Friday, March 12, 2010

The Only Twilight I Like is the Zone

Whenever you watch classic Twilight Zone episodes, it's easy to discern the pattern:

1) Something seemingly normal and mundane for about a minute.

2) Wait, something's not quite right here....

3) Oh man, what a messed up scene!

4) Rod Serling pops out from behind a tree--as if that's not creepy enough, since his eyebrows need their own entourage--and then describes the characters and the fact that they're in some sort of zone of twilight.

5) Story progresses, you think it's going to go a certain way for the characters who seem so sure of themselves....

6) Then, a final twist! Cute the crazy trumpet music.

7) As the credits roll, you realize that this crazy story has PARALLELS TO REAL LIFE OH MAN I REALLY GREW AS A PERSON HERE.

Usually, the lessons we learn are not earth shattering--fascism is bad, conformity is like fascism, racism is bad too, space aliens want to cook us, if a doll can talk then you'd better be nice to it or it'll kill you, since it killed Kojak before he became Kojak. Which is probably good, since this series (airing from 1959 to 1965) probably has a lot to do with why there's no more conformity, racism, or talking dolls.

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