The Lonely is a science fiction short story about being human.\u00a0 I take a few points off because of the silliness of the set-up.\u00a0 James Corry is a convicted killer who\u2019s been sentenced to a fifty-year prison sentence but the \u201cprison\u201d is an asteroid nine million miles from Earth.\u00a0 Let\u2019s forget about the inaccuracies of where and how but let\u2019s look at the silliness of the logistics of this prison.\u00a0 Four times a year a ship has to come from Earth and drop off supplies to all of the asteroid prisons in use.\u00a0 So apparently there are enough asteroids to keep each prisoner in solitary confinement.\u00a0 Next, according to the supply ship personnel, they have to spend eight months out of every year performing their supply circuit.\u00a0 So in effect, they too are virtual prisoners of their jobs.\u00a0 The whole things is completely absurd and pointless since a prison on Earth would be infinitely cheaper, easier and equally effective.\u00a0 Okay, rant off.<\/p>\n
Corry is in year four of his sentence when a sympathetic supply ship captain, Allenby brings him a present.\u00a0 Believing Corry to be an innocent man and knowing that Corry is close to despair, he gives him a crate that he tells him to open after the ship leaves because it is contraband which the Captain would be punished for giving to Corry.<\/p>\n
Corry opens up the crate and finds a robot that looks and acts like a living woman.\u00a0 Alicia, as she calls herself, tries to befriend Corry but at first he rejects her because he feels she is a mockery of life and worse than being alone.\u00a0 But when he treats her roughly she feels pain and her tears touch his heart and he grows to accept her as a human and love her as a real woman.\u00a0 The scene of the two of them sitting out in the desert night while he points out the familiar constellations is very touching.<\/p>\n
Then Allenby\u2019s ship returns unexpectedly with the best news he could possibly hope for.\u00a0 Corry has been pardoned and can now return to Earth immediately.\u00a0 In fact he has only minutes to leave and can only bring fifteen pounds of belongings.\u00a0 He is overjoyed and states that he doesn\u2019t have fifteen pounds of possessions, just a notebook and a pencil.\u00a0 He tells Allenby that he\u2019ll call Alicia and they can go right away.<\/p>\n
But Allenby breaks the news to him that Alicia cannot come.\u00a0 There is no allowance for her weight and she is a criminal possession anyway.\u00a0 Corry becomes agitated and angry and tells Allenby and his men that Alicia is a real woman and she must go along with them.\u00a0 Allenby realizes the harm he has caused by his gift to Corry but sees the only possible resolution to the dilemma.\u00a0 He shoots Alicia in the face and thereby destroys her.\u00a0 Corry goes into a shocked silence seeing the mechanical components behind her face and Allenby assures him that leaving the asteroid will mean waking up from a nightmare and the only thing he\u2019ll be leaving behind is loneliness.\u00a0 To which Corry mechanically replies, \u201cI must remember that, I must remember to keep that in mind,\u201d as he\u2019s lead back to the relief ship.<\/p>\n
Jack Warden who played Corry was a pretty familiar face to television viewers of the era.\u00a0 He seemed to play a lot of cops from what I remember of him.\u00a0 He does a good job playing the part.\u00a0 Allenby is played by John Dehner who is not as well known but played in several Twilight Zone episodes and is actually one of my favorites for western sheriffs and space ship captains.\u00a0 He also did a good job.<\/p>\n
I like this episode.\u00a0 It\u2019s far-fetched and a little bit contrived but fits my tastes for a half-hour drama.\u00a0 It gets a B.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Lonely is a science fiction short story about being human.\u00a0 I take a few points off because of the silliness of the set-up.\u00a0 James<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,240,1661],"tags":[1355,1194,44,265,1691,1690,1692,838],"class_list":["post-5884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-tv-reviews","category-twilight-zone","tag-reviews","tag-rod-serling","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-the-lonely","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone"],"yoast_head":"\n