![]() ![]() Gann, who threatens and berates the little girl for seemingly no reason. Ben helps Jenny escape from her aunt, Mrs. It turns out Ben is really a king from another planet. The Fugitive (3.25) In this sweet episode, Jenny has a strange, older friend (it’s a bit weird, really), Ben who seems to have magical powers. He set a man on fire with his mind, so I kind of get it. There’s not much of a moral to this story unless you factor in how terrified Anthony’s parents are to discipline him. In this one, the child is described as a monster by narrator Rod Serling. It’s a Good Life (3.8) This episode stars the same little boy as “Long Distance Call”, Billy Mumy, as Anthony, a boy who has terrorizes his Ohio village by making anything that displeases him disappear-people, most of the dogs, television that he doesn’t create with his mind, a lot of food, electricity. It’s a story about death and grief that takes a characteristically dark turn. I’d class this one under adults treating children badly, as the grandmother, whose grandson “gave her new life” pretty much takes over the little boy’s life as she refuses to let go and move on. This dynamic disturbs his parents, especially when the little boy disappears to the other side. Long Distance Call (2.22) In this episode, a little boy’s doting grandmother passes away, but she keeps calling him from the other side on a toy telephone. The ep, written by Rod Serling, also reminds me of a Hitchcock movie on a small scale. Often, children represent things that adults are afraid of, but this episode makes that dynamic literal. She comes home one night to find a little girl sitting on the stairs outside her apartment and befriends the “strange…sullen and wise” child only to later discover that the girl is herself from the time her mother was killed, a manifestation of her repressed memories coming back. ![]() Nightmare as a Child (1.29) In “Nightmare as a Child,” a woman who was traumatized by witnessing her mother’s murder returns to her hometown after years away. Because there aren’t that many children in general, I have focused on children rather than girls specifically. In this post, I am focusing on the seasons that are currently available on Netflix, curiously seasons one, two, three, and five. It’s a short, pity read that examines classic episodes, the lessons they teach, and what they have meant to actors, filmmakers, and other creators. ![]() If you enjoy T he Twilight Zone and its take on life, you would like Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone by Mark Dawidziak. What I found was that the episodes that focus on children are most often commenting on the relationship between children, adults, and imagination, with children usually (not always) holding a moral high ground counter to their adults. As any casual viewer of the show knows, most episodes of The Twilight Zone end with a short, sharp commentary on human behavior. When I went looking for episodes to study, I really did not find that many focused on children, but a common theme emerged quickly in the episodes that did-adults treat kids pretty badly in The Twilight Zone. I could not remember many episodes that featured kids. When I set out to cover childhood in spooky entertainment, I was curious to see what childhood looked like on The Twilight Zone. While time hasn't improved its problematic content, its availability allows viewers to examine and discuss it in better context.As I mentioned in my post about The X-Files, The Twilight Zone was a favorite show of mine in my own youth. 3, 2016, when Syfy showed "The Encounter" as part of its New Year's Day Twilight Zone marathon. That was enough to pull it from circulation for decades, though it subsequently became available on home video collections. was entering into a new war against another Asian country, which compounded its hot-button status. ![]() Unsurprisingly, "The Encounter" triggered complaints from the Japanese-American community, who were rightfully upset when it aired in May 1964. government's shameful history on the matter and even fostered a musical about it, Allegiance, which he described as "my legacy project" in a 2012 interview with NPR. He has subsequently shared his experiences at length in an effort to draw attention to the U.S. Ironically, Takamori was an early role for Star Trek actor George Takei, who spent his childhood in an internment camp during the war. It was written, produced and directed by white men who - however well-intentioned - simply lacked the perspective to handle the material properly. However, the episode lacked diversity behind the camera - something unheard of at the time. "The Encounter" is framed as a statement against prejudice, something which The Twilight Zone inspired in other shows. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |