"The Twilight Zone" - Reconsidered
WQ
in later on anyway. In my initial assessment of "The Twilight Zone"
in my first "Top New Shows" posting, I was pretty severe on the pilot
episode, finding the two stories in it uninspired at best and bereft
of any real Rod Serling-isms in them. I gave the pilot a flat 0 and
blamed executive producer Pen Densham for botching up another classic.
And then I just got around to watching the second episode and I have
to take it all back. The first story in it - about a white driver who
refused to help a chased-by-thugs black man, leaving him behind to
face his death and the consequences of that action that ensued for the
driver - was a script that seemed to come straight out of Serling's
personal library, serving an ending that befitted its humanistic
commentary. It was also an ending that could've stopped about 30
seconds short with an alternate conclusion, that of seeing the
character caught in a circular nightmare for the rest of his waking
life, which would've worked just as fine with me too within a more
cruel context of what the story was about, but the trademark Serling
humanistic angle, one of a few trademarks he exercised in his original
series, was probably the better choice in this case. The second story
was a little more fanciful, being about a writer-artist struggling
with a creative block who drew up a dream girl – the edible Shannon
Elizabeth, no less – that actually came to life to inspire him through
sexual means, which no doubt worked wonders on his progress in his
latest project. The twist ending was one reminiscent of at least a
couple of Densham's early "Outer Limits" episodes I had seen, but it
still worked nevertheless, since I still didn't see it coming till
about maybe 15 seconds before it was revealed, when I got a sense of
where it was going. Both stories in the second episode worked well
enough for me to want to not only now stick with the show for a little
while, but also jack up my previous score for it from 0 to maybe a 6
or even 7 [the extra point for Shannon Elizabeth, that's how shallow I
can be], out of 8 [it's very rare that any show can get a 9 or 10 out
of me]. I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that with an
anthology series like this one, you just have to be a little more
patient – lesson to be learned, from "The Twilight Zone".
Alex Wai
"WQ" <ri...@email.com> wrote in message
news:a6b5ab75.02092...@posting.google.com...
> to take it all back. The first story in it - about a white driver who
> refused to help a chased-by-thugs black man, leaving him behind to
> face his death and the consequences of that action that ensued for the
> driver - was a script that seemed to come straight out of Serling's
> personal library, serving an ending that befitted its humanistic
> commentary. It was also an ending that could've stopped about 30
I could predict the ending after the guy started turning dark.
And as for the second episode... "I see dead people. All the time."
Lynn
>
> The second story
> was a little more fanciful, being about a writer-artist struggling
> with a creative block who drew up a dream girl – the edible Shannon
> Elizabeth, no less – that actually came to life to inspire him through
> sexual means, which no doubt worked wonders on his progress in his
> latest project. The twist ending was one reminiscent of at least a
> couple of Densham's early "Outer Limits" episodes I had seen, but it
> still worked nevertheless, since I still didn't see it coming till
> about maybe 15 seconds before it was revealed, when I got a sense of
> where it was going.
Were both guys "dream guys"? I've probably taped over it by now, but
since then, I thought that the guy in the shower was drawn as well.
--
Lynn
http://www.lynnsland.com
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Life is a search for the truth; and there is no truth
- Chinese Proverb
=====================================================
Corwin2
>Were both guys "dream guys"? I've probably taped over it by now, but
>since then, I thought that the guy in the shower was drawn as well.
She told him the other guy was real. The other guy
got very close to him (threatening his personal space)
without visibly reacting to him.
I would guess he was real.
(J)
WQ
> WQ proclaimed...
> >
> > The second story
> > was a little more fanciful, being about a writer-artist struggling
> > with a creative block who drew up a dream girl – the edible Shannon
> > Elizabeth, no less – that actually came to life to inspire him through
> > sexual means, which no doubt worked wonders on his progress in his
> > latest project. The twist ending was one reminiscent of at least a
> > couple of Densham's early "Outer Limits" episodes I had seen, but it
> > still worked nevertheless, since I still didn't see it coming till
> > about maybe 15 seconds before it was revealed, when I got a sense of
> > where it was going.
>
> Were both guys "dream guys"? I've probably taped over it by now, but
> since then, I thought that the guy in the shower was drawn as well.
--- Turned out the dream girl was the real artist-writer with the
creative block who dreamt up the writer-artist guy to satisfy her
inspiration needs. When he saw the cable guy who started flirting
with her and he tried to punch him, but his fist just went right
through him, the writer-artist guy thought, as I was also led to
believe, that his "dream girl" met her "dream guy". But the reason
why his fist went through the cable guy was that the writer-artist
himself wasn't real but he didn't know that, and neither did we, the
character and this viewer believing at that point that the two
"dreams" had found each other. Anyway, at episode's end, when the
real girl had enough of the dream artist-writer's jealous ways over
her real husband/boyfriend [unclear] cable guy and she found herself
back on track with her work, she simply erased her drawing of her
now-annoying dream guy [just as he also had a drawing of her], and
thus him himself, out of existence. If it was only that simple to get
rid of annoying people.
Lynn
> "Lynn" <cheops.k...@mailops.compound> wrote...
>>
>> Were both guys "dream guys"? I've probably taped over it by now, but
>> since then, I thought that the guy in the shower was drawn as well.
>
> --- Turned out the dream girl was the real artist-writer with the
> creative block who dreamt up the writer-artist guy to satisfy her
> inspiration needs.
I know all that. There was one point - I _think_ it was just before the
dream guy realized he was the figment of her imagination - where she was
looking at drawings, and IIRC, there was one of a guy wrapped in a bath
towel. At the time, I took it to mean they were both "dream guys" and
she drew the second one before erasing the first.
Her demeanor, though, didn't really bear that out. If this show should
live long enough to do reruns, I'll pay closer attention.
WQ
> WQ proclaimed...
>
> > "Lynn" <cheops.k...@mailops.compound> wrote...
> >>
> >> Were both guys "dream guys"? I've probably taped over it by now, but
> >> since then, I thought that the guy in the shower was drawn as well.
> >
> > --- Turned out the dream girl was the real artist-writer with the
> > creative block who dreamt up the writer-artist guy to satisfy her
> > inspiration needs.
>
> I know all that. There was one point - I _think_ it was just before the
> dream guy realized he was the figment of her imagination - where she was
> looking at drawings, and IIRC, there was one of a guy wrapped in a bath
> towel. At the time, I took it to mean they were both "dream guys" and
> she drew the second one before erasing the first.
>
> Her demeanor, though, didn't really bear that out. If this show should
> live long enough to do reruns, I'll pay closer attention.
---> I re-viewed the ending and both the girl and the other guy
[husband or boyfriend, still unclear] were real, she even said so to
the dream artist-writer before erasing him out of her life: "Don't you
get it? I'm real, Sam's real."
Lynn
>>
>> Her demeanor, though, didn't really bear that out. If this show
>> should live long enough to do reruns, I'll pay closer attention.
>>
>
> ---> I re-viewed the ending and both the girl and the other guy
> [husband or boyfriend, still unclear] were real, she even said so to
> the dream artist-writer before erasing him out of her life: "Don't you
> get it? I'm real, Sam's real."
Ok, thanks. From one of the articles David posted, doesn't appear it
will be around long enough to give a second look.