The good news is there isn\u2019t anyone screaming and crying for the world to hear him in this episode.\u00a0 The bad news is this is one of those fantasy episodes where someone can see into the future.\u00a0 But the good news is it\u2019s the first one so I give it a pass.\u00a0 And actually, the story is pretty good.\u00a0 The characters you\u2019re supposed to like are likable enough and the bad guy is dislikable enough so let\u2019s give it a whirl.<\/p>\n
Pedott is a peddler who sells matches and shoelaces out of his suitcase.\u00a0 He\u2019s a harmless looking little old man with a quiet voice and a faint smile.\u00a0 But every now and then he looks at a customer and he tells him, \u201cWhat you need is this.\u201d\u00a0 And then he\u2019ll give the customer a small bottle of cleaning fluid or a bus ticket to Scranton PA.\u00a0 And then the customer will discover that what\u2019s been offered is exactly what he needs.<\/p>\n
The scene is a bar where a few customers are sitting around and a surly tough guy named Fred Renard has watched Pedott magically give two people exactly what they need.\u00a0 When Pedott leaves the bar, Renard confronts him in a threatening way and demands to be given exactly what he needs.\u00a0 Pedott gives him a pair of scissors.\u00a0 Later on, Renard catches his scarf in an elevator door and only the scissors save him from asphyxiating.\u00a0 When Pedott returns to his hotel room he finds Renard lying in wait for him.\u00a0 Renard demands that Pedott provide him with something to make him some money. \u00a0Pedott gives him a leaky fountain pen that spills a drop of ink onto a newspaper directly in front of the name of a horse running in a race the next day.\u00a0 Renard wins several hundred dollars and immediately comes looking for Pedott to cash in on some other item.<\/p>\n
Renard makes Pedott understand that he will never be rid of Renard and that he will risk violence if he doesn\u2019t keep furnishing Renard with miracles.\u00a0 Pedott lets him know that he can\u2019t produce these things without wearing himself out.\u00a0 But Renard forces him to produce something right away or risk a beating.\u00a0 Renard takes a pair of shoes from the suitcase and asks Pedott if they are what is needed and he is noncommittal.<\/p>\n
Renard puts on the shoes and says they\u2019re too tight and have leather soles which makes them slippery to walk on.\u00a0 When he demands to know how the shoes will benefit him Pedott hurries away and Renard chases him through the street.\u00a0 But a fast-moving car come up behind him and the shoes are too slippery to let him sidestep the car.\u00a0 Renard is struck and killed.\u00a0 Pedott speaks to Renard\u2019s inert form on the ground.\u00a0 He explains that in the bar the first night he saw a vision of Renard trying to kill him.\u00a0 And finally, he knew that the shoes were what he really needed to escape Renard.<\/p>\n
So, this kind of story becomes another predictable staple of the Twilight Zone stock in trade.\u00a0 But this is the first one and I actually enjoyed watching this one.\u00a0 In fact, I don\u2019t remember seeing this one before.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give it a B.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The good news is there isn\u2019t anyone screaming and crying for the world to hear him in this episode.\u00a0 The bad news is this is<\/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":[38,1355,1194,44,309,265,1691,154,1692,838,1708],"class_list":["post-5945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-tv-reviews","category-twilight-zone","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-rod-serling","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone","tag-what-you-need"],"yoast_head":"\n