June 12, 2023- numbers 47, 48, 49

Spoilers

“The Night of the Meek”

Merry Christmas, from The Twilight Zone.

“This is Mr. Henry Corwin, normally unemployed, who once a year takes the lead role in the uniquely popular American institution, that of the department-store Santa Claus in a road-company version of ‘The Night Before Christmas’. But in just a moment Mr. Henry Corwin, ersatz Santa Claus, will enter a strange kind of North Pole which is one part the wondrous spirit of Christmas and one part the magic that can only be found… in the Twilight Zone.“

We get the drunk Santa story that we have seen so many times since. Henry Corwin, after being fired from his Santa job at the mall for being drunk, found a Santa gift bag that allowed Corwin to pull out whatever the gift receiver wanted.

The police believed he had stolen the stuff, but they could not prove anything. He was able to show them that he could pull anything they asked for out of the bag.

He ran out of gifts and wound up getting in the sleigh and becoming the real Santa Claus.

This was an okay episode. We’ve seen this before, but I’m not sure they saw this at the time (1960).

“Dust”

We get another Western on The Twilight Zone. This one deals with a very dark issue and one of sadness.

“There was a village. Built of crumbling clay and rotting wood. And it squatted ugly under a broiling sun like a sick and mangy animal wanting to die. This village had a virus, shared by its people. It was the germ of squalor, of hopelessness, of a loss of faith. For the faithless, the hopeless, the misery-laden, there is time, ample time, to engage in one of the other pursuits of men. They began to destroy themselves.”

The episode started off with a terrible tragic event. We find out that Luis Gallegos, who is in jail and being prepared to be hanged, had been drunk and accidentally ran over a little girl with his wagon.

We get one of the worst characters I have seen on The Twilight Zone in the peddler Sykes. This guy was so horrible in this episode. He taunted Luis while he was in jail. He was snarky with the Sheriff. He was looking to make money off the pain of Luis’s father. This guy should have received the ironic ending of the episode. He did not though. He did see, apparently, the errors of his ways.

Sykes sold Luis’s father a bag full of dirt from the ground and pretended as if it were magic dust. Luis’s father showed up at the hanging and threw the dirt around hoping it would work.

Shockingly, the rope snapped, dropping Luis to the ground. The parents of the little girl decided that this was a sign and Luis should be left alive.

I liked this episode quite a bit, but I did want Sykes to pay for his cruelness. The ending did feel a little underwhelming.

“Back There”

The Professor winds up in a time travel episode.

“Witness a theoretical argument, Washington, D.C., the present. Four intelligent men talking about an improbable thing like going back in time. A friendly debate revolving around a simple issue: could a human being change what has happened before? Interesting and theoretical, because who ever heard of a man going back in time? Before tonight, that is, because this is—The Twilight Zone.”

Peter Corrigan is involved with his friends in a discussion on time travel. As he was leaving the club, he finds himself transported to 1865, on the day that Abraham Lincoln was to be assassinated.

When Corrigan realized when he was, he tries going all over the place trying to stop the assassination. He winds up at the police station arrested. A man shows up and takes him out of the jail.

The man takes him to a room and drugs him. It was actually John Wilks Booth who took Corrigan so he would no longer be yelling about the assassination.

When Corrigan awoke, he discovered it was too late and that Lincoln was killed. He wound up back in the present and discovered that someone who had worked in the club before, now was a member because of things that happened when Corriganhad gone back in the past.

This was interesting. They took plenty of liberties here, especially with Booth. It’s great to see the Professor once again.