June 7, 2023-numbers 23-24

Spoilers

“A World of Difference”

Lights. Camera. Action.

At least, in the Twilight Zone.

“You’re looking at a tableau of reality, things of substance, of physical material: a desk, a window, a light. These things exist and have dimension. Now this is Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, who also is real. He has flesh and blood, muscle and mind. But in just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind.”

Another winner of an episode as we peek behind the camera of a man’s life. Is he Arthur Curtis? Or instead is he actor Gerald Raigan?

This episode shows a man having a nervous breakdown, believing that he is, in truth, the character that he is playing in a movie. Or does that character really need a vacation from work because he has had some delusion. I do like the even balance the show gives us. Although it does feel as if Gerry is the true personality, there is enough uncertainty to warrant debate.

The episode featured David White, most well known as Larry Tate from Bewitched as Gerry’s agent/friend.

“Long Live Walter Jameson”

Walter Jameson is old. Really old.

He has fallen in love with a younger woman. However, her father has discovered the truth of Walter’s age. Walter was old enough to have been friends with Plato.

The idea of immortality is revisited here, and the idea that it would not make a person happy is brought back once again. We saw how things could go bad in the episode, “The Escape Clause” and here it takes a slightly different path, but reaches the same conclusion. That death is what makes life so valuable.

The ending of the episode was very well done as we see Walter, shot by a former wife, died slowly, but aging rapidly as he died. He wound up a pile of dust on the floor after we had seen him age from the man that we knew. It was a neat effect.

“Last stop on a long journey, as yet another human being returns to the vast nothingness that is the beginning and into the dust that is always the end.“