June 5, 2023- numbers 19, 20, 21

Spoilers

“The Purple Testament”

I did not expect much from this episode. It was a basic war story… that is, until it took that twist that you can only find in the Twilight Zone.

“Infantry platoon, U.S. Army, Philippine Islands, 1945. These are the faces of the young men who fight, as if some omniscient painter had mixed a tube of oils that were at one time earth brown, dust gray, blood red, beard black, and fear—yellow white, and these men were the models. For this is the province of combat, and these are the faces of war.”

Bewitched star Dick York appeared in this episode of The Twilight Zone as a main supporting character. I had seen this fact during my research, but I had forgotten about it so when I saw him, I was shocked. I thought he did a very good job.

Meanwhile, our lead character, William “Fitz” Fitzgerald, developed a strange and disturbing ability. Fitz was able to look at the face of other soldiers in his platoon and he would see a light indicating that they were going to die.

This power clearly upset Fitz, as you would expect. He did what he could to come to grips with his precognition.

I found this episode to be extremely well done. It had a tragic story that brought Fitz into a terrible state of mind. The ending was very powerful. It brought the idea of a failure to be able to prevent death even with foreknowledge is a very sad but relatable theme.

“Elegy”

Another example of a spaceship that leads to a breakdown, stranding the pilots somewhere familiar, yet foreign. Much of this episode was bizarre and mysterious. I do think that I was engaged with the story at the beginning. The seemingly frozen people in this location was odd and I was not sure what was going on.

When Jeremy Wickwire, the caretaker of the place, turned to the camera, I actually shouted. I did not expect that.

Unfortunately, the next ten to fifteen minutes or so of the show really felt weak. There was just a ton of enigmatic exposition as Wickwire tried to maintain the mystery of what was going on. The show lost me during this period. However, the ending was extremely dark and intriguing. I loved the final three minutes or so as Wickwire poisoned the three astronauts and set them up in their own “final wish”.

I found the tones of this episode to clash with each other. There was some serious and mysterious feeling early and Wickwire brought a more humorous tone that seemed to undercut what was going on. Then the show ended very darkly and with a great deal of irony and Wickwire showed his true feelings for the human race, and we did not see that prior at all.

It is a real mishmash for me.

“Mirror Image”

One of the more well known episodes (apparently it inspired Jordan Peele’s film Us), “Mirror Image” was one that I was looking forward to, but, though it was interesting, I do not think it quite reached the level that I was expecting.

“Millicent Barnes, age twenty-five, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes: not given to undue anxiety, or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fantasy. Like most young career women, she has a generic classification as a, quote, girl with a head on her shoulders, end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Miss Barnes’ shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who, in one minute, will wonder if she’s going mad.”

Strange things are happening for Millicent. People are telling her that she had been asking questions that she had not been. People said she had been places where she was not. She was starting to feel as if she were losing her grip on reality. Could she be delusional?

The arrival of the friendly gentleman, Paul Grinstead, brought her down a bit, but things ramped up again when she started speculating about evil doubles from parallel worlds.

Of course, that is what was going on and she would eventually spy her doppelganger on the bus that she intended to be on. I had a problem here. Why would she not go up and confront this doppelganger with Paul beside her? Instead, she just screamed and ran off, apparently passing out.

Paul called the police to take her for mental help and then he realizes that she wasn’t wrong as the same thing starts to happen to him.

I found this to be way overrated. I still enjoyed a lot the episode, but the fact is the conclusion felt rushed and made little sense. I did not like the way the characters reacted and the ending did not support what was a decent start.