Article-I.D.: petrus.610
Posted: Sun Sep 29 02:33:10 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 09:03:42 EDT
References: <325@lzwi.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 47

As a fan of the original Twilight Zone, I guess I expected to be vaguely
disappointed by the season premiere of the (new) Twilight Zone.

It did not take long in either episode to recognize the original episodes
from which the two new ones were drawn. The first half, "Shatterday",
plagarizes its theme from "Nervous Man in a Four-Dollar Room", a far better
show. The original character, Jackie Rhoades, is a small-time hoodlum holed
up in a cheap flophouse waiting for orders from his boss.  When his boss
does call, he is ordered to murder a tavern owner who has refused to pay
protection money. For most of the one-man show, Jackie goes through a
breakdown, arguing with his alter-ego in mirrors -- a reflection of himself
as he'd be if he had been able to take control of his own life. At the end,
Jackie and his mirror image are finally able to trade places.  Joe Mantell
did an excellent job playing Jackie, unlike the character of Peter Jay
Novins in "Shatterday". Bruce Willis plays the two halves of this character
so unsympathetically that instead of wishing for the "good half" to replace
the "bad half", you're almost hoping that they'll just kill each other and
get it over with.  The inevitable ending was obvious long before it happened
and was totally devoid of the ironic surprise twist that made the original
Twilight Zone episodes so satisfying.

The second story, about a housewife who unearths a sundial pendant which
enables her to freeze the world (and give her peace and quiet) whenever she
says "shut up!" is stolen even more directly from "A Kind of a Stopwatch".

The original Twilight Zone seldom had an unhappy ending unless the main
character strongly deserved some poetic justice. In the original story,
Patrick McNulty is locked into a frozen world because of his greed. He uses
his ability to stop time in order to rob a bank, and in doing so
accidentally breaks the stopwatch that he needs to start the world going
again. The housewife in "A Little Peace and Quiet" does little to deserve
her fate, trapped in world she freezes the moment before a Soviet ICBM lands
on her town. It seems a bit much to hold her responsible for Armageddon
because she declined to watch a debate on arms control. On the other hand,
perhaps she's now supposed to find a fighter airplane, learn to fly it, and
go up to destroy the missile that's frozen in midair over her town? We
aren't even given a hint. (Technical flaw: it seems unlikely that the
Russians have launching points so close to their US targets that their
missile boosters wouldn't even have a chance to finish burning, much less
stage and deploy their warheads before they land on their targets. But I
suppose it's all artistic license.)

I suppose the new Twilight Zone is better than 95% of the shows on TV
these days, but judging from the opening episode it will be no competition
for reruns of the Rod Serling originals.

Phil Karn