July 6, 2023-number 110

Spoilers

“Minatures”

We have come to another episode of The Twilight Zone that I remember watching as a younger person. I did not remember much about the episode, but I did remember the imagery of the man talking to the dolls in the dollhouse.

It was Robert Duvall playing Charley Parkes, a sad and isolated man who did not have a lot of social skills and who struggled with human interactions. He was a man who found the interaction he needed inside a dollhouse at a museau,

“To the average person, a museum is a place of knowledge, a place of beauty and truth and wonder. Some people come to study, others to contemplate, others to look for the sheer joy of looking. Charley Parkes has his own reasons. He comes to the museum to get away from the world. It isn’t really the sixty-cent cafeteria meal that has drawn him here every day, it’s the fact that here in these strange, cool halls he can be alone for a little while, really and truly alone. Anyway, that’s how it was before he got lost and wandered into the Twilight Zone.“

Robert Duvall does a wonderful job portraying this character. Without that subtle and compelling performance, this episode does not work at all.

Charley’s family, including his mother, try to help Charley with his shyness and withdrawn behavior by setting him up on a date and encouraging him to get a job. Charley had been let go of his most recent job because he did not fit in and it was implied that this had happened before.

Charley becomes obsessed with the wooden doll in the miniature dollhouse and spent all his time sitting and talking to it. More things begin to happen as another doll arrives and tries to push himself on the woman doll. This led to Charley breaking the glass on the case to try and stop him and ends up with Charley committed to a mental hospital.

Charley plays his doctor, convincing him that he was all better and that he realized that the doll was not real. Charley sneaked out from his mother’s apartment and went back to the museum. The doctor and Charley’s family went to the museum to confront him, but they never found him. Well, a security guard did see Charley…

“They never found Charley Parkes, because the guard didn’t tell them what he saw in the glass case. He knew what they’d say and he knew they’d be right too, because seeing is not always believing, especially if what you see happens to be an odd corner of the Twilight Zone“

Charley wound up in the dollhouse with the wooden doll, escaping the world he was uncomfortable in for one of fantasy where he was comfortable.

It is a great twist at the end and a good end to the story. We would probably place a character like Charley on the Autism Spectrum in today’s world and Duvall’s portrayal is top tier. Maybe the messaging of the episode is a bit off- you can escape your troubles by diving into your own fantasy, but there is no denying that this is a well acted and engaging tale.