Category: Twilight Zone

individual reviews of all the Twilight Zone series episodes

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 14 – Five Characters in Search of an Exit

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A disheveled army major wakes up on the floor of a circular enclosure without a roof.  The wall towers thirty or forty feet above him and looking up he can see a dark sky and a round bright object that could be light or even the moon.  He starts walking around the inside circumference of the enclosure and confronts a clown lying on the floor.  The clown is irreverent and mocking and bickers with the major on trivial points of discussion.  The major cannot remember exactly who he himself is or how he came to be in this enclosure.  The clown says that there is no answer and it’s not worth trying to figure it out.  Then we meet the other three captives.  There is a ballerina, a hobo and a Scottish bagpiper.  None of them can recall who they are or how they got in their prison.  But they all seem relatively resigned to their fate, except the major.  He is adamant that they must find a way out.  He becomes agitated and tries yelling and pounding on the wall with his shoe.  He even tries breaking through the wall with his sword but the blade snaps off in the attempt.  Every once in a while, a very loud bell sounds.

Eventually he is able to rouse even the clown from his mockery to attempt to escape by forming a human ladder and allowing the ballerina to scale to the top of the wall.  She is mere inches from the top when the thunderous bell tolls so loudly that their ladder is shaken down and they all tumble down.  The ballerina is the most shook up by her great fall.

Undaunted the major convinces them to try again but instead of the ballerina he will climb the human tower and use his sword hilt tied to a rope made from their belts and other clothing to snag the lip of the prison wall and pull himself out.  And after several attempts his jury-rigged grappling hook catches and he painfully scales the short distance to the top and straddles it.

As he steadies himself at the top, the remaining prisoners ask him what he sees.  But just then he loses his balance and falls outside into a pile of snow.  Inside the prison the inmates worry about his fate and the clown says he’ll be back because they really are in hell.

Now the scene shifts and we see a winter scene where a Salvation Army worker is standing next to a doll collection barrel and ringing her bell.  A little girl picks up a doll of a soldier in the snow and tells the woman someone must have missed the barrel with this doll.  She throws the doll back in the barrel and of course now we see the five characters as dolls.  Last of all the ballerina moves her hand onto the major’s hand where he lies from the girl’s toss.  And finally, we see a tear fall down the ballerina’s cheek.

Wow.

We’re about halfway through the season and the entire series too.  At this point those who have read most of my reviews know that I have a couple of pain points.  The first is I have no sympathy for a character screaming incoherently to no one.  The other is I do not find it interesting if robots or mannequins or any other human facsimiles find out at the end of an episode that they are in fact not humans.

Unfortunately, this episode possesses both those unfortunate diseases.  Someone might say that since this is a Christmas episode, I should make allowances.  Someone would be mistaken.

Those who have read these reviews also know that sometimes I allow myself to mitigate my judgement if a favorite character actor is present in the offending episode.  Well, in this case, the major is played by William Windom.  This is the man who gained immortality as Commodore Matt Decker, Commander of the USS Constellation whose crew was eaten by the planet killer in the Star Trek episode “The Doomsday Machine.”  How much more extenuating can circumstances be?  But no, it cannot sway me.  I must award this episode the gold standard of bad Twilight Zone episodes.  The pure F.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 13 – Once Upon a Time

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I beg the indulgence of any readers under the age of fifty.  This episode is an homage to the age of silent films.  And anyone under the half century mark probably has had no experience with silent films.  So please bear with me if I seem to be doting on an episode that looks like a museum piece and lacks any point of reference for the young.

Buster Keaton plays Woodrow Mulligan, a disgruntled janitor complaining about the high prices, noisiness and high-speed bicycle traffic of pre-automobile 1890 small town America.  He works for an inventor and as he’s walking to work, he is almost run over by a bicycle and falls into a horse trough and has to hang up his pants while they dry on the clothes line.  But even in his boxer shorts he picks up a broom and proceeds to sweep the inventor’s offices.  While sweeping he hears the inventors celebrating their invention of a “time helmet” which will allow its wearer to travel forward and back in time for thirty minutes.  Hearing this, Woodrow thinks it would be a great idea to travel through time to escape the hectic, aggravating life of 1890.  So, he puts on the helmet and heads onto the street to see the future.  As he is preparing to leave a chicken flies into his arms and then he is transported into 1962.  And of course, if he thought bicycle traffic was too fast imagine how aggravated rush hour automobile traffic made him?  Stuck in the middle of the street, he loses his helmet to an accidental passerby’s protruding arm.  Then a little boy on roller skates picks it up and skates away.  Now Woodrow commandeers a bicycle from a sidewalk rack and chases after the boy.  Of course, the cop on the beat sees a middle-aged man without pants chasing a boy on roller skates and immediately pursues on foot.

The boy turns down an alley and collides with a man named Rollo.  The helmet falls off the boy’s head and he skates off without it.  Woodrow rounds the corner and also collides with Rollo.  Woodrow collects his helmet but discovers that it’s broken.  Bewailing his fate, he tells his story to Rollo.  By a coincidence Rollo is a scientist and observing Woodrow’s clothing and other trappings he believes the story and agrees to help Woodrow to repair the helmet before the thirty-minute deadline passes.  They go to an Electrical Appliance Repair Shop and spend most of the rest of the episode trying to explain what needs to be fixed and allowing Woodrow to become confused by vacuum cleaners and television sets.

When the helmet is repaired Rollo steals it saying he wants to go back to the peaceful 1890s.  Woodrow chases Rollo and at the very last second, he leaps onto Rollo and they both are transported back to 1890.  In the next scene Woodrow shows a renewed appreciation for local conditions in 1890.  But Rollo is miserable in the pre-electronic age he sent himself to and pines for modernity.  Woodrow responds rapidly and plants the helmet on Rollo’s head and turns the dial to 1962 and sends him back to his time.

The conceit in this one is that the portions of the story that take place in 1890 are filmed as a silent film with background music and subtitle but no voices.  The 1960s portions were just the typical Twilight Zone era television format.  The episode is a broad comedy to honor and play to the style of the famous silent comedy star Buster Keaton.  In effect, it might as well have been a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  As an aside Rollo was played by Stanley Adams who appeared as Cyrano Jones in the Trouble with Tribbles episode of the original Star Trek series.  He is the salesman who sells a Tribble to one of the Enterprise crew.

So, for this episode tastes will vary greatly but I’ll be (as always) conservative and give it a B.

09APR2019 – American Greatness Post of the Day – The Zone of Adulthood – David Kamioner

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Regardless of the use to which it is being put, how can I not recommend an American Greatness post about the Twilight Zone.  I wonder if I have a  reader on the staff there?

The Zone of Adulthood

So how did these three episodes do in my grading system?

  1. “Walking Distance”  C
  2. “I Shot an Arrow into the Air”  B-
  3. “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.”  B+

Interestingly, the author said Walking Distance is his favorite episode of all.  As I’ve said, to each his own even in the Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 12 – The Jungle

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Alan and Doris Richards are Manhattanites living on Central Park in a luxury apartment building.  By appearances they are very well off and shouldn’t have a care in the world.  But the Richards have just returned from central Africa where Alan is an engineer working on a large hydroelectric dam project.  When we first meet them, Alan is telling Doris the story of where he found his missing cuff link.  It was in her jewelry box but in addition to jewelry, he found a severed human finger, a vulture’s claw and several other voodoo good luck charms from the tribal culture that they were neighbors to in Africa.  When Alan threatens to throw the items in the fireplace Doris admits to keeping them and begs him to hold onto the items to protect him from the witch doctor’s wrath for interfering with the land used for the dam.  Alan tosses the items in the fire and heads off to his business meeting at the engineering firm he works for.

At the meeting we find out that Alan actually has a stronger belief in the power of the witch doctor’s spells than he let on to Doris.  When Alan tells the board what the witch doctor promised if the dam were built, they scoff.  In return he asks them about their own superstitions, a rabbit’s foot on one man’s key chain, astrology, knocking wood, not walking under ladders, the very building they were sitting in not having a thirteenth floor.  The board members are agitated but none plan to rescind the order to build the dam that will trigger the witch doctor’s curse.

In the next scene Alan is at a midtown bar drinking some scotch when he shows his friend a lion’s tooth that Doris has hidden in his jacket pocket to protect him from lions.  After scoffing at the superstitious talisman, he drops it on the bar and leaves.  But when he gets to his car it won’t start up.  He heads back to the bar and finds it closed and empty but on the bar, he can see the tooth.

He goes to a pay phone to call home but there’s no answer.  When he walks away the phone rings but when he picks it up all he hears on the line are jungle noises.  Now he starts walking toward home on the other side of Central Park but hears jungle drums and animals screeching and then a large animal in the tree above him.  At that moment a taxi appears and Alan jumps in the cab, gives his address and sits back in relief.  When the cab stops at a red light the driver slumps over dead in his seat and Alan retreats from the cab and starts walking home again in a near panic as the jungle noises get louder and louder.  A pan handler bums a ten dollar bill off him and Alan asks if the man will escort him home.  But when he asks the man about the jungle noises it must unnerve him because he disappears.

Now Alan runs home in full flight from the jungle drums and lion roars that surround him.  When he reaches his building, the sound reaches a crescendo and as he fumbles with the entrance door he falls to his knees in despair.  But suddenly the noises cease.  Relieved he enters the building and takes the elevator to his floor and enters his apartment where he pours himself a drink and exhales a sigh of relief.

But then he hears the sound of a lion grunting and quietly growling from his bedroom.  Alan walks over to the door, gathers his courage and slowly opens the door.  On the bed is a smashed but still lit lamp, the body of Doris and an enormous male lion.  We see the dazed expression on Alan’s face just before we are shown the lion leap from the bed and hear Alan’s death scream.

This is one of those goofy episodes that, depending on my mood, could be a D or if I feel sympathetic a B-.  In its favor Alan is played by John Dehner, one of my favorite Twilight Zone character actor.  He always contributes an aura of gravitas whether he is rescuing a marooned prisoner from an asteroid or selling resurrection (or insurance against) to the not quite mourning relatives of the dearly departed.  In the minus column is the spectacle of someone managing to be alone in midtown Manhattan.  Ah, let’s take the high road B-.

Trump vs It’s a Good Life (Part 2)

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Trump vs It’s a Good Life (Part 1)

 

Dramatis Personae: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – (AOC); Narrator who looks and sounds like Rod Serling – (NRS); Barack Obama – (BO); Michelle Obama – (MO); Bill Clinton – (BC); Hillary Clinton – (HC); President Trump – (PT);

 

Scene 1 – 8 pm, that same night in the Farmhouse; In the corner of the room, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke are sweating away, turning a giant crank on a generator.  In the opposite corner A-oh-see, Cory Booker, Hillary Clinton and the Obamas are dancing rather spastically around a disco ball while a wavering light and an unevenly playing sound system produces some unconvincing techno sound.  As the exhausted laborers slacken their effort, A-oh-see chastises them.

AOC – Hey white boys, pick up the pace.  This is the part where I go, whoot, whoot.  Don’t make me warn you again.

The generator crew redouble their efforts and the “whoot, whoot” is a big success.  The dancers clap enthusiastically and the crankers collapse to the floor panting.

AOC – The dance is over and that’s all the electricity there is.

MO – That was good electricity A-oh-see, real good.

BO – That was the best electricity I ever seen.  Much better than that power plant electricity.

NP – Oh, I don’t know, I remember back in the Obama administration we had lights all the time and copy machines and air conditioning.

HC – It’s real good that you said that Nancy but how could you mean it?  Why, A-oh-see’s electricity is much better than that old electricity.  That old electricity made global warming and killed baby polar bears.

BO – That’s right Nancy, A-oh-see’s electricity is real good.  Much better.

MO – And now it’s time for Bill Clinton’s birthday presents.  Everybody gather around.

Hillary hands Bill a bag full of fentanyl patches and a plain brown envelope.

HC – Happy birthday Bill.  Many happy returns.

BC – (looking in the envelope) The Pia Zadora Playboy issue!  This is a priceless object.  He you don’t suppose I could open it up here?

Everyone goes quiet and looks shocked.

BC – Not the pictures just the articles.

BO – I don’t think you should Bill.  We don’t know exactly where the articles end and the porn begins.

HC – That’s right Bill.  Wait until we get home, where it’s safe.  Here, try out the fentanyl patch.

BC – Mmmmmmmmm.

BO – Okay everybody, birthday presents over.  Now we’ll hear a speech by Caitlyn Jenner on the false social construct inherent in the ovary.

While everyone sits in rapt fear of not cheering at the right places Bill Clinton wanders around in a fentanyl stupor.  Suddenly he starts talking out loud to no one in particular.

BC – You know this is the last fentanyl stash left.  And once it’s gone and Al Gore’s oxycontin bottle is empty there won’t be any joy left in the world.  No more giggling, no more Ruffies.

Looking around and glaring at Bill AOC shouts.

AOC – Stop talking during the science lesson.

Bill smiles goofily and gives AOC a salute and she turns back to the lecture.  Bill opens up his Playboy magazine and with the centerfold flapped open approaches Caitlyn Jenner.

BC – You know Bruce, I mean Caitlyn, I don’t think yours can compare to Pia’s what do you think?

AOC jumps to her feet and shouts at Bill Clinton.

AOC – You’re a bad white man, a very bad white man and if you keep acting all patriarchal, I’m going to think bad things about you.

BC – That’s right A-oh-see you think bad things about me.  You concentrate on me and maybe some real man in this room will sneak up behind you and slap a half dozen fentanyl patches between your shoulder blades and end this thing.

Nancy Pelosi picks up her speaker’s gavel off the table where it lies but then puts it back.

AOC – You’re a bad white man, a very bad white man and you keep looking down my blouse.

AOC walks over to Bill Clinton and slaps four fentanyl patches on Bill’s face.  Bill starts pulling one off, then smiles goofily and puts it back on.  Then he falls face forward like a chopped tree.

BO – A-oh-see put him in the mulch pile please.  Please.

She nods her head slightly and a group of Bernie Bros picked up Clinton and hustled him out of the room.

AOC – He was a bad white mand and I used his non-socialized medicine to destroy him.  And you better not say anything bad about me Hillary or I’ll get you too.

HC – Oh, A-oh-see, I don’t feel bad about Bill.  He got what was coming to him.  No sweat.  We all love you A-oh-see, you’re everybody’s favorite, that’s what you are.

 

NRS – So that’s our story, no commentary just an introduction to one of the very special members of the Bizarro Zone.

Suddenly President Trump busts in from in front of the narrator and we realize that the whole scene is taking place in a sound stage.

PT – Alright that’s enough.  Officers, arrest these idiots and we’ll straighten everything out at the jail.

AOC – You’re not real.  I destroyed you along with the rest of the world a year ago.

PT – Look, you, fruitcake.  When you losers were swept out of power in 2020, I didn’t balk when MTV sponsored a reality show to let your deluded followers imagine what it would be like without the normal people but when Bill Clinton ends up as an OD victim at Bethesda that’s where I pull the plug on this thing.  We’ll transition most of you into a hospital for the criminally insane but for now we’ll set you up at Guantanamo Bay until you become less dangerous.  Okay boys drag them out.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 11 – Still Valley

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I guess this would be called historical fantasy.

Sergeant Joseph Paradine is a confederate scout near the front in the Civil War, probably in and around northern Maryland.  While investigating troop movements he discovers that a whole column of Union soldiers is frozen in place on the main street of a small town.  The men are frozen in mid stride and some are even frozen in the act of drinking from a canteen or lifting a heavy weight.  They are as still as statues and nothing happening around them wakes them from this state.

While trying to figure what was going on, Paradine hears a noise coming from a house on the street and discovers a crazy old man named Teague who claims he is responsible for the frozen Yankee soldiers.  Asked how he did it he informs Paradine that he is the seventh son of the seventh son of a seventh son.  His family has been full of warlocks for generations and he has a book of spells that can freeze the whole Union Army.  When asked why he doesn’t he tells Paradine that he is about to die.  So, he tells the sergeant to take the book and do it for him.  But before he dies, he explicitly tells Paradine that when he casts the spells, he is invoking the Devil.

Back at the camp of Paradine’s outfit he returns and tells the tale of what he saw and what can be accomplished with the power of the book.  His commanding officer thinks Paradine is suffering from delusions.  But a company returns from an area where Paradine has tested the power of the book and attests that a frozen column of Yankee soldiers is indeed right over the ridge from their camp for all to see.

Now the soldiers are beginning to become excited by the prospect of snatching a Confederate victory out of the jaws of defeat.  But as Paradine starts to read the spell he realizes that it explicitly renounces God.  Now, even though his CO is urging him to read the spell, Paradine explains that if he reads the spell then instead of Damn Yankees it will be the Confederacy that will be damned.  His comrades beg him to remember that if he doesn’t do it the Confederacy is dead.  Paradine replies that if the Confederacy must die then at least it will be buried in hallowed ground.  And saying this he throws the book into the camp fire.  In the epilogue, Serling says that the troop headed north the next day and ended up in a town called Gettysburg.  The tone at the end is a little too solemn and righteous for a fantasy but it seemed well meaning.

Gary Merrill played Paradine and did an admirable job.  Teague was played by an actor named Vaughn Taylor that I am unfamiliar with but he was very amusingly over the top.

This is a minor tale but it gets the job done.  Tastes will vary on this one but I’ll stake it to a solid B.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 10 – The Midnight Sun

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When we meet Norma and her neighbor Mrs. Bronson, they are just becoming the last two people living in their Manhattan apartment building.  Their other neighbors, the Shusters are leaving town to head north to the Finger Lakes to escape the deadly heat associated with the death spiral of the Earth into the Sun.  Apparently, the temperature at midnight (when by the way the sun is still high in the sky) is 110◦F and in only a day or two survival will become impossible.  So, the cause of the change in Earth’s orbit is unexplained but we soldier on.

Norma is an artist and seems to specialize in landscapes featuring gigantic suns with hills and buildings in the foreground.  The women agonize over their fate and cry a lot.  In the next scene Norma has shed her dress and is stylishly sweating in her underwear which is actually a great improvement to the show.  It distracts from the lack of action.  When Norma goes to the store, she gets some fruit juice they open a can and cry some more.  Later on, a man breaks into the building and forces his way into Norma’s apartment and drinks all her water.  Then he tells us his wife and baby have died and he’s at the end of his rope.  He leaves and the women cry some more.  Then Norma paints a picture of a cool blue water fall and Mrs. Bronson goes crazy and wants to swim in the picture but luckily, she dies before she can try and Norma cries some more.

In the next scene it’s a 120◦F and the thermometer explodes and the liquid leaks out and the paint drips down from Norma’s paintings and she screams and falls down.

In the next scene it’s really, really dark and cold and Mrs. Bronson is alive again and we find out that Norma was having a fever dream about the heat and actually the Earth is flying away from the Sun and in a day or two survival will become impossible.  But at least nobody is crying at the moment.

Okay, I’m being a little sarcastic.  It’s not awful but it’s kinda slow.  The actresses are sympathetic and the acting isn’t terrible but let’s say my attention wavered.  The actress playing Norma is quite attractive and I’ll even give a half point for the surprise ending but honestly this is a C+ at best.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 9 – Deaths-Head Revisited

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A man shows up at a small hotel in a German town and signs in as Mr. Schmidt.  But the hotel clerk recognizes him as an SS officer who used to work at the local concentration camp during World War II (this story is taking place in 1960s Germany).

In the next scene the man is dropped off at the camp (Dachau) and walks around smiling and reminiscing about the death and torture he doled out during his time as Captain Lutze of the SS.  In the middle of his reverie he hears a door open and he sees a man dressed in the garb of one of the concentration camp prisoners of seventeen years ago.  And in fact, he remembers the man’s name was Becker.  Lutze commends Becker on his youthful appearance saying he looks very much as he remembered him seventeen years ago.  He asks Becker if he is a caretaker of the site and Becker evasively says that in a manner of speaking, he is.

Lutze attempts to convince Becker to put aside the past and accept that Lutze was only following orders when he worked at the camp.  Becker refuses this reasoning and instead characterizes Lutze as not a soldier but a sadist who relished his activities.  He lists Lutze’s crimes in the various areas of the camps.  The gallows where men were hanged by the neck or left hanging by their limbs in agony.  The medical building where vivisection of men, women and children was carried out.  The gate where men were machine gunned down in crowds.  Becker names all these things and then he reveals to Lutze that a trial will be conducted and judged by the men whom Lutze mistreated.

And as Lutze looks around one of the barracks, he sees the other prisoners in their uniforms looking at him with expressions that accused him of these high crimes.  As the charges are enumerated, Lutze panics and passes out.

When Lutze awakes Becker informs him that the trial is over and he has been found guilty.  Now Lutze becomes angry and arrogant dismissing Becker’s talk of punishment as foolish but as Lutze begins to act threateningly toward Becker, he stops short and seems shocked.  Becker smiles and tells Lutze that he has remembered correctly that Lutze killed him seventeen years ago just as the Americans were liberating the camp.  And so, it doesn’t seem as if Lutze will be able to murder his way out of this situation.  Now Becker speaks clearly about what is happening.  The ghosts of the men Lutze murdered haunt the camp and now that he has returned, they will pass judgement on him.

Becker pronounces the sentence.  He says Lutze will now experience all the agonies that he doled out against the prisoners of the camp for the rest of his life.  And that this pain would render him insane.  And finally, Becker ends by saying, “This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice. But this is only the beginning, Captain. Only the beginning. Your final judgment will come from God.”

Lutze goes insane and in the last scene a doctor and the police are gathering up Lutze and the doctor says of the camp, “Dachau. Why does it still stand? Why do we keep it standing?”

In his epilogue Serling says all the camps must remain because, “they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.”

Let me first address the artistic aspect of this episode.  Oscar Beregi plays Captain Lutze and I am not familiar with him.  Becker is played by Joseph Schildkraut who I best remember from a much lighter but memorable part he played in the depression era comedy, “The Shop Around the Corner.”  Both men did an admirable job with their decidedly difficult parts.

With respect to the didactic aspect of the episode I’ll address a couple of points.

This episode is said to be a reaction to the contemporary trial of Adolf Eichmann.  Eichmann had been the architect of the concentration camp system and Serling used this episode to make sure that the world had not forgotten the Nazi genocide of the European Jews.  When he says that keeping the camps around will prevent men from forgetting the lesson they teach, I’m afraid that is an overly optimistic assessment.  Even at the time, the USSR and the USA were poised with tens of thousands of ICBMs with a combined killing power to make the Holocaust look like a slipshod affair.  And as the Rwanda genocide showed us many years later you don’t have to be a Nazi (or even ever have heard of them) to butcher your fellow man on a wholesale basis.

My second comment has to do with Becker’s statement about Lutze’s sentence, “This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice.”  This seems unlikely.  For there not to be hatred and revenge associated with the victims of such atrocities would be non-human.  Even a saint would revolt at foregoing hatred and revenge for such evil.

A

Trump vs It’s a Good Life (Part 1)

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Dramatis Personae: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – (AOC); Nancy Pelosi (NP); Al Gore – (AG); Narrator who looks and sounds like Rod Serling – (NRS); Barack Obama – (BO); Michelle Obama – (MO);

 

Scene 1- Unknown Office building; 8 pm Mid-July

A narrator, who looks and sounds a hell of a lot like Rod Serling circa 1961, is standing in front of a map of the United States

NRS – Tonight’s cautionary tale is most unusual and requires that we imagine the following.  Here behind me is a map of the United States.  But what if suddenly it disappeared (whole map goes dark except one point of light) and all that was left was a tiny dot called Washington D.C.?  Now imagine that within this tiny world there was no longer radio, television, the internet, telephones, gas engines or even electricity.  And assume that the only thing that farmers were allowed to grow was vegetables.  No beef, pork, chicken or fish.  And finally imagine that even wishing for any of these things was now a death sentence executed by a monster.  If you can imagine all that you’ve just entered the Bizarro Zone (well I couldn’t use the real name).

Scene 2 – A ramshackle farm building with peeling paint and a wooden porch with a porch swing with an old haggard woman fanning herself with a piece of paper.

NRS – And here is the lair of the monster, a farmhouse with all the misery of pre-industrial life on display.  Over there in the swing on the porch is Aunt Nancy Pelosi, she once had the most influence over the monster but one time she hinted that maybe eliminating all private jets wouldn’t be a “good thing” and she was reduced to the cracked-brain non-gavel wielding hag you see before you.

NP – Hey not so much of the hag thing.  I just got another facelift and I’m a damn good-looking babe, you male chauvinist pig.

NRS – As I was saying, the monster does not like to be contradicted.  Oh, and I’ve forgotten to introduce the monster.  She’s a bug-eyed petulant millennial Latina from the Bronx who can’t even spell climatology but don’t be fooled.  There’s a nasty mean streak behind that googly eyed expression and what passes for a brain is completely in charge of her surroundings.  Meet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or as she’s known to her fawning minions A-oh-see. (swift view change to show AOC trying to get something unstuck from between her horse teeth with her pinky nail, then noticing the camera and glaring in a cross-eyed scowl.

Scene 3 – Same farmhouse from the viewpoint facing the road.  An overweight man (Al Gore) on a delivery bicycle is straining along the driveway to the house.  On the ground in front of the house A-oh-see is playing in the dust.  He pulls up in front of her.

AG – Hi, there A-oh-see.  My it’s good to see you today.  Whatcha doing there?  Whatever it is it’s sure good, but I was just wondering what you were doing there.

AOC – I was figuring out how many white men it takes to pull a wagon for ten women of color in the next Cinco de Mayo parade.

AG – Oh, that’s a real good thing.  Why I never knew so much good figuring going on as you sure can do.

AOC – Yeah, go away now, you’re starting to make me mad.

(Gore quickly scurries away toward the house.  He carries some boxes into the kitchen and addresses Michelle Obama who is shucking corn in the sink)

AG – Hello Mrs. Obama, it’s certainly a good day today and we all just love A-oh-see so much, that’s right, she was out there figuring and figuring and it was just great.

MO – Hello Al.  Yeah, it’s certainly a great day all right and we’re real happy here, we are.

AG – I brought you some things for the party tonight.  I’ve got corn flour and whole wheat flour and baking soda.

MO – Have you got any white flour for the cake?

AG – Oh, we don’t have any more of that.  Not since A-oh-see explained to us just how evil white is.  No, we don’t want none of that, we don’t.  I mean we used to think it was useful but it’s real good that A-oh-see set us straight on that.  Well not straight, we don’t say straight no more we don’t, no sir, I mean no ma’am, Ma’am.

MO – Yeah, it’s funny how you forget how things used to be when you could just say something without being afraid.

AG – Oh, it’s good that you said that but I don’t think you mean it because it’s much better now that we don’t say anything that A-oh-see says is bad.  It’s real, good.

MO – That’s right, it’s real, good.  But last week when she was denouncing honey because it was stolen from bees, she got so excited from screaming that her eyes were extra bulged out and I thought maybe her blood pressure might be reaching maybe five hundred or something, mumble, mumble, mumble…

(Al Gore looking panicky and grabbing his box and heading for the door)

AG – I better be getting on, but can you let A-oh-see know that I got her corn flour that she likes so much?  Can you tell her it was me who got it specially for her?

MO – I sure will Al.  But don’t worry she hates you much less than most other white men.

Scene 4 – Same farmhouse, upstairs where Barack Obama is putting on his tie for the party.  He looks in the mirror and sees A-oh-see staring at him in her friendliest cross-eyed frown.

BO – Oh, hi there, A-oh-see.  It’s good that you were standing behind so quiet like.

AOC – None of the other congress persons came to play with me today.  I wanted congress persons to play with today.

BO – Yes, it’s good that you wanted them to come but last time you denounced Debbie Wasserman Schultz to the Congressional Black Caucus as a Zionist collaborator and they shaved her head and painted it red.  Folks were awful upset about that.

AOC – But I want to play with other congress persons.

BO – Tell you what, we’ll invite some of the rinos.  They’ll be so grateful just for being asked that they’ll come even if you do denounce them.  they’re used to it anyway.  Anyway, A-oh-see everybody loves you.  You’re everybody’s favorite.

AOC – But I remember one time that somebody thought bad things about me.  I can’t remember who it was.  Who was that?

BO – Oh, that was Joe Crowley, after you beat him in the primary.  He said you weren’t qualified.  But don’t worry, Michelle had the FBI and the IRS defenestrate him so he won’t bother you anymore.

AOC – That’s right Joe Crowley, he was a bad white man, a very bad white man.  I hate anybody who doesn’t do what I want.

BO – But everybody loves you A-oh-see, you’re everybody’s favorite.  Now come on, let’s get ready for the party.

 

To be continued …

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 8 – It’s a Good Life

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Okay, so this is it, this is the payoff.  This is the quintessential Twilight Zone episode.  Not even I dare to dispute the primacy of this one.  This is the A+ by which all other episodes are measured against and found wanting.

Rod Serling is standing in front of a map of the United States when the whole thing goes dark except for one dot on the map that he tells us is Peaksville, Ohio.  He tells us that the people there don’t know if the rest of the world was destroyed or if they have been removed from the rest of reality but either way, they are cut off from everything else.  And he tells us that this was done by a monster and that the monster rules this little world through fear and intimidation.  He has eliminated electric power, automobiles, radio and television and all other modern conveniences.  Then Mr. Serling shows us the monster.  It’s a cute little six-year-old boy named Anthony Fremont.  He can read thoughts and he can create or destroy anything he wants to just by thinking it.

Next, we see life in Peaksville.  A grocery store bicycle delivery man shows up at the Fremont farm and says some polite things about the three headed gophers that Anthony is playing with just in time for Anthony to get tired of it and kill it with his mind.  And then he sends it into the cornfield which means it disappears.

The deliveryman talks to Mrs. Fremont about the things that have run out in the store and about the tomato soup that he found because he knows Anthony likes it.  And we meet Aunt Amy who has been crack brained since Anthony stopped her from singing a while ago.  Anthony likes music but not singing.  And then we see Mr. Fremont in his room getting ready for a party that night and talking to Anthony about his day.  Anthony says that no children came to play with him and he wanted them to.  His father reminds Anthony that last time children visited him he sent them to the cornfield and if he keeps doing that eventually there won’t be anybody left.  Just then a collie dog starts barking outside and we find out that Anthony doesn’t like dogs, so soon we hear a yelp of pain and the dog joins the three headed gopher in the cornfield.

That night is a dual celebration.  Anthony will present one of his occasional television shows and it is also Dan Hollis’s birthday.  The television show is a vicious battle between two triceratopses jabbing each other with their horns and attempting to throw each other off a cliff.  When one dinosaur is victorious the television goes blank and Anthony declares, “that’s all the television there is.”  Ethel presents her husband Dan with two birthday presents, a bottle of brandy and a Perry Como record album.  Dan speculates that maybe they could listen to the instrumental introduction before the singing.  But Mr Fremont declares that it would be too risky.

While the rest of the party gathers around while Anthony listens to Pat Riley play the piano Dan Hollis starts getting drunk on his brandy.  Initially he just becomes maudlin about the dwindling supply of whiskey but eventually he starts railing against Anthony and blaming his parents for bringing him into the world.  When Anthony becomes angry with him, Dan tells Anthony, “that’s right you think those bad thoughts about me and maybe some man whose had enough of this will take some something hard across your skull and end this.”  For a second it looks like Aunt Amy is reaching for a fireplace poker but then she backs off.  Anthony says to Dan, “You’re a bad man, a very bad man and you keep thinking bad thoughts about me.”  Then he points his finger at Dan and as a shadow on the wall we see Dan turn into a jack in the box.  Then we see Dan’s face bobbing as if on the jack in the box.  Mr. Fremont begs his son, “please son, send it to the cornfield.”  And he does.  Then he warns Ethel Hollis that she better not think bad thoughts or he’ll do the same to her too.

While everyone tries to put a happy face on what has happened, they notice that it’s snowing (in the summer).  Mr. Fremont starts to say that that will destroy half the crop but then he squelches his thought and finishes off by saying it’s a good thing that Anthony made it snow.  And finally, he says with all the sincerity of a man with a gun to his head that tomorrow is gonna be a real good day.

This is the best Twilight Zone episode.  It’s the vision of hell on earth.  It’s a petulant child with the powers of life and death.  The story is original, creepy and fun.  A+