a "fan." 

A mutual friend of ours once observed that fandom has three things in common—the following utterances:

"Where did you get that?"

"How can we get more people into it?"

"It's not as good as it used to be…"

It's true that fandoms come and go.  The "Golden Age" of science fiction, when Astounding ruled the roost with its Campbellian stories, is departed.  The boom of science fiction magazines came to an end a couple of years ago.  The cozy British country-house mystery is becoming a thing of the past. 

Things change.  It's an inevitable part of life.  But it's a mistake to get so stuck in nostalgia that one cannot see the old fandoms that continue to thrive (Conan Doyle, for instance) or the new evolutions in current fandoms (the small but rising tide of female authors, the general increase in quality of science fiction and fantasy even as the number of digests diminishes). 

There are also brand new fandoms.  I am very excited to have gotten in on the ground floor of one on which the paint is still wet: Rod Serling's anthology science fiction show, The Twilight Zone.

Three months ago, the program was an exciting idea.  Now, eleven episodes in, it is a bonafide phenomenon with staying power.  Though the quality of each episode varies, of course, Twilight Zone is still head and shoulders above what came before on television.  I've high hopes it will only rise in excellence.

Here's what my daughter and I have enjoyed for the last four Fridays:

Time Enough at Last came out on November 20.  The buzz I hear is that it went over well, and there's no question that Burgess Meredith turned in a fine performance as a frustrated bibliophile bank teller, who finds himself alone after surviving a nuclear holocaust.  But the ending, where he finds a lifetime of books to read and then immediately breaks his glasses, is not clever.  It's just cruel, and it soured me on the whole piece.

Charles Beaumont is the first writer whose name isn't Rod Serling to pen an episode, and his outing, Perchance to Dream was interesting.  A fellow with a heart condition is afraid to sleep for he knows that a temptress in his dream will lead him into a carnival of horrors, which will aggravate him into cardiac arrest.  The afflicted man tells his story to a sympathetic doctor, and we get to see the narrative progress in flashback.  It's creepy and fascinating.  I guessed the ending early on, but the tale was so compelling, I forgot all about my premonition until it actually happened.

I enjoyed the subject and setting of Judgment Night, in which a German man finds himself aboard a British liner cruising the Atlantic during World War II.  He is deathly afraid of U-Boats and seems to be certain that an attack from under the sea is impending.  It's a suitably atmospheric piece though somehow a bit plodding.  It was during this episode that my daughter noted that virtually none of the protagonists on the show are female.  I can only recall one, from The 16 millimeter Shrine.

This week's episode, (And When the Sky was Opened, was a winner.  Written by the master of science-fiction horror teleplays and fiction, Richard Matheson, it stars the excellent Rod Taylor as one of three survivors of a spaceplane crash.  It seems each of the astronauts is disappearing one-by-one, not just from the Earth, but from history and memories.  Creepy creepy stuff, though my daughter complained that she was getting tired of episodes featuring "people acting crazy."  (A neat tidbit: the spaceplane featured is the X-20, a real-life Air Force project that has either just gotten or is in the process of getting the green light for construction.  This vehicle will be the next step beyond the X-15, actually capable of orbital flight!)

As much as I enjoyed the episode, it shared the same overwrought middle that I've seen consistently in the last eleven episodes.  This, I think, is the main weakness of this young show.  While the writing is often brilliant, the acting usually excellent, and the cinematography remarkable, the middle third of each episode tends to take a bit too long padding out the set-up before the payoff. 

Perhaps I'm just a little too clever, guessing the ends before well before they happen.  It may well be that Twilight Zone is starting easy to draw in the uninitiated, those who haven't read a thousand science fiction stories already.  With all the talent going into this program, I have faith that the show will continue to mature and, as with science fiction, move beyond "gotcha" storytelling.

What say you?

Note: If you like this column, consider sharing it by whatever media you frequent most.  I love the company, and I imagine your friends share your excellent taste!

P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns.  While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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