The episode takes place in an upper-class gentleman\u2019s club where old money and just plain old Archie Taylor is angrily listening as younger brasher member Jamie Tennyson babbles on and on about some investment scheme or other while all the other members attempt to duck out on Tennyson before he can put the bite on them.\u00a0 Finally, Taylor has the club butler walk over to Tennyson and hand him a note from Taylor.<\/p>\n
The note is a wager.\u00a0 Taylor is betting $500,000 that Tennyson can\u2019t keep absolutely silent for one year.\u00a0 The details require that Tennyson inhabit a walled fish bowl area in the club\u2019s basement that is wired for sound and always available for observation by the membership.\u00a0 When Tennyson asks him why he is making such an odd bet, Taylor says that Tennyson\u2019s speech is so distasteful to him that he\u2019ll do anything to give himself peace.\u00a0 In addition, Taylor tells Tennyson that he knows he won\u2019t lose the bet because Tennyson is congenitally incapable of shutting up for that long.<\/p>\n
Taylor knows that Tennyson is desperate for money.\u00a0 He has a spend-thrift wife who buys jewelry like it was going out of style.\u00a0 Because of this Taylor believes that Tennyson will accept the bet and also lose and therefore be forced to resign from the club in disgrace.<\/p>\n
Tennyson agrees but demands that Taylor put the money in escrow pending the outcome.\u00a0 Taylor declines saying that his name and credit are all that\u2019s needed to assure the wager.\u00a0 Tennyson reluctantly agrees and the year is set to begin the next night.<\/p>\n
In the next scene it\u2019s nine weeks later, Tennyson is residing in the clear plastic walled enclosure and Taylor is amazed that Tennyson has been able to control himself so long.\u00a0 But Taylor is merrily assuring his friends and associates that Tennyson won\u2019t last much longer.<\/p>\n
In the following scene it\u2019s nine months into the year and Taylor seems to be getting worried.\u00a0 He tells Tennyson that he feels sorry for him and offers him a thousand dollars to call the bet off and release him from his prison.\u00a0 Tennyson refuses and writes on a pad \u201cthree months to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now Taylor starts using psychological warfare on Tennyson.\u00a0 He hints to Tennyson that people have begun to see Tennyson\u2019s wife going about town with other men.\u00a0 He mentions over and over that Tennyson could lose his wife if he doesn\u2019t leave right away and get her back.\u00a0 This tactic is shown several times in the following scenes.\u00a0 But although obviously tortured by the by the warnings he resists the temptation to quit.<\/p>\n
Finally, it\u2019s the last hour of the bet and Taylor\u2019s friend and attorney George Alfred confronts Taylor with the knowledge that not only will Tennyson win the bet but Taylor will be exposed as a fraud and bankrupt.<\/p>\n
The year is complete and Tennyson emerges from his isolation booth.\u00a0 He walks over to Taylor and extends his hand to him palm up waiting for his check.\u00a0 Taylor admits to the fact that he has no money, that Tennyson is the better man and that Taylor will resign from the club in disgrace.\u00a0 But instead of verbally abusing Taylor and crowing over his victory Tennyson says nothing.<\/p>\n
The other members are astounded and ask Tennyson to speak and tell them his side of the story.\u00a0 But instead he takes a pad of paper and writes something and hands it to the members.\u00a0 What it says is that before the contest Tennyson realized that he could not stay silent for a year so before he entered the room, he had the nerves to his vocal cords surgically severed.\u00a0 Tennyson then removes the scarf that he has been wearing throughout the contest and we see the scars from the surgery.<\/p>\n
I remember as a kid this one creeped me out.\u00a0 The horror of a man maiming himself to win money still bothers me viscerally.\u00a0 But I will admit the story is rather well done.\u00a0 Liam Sullivan who plays Tennyson is actually quite a sympathetic character.\u00a0 Taylor is played by Franchot Tone who was a pretty big star back in the day and is convincingly venal.\u00a0 And Jonathan Harris (of \u201cLost in Space\u201d fame) is an able voice of conscience as George Alfred.\u00a0 I\u2019m not speechless with amazement but let\u2019s say B+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The episode takes place in an upper-class gentleman\u2019s club where old money and just plain old Archie Taylor is angrily listening as younger brasher member<\/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":[38,1355,1194,44,309,265,1691,1804,154,1692,838],"class_list":["post-6462","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-the-silence","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone"],"yoast_head":"\n