July 25, 2023- numbers 150, 151, 152

Spoilers

“Stopover in a Quiet Town”

“Stopover in a Quiet Town” is a standout episode of The Twilight Zone that has inspired plenty of other pop culture items.

“Bob and Millie Frazier, average young New Yorkers who attended a party in the country last night and on the way home took a detour. Most of us on waking in the morning know exactly where we are; the rooster or the alarm clock brings us out of sleep into the familiar sights, sounds, aromas of home, and the comfort of a routine day ahead. Not so with our young friends. This will be a day like none they’ve ever spent – and they’ll spend it in the Twilight Zone.”

Trapped inside this apparently deserted town, Bob and Millie run around the city of Centerville realizing that they could not escape and that thing that looked to be real, such as trees and the squirrel, were fake or stuffed.

They could find no one else in the town, only a few dummies set up in cars to look like there were people. They ran around in desperation to try and find their way out.

They heard the laughter of a little girl all around them, which was eventual revealed that they had been abducted by aliens and were being used like dolls in a little girl’s toy set.

The idea was similar to the set up of the season three episode, “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” except this was a “don’t drink and drive” type theme. I’m not sure if it was a good idea to make it the woman’s fault for being abducted, which the show hinted at. Still the execution of the story was very good even if the child’s laughter and the hints of a shadow coming over the car made this twist fairly predictable.

“The Encounter”

This one was uncomfortable.

I immediately thought that this was George Takei, who would wind up as Sulu on the original Star Trek series, which it did turn out to be. Both Takei and co-star Neville Brand were intense with their performances in this story.

It made me feel like it was a stage play. One basic setting with two actors just bouncing their performances off the other. It was certainly carried by the strength of these two actors.

“Two men alone in an attic, a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterday’s war. It’s twenty odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons, souvenirs, mementos, old uniforms, and rusted medals. Ghosts from the dim reaches of the past, that will lead us into the Twilight Zone.

This episode was removed from much of the Twilight Zone syndication after its initial debut because of the racial overtones present and some of the controversy over the story told, in particular the revelation that Takei’s character’s father had been a traitor at Pearl Harbor and had helped signal the planes, a fact that was not true and that there had been no indication that there were any Japanese-Americans at Pearl Harbor helping the bombers.

There was also a lot of racial insensitive language being tossed around, especially from the character played by Neville Brand, who was a former soldier during WWII and had recently been fired from his job and had his wife leave him because of his drinking. Both actors used this incendiary dialogue to create some real tension in the scenes.

There were some supernatural elements of the episode too, mostly surrounding a samurai sword that Band’s character had taken off of a Japanese soldier that he had killed during the war. This was the weaker aspect of the script as the interactions with the actors was considerably more potent.

This episode had its strengths and weaknesses and they were distinctly pronounced. Some of the scenes were riveting while others made no sense. It was a tough watch for sure.

“Mr. Garrity and the Graves”

This is definitely the worst of the three episodes in this post.

“Introducing Mr. Jared Garrity, a gentleman of commerce, who in the latter half of the nineteenth century plied his trade in the wild and wooly hinterlands of the American West. And Mr. Garrity, if one can believe him, is a resurrecter of the dead – which, on the face of it, certainly sounds like the bull is off the nickel. But to the scoffers amongst you, and you ladies and gentlemen from Missouri, don’t laugh this one off entirely, at least until you’ve seen a sample of Mr. Garrity’s wares, and an example of his services. The place is Happiness, Arizona, the time about 1890. And you and I have just entered a saloon where the bar whiskey is brewed, bottled and delivered from the Twilight Zone.”

A con man comes into town, pretending to be able to raise the dead. He sets up a town that, apparently, did not have any loved ones that they were sad were dead. All the people of Happiness, Arizona seemed to be happy that their relatives and family members were gone.

So, after he pretended to raise the dead, Garrity had the people pay him to have them go back to their graves.

It was clear that he was pulling a con on everybody except these dumb people.

However, the worst part of the episode was the ending. When Garrity met up with his accomplice and the dog that he pretended to bring back from the dead, it was revealed that he had actually unwittingly brought the dead people back to life and they were heading down to the town to cause trouble.

I thought maybe these zombie-like people would attack Garrity as a way to show that you can’t mess with life-death, but, nope. It was not that. They were just heading back to Happiness and the closing narration implied that Garrity did not know his own power.

How dumb was this episode? Extremely dumb. Did not like this one at all.

As of now, I only have four more episodes of the original series of The Twilight Zone for the Daily Zone. Plans are to do one episode on Wednesday and then finish up with three on Thursday (pending actual time). Perhaps it gets pushed back a day or so, but Friday is the absolute last potential day for the Daily Zone.