4 Twilight Zone Hot Takes | Big Joel
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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- This is a series of short videos about the Twilight Zone. Fun fun fun! I talk mostly about four episodes. Eye of the Beholder, The Masks, Come Wander With Me, and Sounds and Silences. Hope you enjoy!
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For the episode where you ask "why doesn't the old man get punished?" I've always taken it as, he is punished. His face isn't deformed no, but his mask is that of a skull. After it is removed he is what it reflected, he is dead.
He was going to die anyway though. Surviving the night was posed as near impossible. He got the best possible outcome in that situation, which was dying happy and content.
Yes but he’s allowed a peaceful, content death, everyone who works for him loves him, and no one mentions the immorality of his actions. I think the episode pretty clearly codes him as a harsh but kind man, and he’s not punished since he was gonna die then anyway.
@@BigJoel maybe that's the point there. No matter the actions he had taken before this moment in his life, he was going to die. We are all going to die, it's unfair, and horrifying in the same way having a magically deformed face is unfair and horrifying. The old man clearly was dishing out some "rough justice", but the immorality of his actions is still something shown in the episode (no matter how it is framed). I think the ending note of his "peaceful demise" is an interesting way of putting a "mask" on his being dead.
His mask was a skull, he's dead under it, but on top of that face is still the mask of how people perceive him to be, just like his family.
Nobody escapes Rod Serlings wrath, no one.
I might just be drawing at straws, but that's always how I felt about this episode.
Casey Chapman
I honestly have to agree with this interpretation. It just seems to better fit the tone and message overall.
This is how I interpret the ending of "Eye of the Beholder":
The woman leaves to be in peace with its kind, but the audience doesn't follow her because ultimatelly she didn't represented the audience, the doctors represented the audience... We are the ones who marginalize the people who don't fit our standars, we are the ones who allign with the powerful and are complicit in the opression of those who don't comply with what is arbitrarially considered "normal"... In short, we where the monsters all along
(Sorry if there is any typo, I hope you people understand my point in spite of that)
ooooooohhhhhh this is so neat! I love this interpretation! That rings so true!
In reality it was an allegory of White America and how we treated Black people.
Joseph Falco basically “if u don’t look Caucasian, we’re going to ban you from our community”? Hence the ghettoization the woman faced in the episode, and how “the ghetto” is how most describe black neighborhoods?
Speak for yourself, scrub.
Also, maybe she is being sent to die? Like so many people were told that they would be reeducated or moved throughout history when it was genocide. Maybe that's why the doctors are sad.
I vividly remember years ago, when youtube was still new and you could still find full episodes of copyrighted content. Someone uploaded "Come Wander With Me", and the daughter of the woman who sang that captivating tune had found it, and shown it to her. She was very old, in her final years, and said that seeing this again, along with everyone's comments praising her haunting performance, brought her to tears.
That is so, so beautiful to me. The episode and channel it was hosted on are long gone, as is the old woman, but her legacy lives on. I'm so happy I got to witness her feeling such joy in knowing she had touched a new generation with her ethereal voice one final time.
My friend, you were truly privileged indeed. That is a voice which haunts the mind, singing a song that promises things that dare not be spoken of. It deserves to be remembered.
The actress is still alive. Her name is Bonnie Beecher.
@@mkt7239 Ii she? Her words still ring true, but wow, she sure has led a long ass life 😂
@@WobblesandBean The episode is from 1962 and she was in her early 20s -- so she's old, but not that old. Olivia de Havilland was 23 when she was in Gone with the Wind (1939) -- and she's still around. Now that's a long-ass life!
@@harmanx. I think I remember her saying she was like, 17 or 18 when it was filmed. She'd be in her 80s today. If you don't consider the mid-80s to be someone's "twilight years", then I dunno what is. All in all I didn't mean to spark a debate, I just thought it was a really heartwarming story. 💜
"This must be death; no horror, no fear, nothing but peace."
So says the doctor when removing the mask. Perhaps the old man's face was unchanged simply because he had died at peace with himself, and the masks scarred the living because they were in conflict with themselves.
HOT TAKE
WOAH
WOAH DAMN
OOOOH! OUCH! THAT TAKE WAS HOT!
yea sorry, gotta be careful ‘round me, i whip ‘em out HOT
@@pleasedonotwatchmychannelrespect for coming back after 3 or so years haha
The last one, it's not about him being a loud person. To me the loudness is a metaphor for people who glorify their pain and suffering and push it in the faces of people who, in their opinion, take an easy life for granted. It's very relevant today in the form of the false or overblown patriotism and soldier glorification that happens across social media pretty much constantly. The deafness isn't a punishment but more of an evolution. He never listened to the people around him so he didn't really need his hearing and lost it.
Oh wow, that's a good analysis!
if you replace "their" with "others' pain" you got a good description of some people on the internet.
this is what i was gonna say!! i think it’s a metaphor for using your pain as a means of gaining recognition or pity or profit. he’s using the fact he was abused to defend his actions, and using the fact he’s a veteran for entitlement. by constantly reminding everyone of his past he tries to get a sense of fulfillment and hopes of receiving validation from the people around him. his loudness was obnoxious and him being silenced is what he deserves-he can no longer profit off of demeaning others in the name of his suffering.
Mmmmm spicy 🌮
scorching hot take
A small note, I wouldn't say the guy being haunted by a slot machine really fits the poetic justice trope. I think it's just an embodiment of gambling addiction. I.e. the message is "gambling can destroy you so stay away from it" but not "if you gamble, you are evil and worthy of death," an important distinction.
That seems like a distinction without a difference to me.
You don't see any meaningful difference between 'x is dangerous and harmful' and 'if you do x, you're evil and deserve bad things'?
Listen to them, Mr. Timothy.
The man in the story was fanatically against gambling. He wasn't punished for gambling, but for hypocrisy.
I don't think that Franklin Gibbs was an evil person or a hypocrite. All I saw in the episode was that he never gambled in his life until that first pull at the slot machine won him money. He quickly got addicted to gambling and that addiction killed him. It only goes to show you that addiction whether it be gambling, alcohol, or what have you would eventually destroy you and everyone around you.
I think the moral of the folk song episode is a crack at hollywood's abuse of the copyright system monetizing folk songs for profit (as there was a lot of folk songs covered in the 50s), even though the songs belong to the public. And maybe the script writer wanted some form of "Justice" over what he/she sees as an injustice to humanity.
It could also be seen as a metatext on being trapped in the very story you're trying to pursue. Clive Barker's Candyman followed a similar arc albeit through the medium of urban legend.
Yeah, they make too much of a big deal out of that for that not to be the point. What he does wrong is try to steal songs that don't belong to him, that belong to the public.
He takes a song that doesn't belong to him, and that song is his undoing--it directly causes his death.
I thought it was that he was stuck in the song!
TLDR: it's basically Drake or Maclemore suddenly waking up to find himself in 1990s Compton.
"The Wanderer" is a critique of cultural monetization. Songs are often records of our experiences either communally or as individuals, and therefore will always belong to those who have lived those experiences. The producer doesn't understand the cultural significance of the music he tries to appropriate, only it's value as a product. The moral is that he get's to know what it's like to actually own a song by living it's story. The mob of instruments at the end is the cacophony of all the music he's peddled, coming to impart their cultural significance to him all at once.
@@LDNisYourCorndogs my thoughts, too. Like his fate was to be ruled by the song, as it dictated his actions.
I liked the silence and noise one. I thought being loud was a metaphor for being insensitive to the needs of others... Like he inflicts his personal preferences of how his life should be to his spouse and employees, and in the end he has their preferences inflicted on him
Come Wander With Me, especially with the idea of the song’s belonging to someone turning from the husband to the two main characters, feels like an exploration of the nature of appropriating art. When art is ‘public domain’ and you decide you want to make profit from it and gain ownership of it, you’re meddling with something much bigger than yourself and become, in truth, indebted to it. And, as you mention, he doesn’t own the song. The song owns him. He tries to pay money to use local songs then falls back on them being public domain; essentially acknowledging that he finds the music to have value and that owning it would help him attain value for himself. To accomplish this, he claims that it has no real ownership. But that’s not true. In spite of there being no ‘legal’ owner of the song, the song itself has a power all its own and he can never hope to truly own it. In having the desire to exploit it, he has been revealed as subservient to it. The music, by the end, almost literally drowns him out. He’s an exploitative man with no respect for the music and the music refuses to bow down. It overcomes him. It’s karmic punishment as only the Twilight Zone doles out.
I love this interpretation
This is amazingly insightful
There we go...how many cover artists have indeed been destroyed by such foolishness?
Thata a good interpreatation.That great songs get a life on their own. And can haunt people lke artists who are a one hit wonder whos hit is still played. I guess he is a guy who butchers good songs without doing them justice.And gets haunted by it because he cant make it sound good or gets critizized for it.
Really ambigious
As a musician, reading this gave me chills.
Don't forget the famous morality play: don't drink and drive or you'll be put in a giant alien's toy set.
Sarah Gent not gonna lie, one of my favorites
Literally 😂😂😂
I mean, it's not untrue.
Stopover in a quiet town Barry Nelson , Dorothy Malone?
@@shawnmalone9711 That's the one!
All twilight zone stories make me incomprehensibly frightened
Lmao 😂
Good
This is as it should be, for none can go through The Scary Door and emerge unspook'd
Many of the good ones do, sure. I still feel uneasy when I think of the end of the episodes The Hitchhiker, Living Doll and He's Alive.
Not really all of them, a lot of the Twilight Zone episodes are life-affirming and spotlight positive outcomes. My favorite one like that is the little old man with his dog (not going to spoil it but it's a really good one for people who like animals). And the Christmas episode.
The old man with the mask did get what his mask represented. His mask was skull. Then he died.
I mean he knew he was gonna die, was planning on it. The question I ask is why isn’t he punished?
@@BigJoel He WAS punished, had been punished for years by being around his family. One might say that he passed down the inheritance of his misery to his heirs through the masks. While, yes, one could see it as justice, it's also a commentary on familial legacies. The lifelong pain they inflicted upon him was flipped to go with all the money and property.
@@BigJoel How would he be punished if he's dead? Maybe that was what he sacrificed? Like he knew he was gonna die if he made the masks and the punishment was what his mask was, death.
@@BigJoel he wasn't really the main guy more so the group also maybe he was not dying fast enough so he used the mask to show his family there evil and hopes that they will use it to change and become better people or maybe the mask skeleton was more so like sacrifice for it to work for the others mask or it prob is just representing death and he just wanted and show them tough love to make them change
Why would the old man be punished? That's like asking "why aren't the Courts punished for putting criminals in jail?"
"Holy cow, she's a sexy lady"
And the place he's taking her to has plenty of critters and a cee-ment pond.
Anyone else notice that this actress also played Elly May Clampett in The Beverly Hillbilly's?
Ellie May Clampett,BEVERLY HILLBILLIES...but they dub another girls voice as that Baton Rouge twang would've made it comedic...lol
I did. And did you notice that sexy man that took her away played Prince Charming in Snow White and The Three Stooges?
This is far, far too hot for me
Jack Saint / LackingSaint the kettle is boiling
Someone please open the window
For me it's extremely too take. So take.
Yes very spicy
You missed a perfect opportunity to say “this is far too hot for me to take”
Something I always appreciated about Twilight Zone is, while it was occasionally obnoxiously moralistic, it never really limited itself to what kinds of stories it was allowed to tell. As a kid I always saw it as a weird, sci-fi kind of show, but part of its brilliance is that it could be a sci-fi show, or a fantasy show, or a realistic drama depending on the story needing to be told, and it never felt internally inconsistent with itself. One of the biggest flaws of Black Mirror, in my mind, is that it limits itself to what kind of stories it can tell (humanity's intersection with technology) and the when/where of those same stories (here, in the near future). As a result, Black Mirror's whole deal has started to seem fairly stale (in my opinion, at least), whereas Twilight Zone is still refreshingly timeless (even in dud episodes where a man is punished to eternal deafness???? for being loud???? as a result of unresolved childhood trauma?????)
And that's not even getting into the TZ revivals that fall oh so short of the original. As Stephen King noted in his definitive retrospective Danse Macabre, Twilight Zone was very much its own thing, transcending the limits of its era to produce truly universal stories.
Great point, OP. I really enjoy Black Mirror (and how sad it makes me... i'm bit of a masochist) but I agree with you. It _has_ started to feel stale. I am not overly confident that is solely because of the limitation of the premise however. The over-reliance on digital clones as a story element is what has been ruining it for me.
I dont think they were obnoxiously moralistic at all
My Over the Hedge video will be out later this month, if that's something you guys were worried about haha
Big Joel I love you
Christmas Special?
Like a lot of your videos, it'll probably something I didn't know I wanted
Big Joel Black Power
Exactly what I came to comment section for lmao can't wait
First hot take: notice how the man who takes her away is dressed in black, and she’s wearing white (and very scantily clad at that). I’ve never seen the episode in full, but what he said in the clip you showed seemed to sound like euphemisms for the afterlife. He gave me the idea of an ‘angel of death’ taking her from a world that didn’t want her, even though she was beautiful and pure to the viewer. The only other person who wears black in the episode is the dictator (“the state is not God”???)
Maybe I’m just over analyzing the ways that black and white play off of each other though.
I really like this idea. Good catch, especially in how the man is wearing black. Although, I don't know if white would be "pure." All of the doctors and nurses wear white in the last scene. It may be that white doesn't represent "purity," but instead maybe just "life."
Moozy Foozy their intentions could be pure maybe? But you’re right.
It's kind of funny because your theory sounds a lot like another episode of the series featuring a young Robert Redford taking an elderly shut-in to the afterlife. That one's a real tear jerker.
White can also represent naïveté. Color symbolism is weird, man.
I don't think you're over analyzing, color should play an important part in any good work and the Twilight Zone is exceptional. Listen to Vince Gilligan talk about the choices for choosing character's color palettes in Breaking Bad. Its interesting stuff
One of my favorite episodes is the one where the old lady lives by herself in the middle of nowhere and tiny UFOs terrorize her in utter silence for 28 minutes. I watched it for the first time at midnight and I was paralyzed with fear by how well they utilized silence in the episode to heighten the anxiety in the viewer. Other than Rod Serling's narrations, there's no dialogue or music for the whole episode, just the woman's continuing cries of anguish, the noises made by the UFOs, and the every day sounds of a creepy old shack in the middle of nowhere. That episode still haunts me today.
The Invaders starring Agnes Moorehead, written by Richard Matheson, the last of the TZ writers to die.
I love the episode, but damn the "aliens" look cheap
just watched this a few minutes ago, the twist at the end where it's the US air force made me laugh for some reason lol
I haven't watched it, but that description kind of reminds me of Jordan Peele's Nope
I disagree about #2. They do explain how the mask changes the old man. No pain, just peace. The mask doesn’t need to change him physically, because he was already marked for death.
As for Come Wander With Me, I think that his attempts to own something that’s unownable throws off the balance of nature, and that the music he tries to own becomes a part of him through its story in the same way the masks become a part of the people who wear them. The discordance at the end tells us that the beautiful folk song he tries to take ownership of now becomes chaos as his malignant attempts at ownership destroy the song from the inside.
I believe the “Masks” episode was about acceptance of what you are as well as punishment. The Grandfather character is not changed by the death mask because he already accepts who he is. The other people in his family deny their worst character traits and the masks punish them by revealing them to the world.
Here’s something to consider regarding the fourth ‘hot take’... until fairly recently in American history, quietness and calm, controlled demeanor was highly valued in society. Those who spoke less frequently but more profoundly were considered to be the wisest and best, while those who spoke loudly and thoughtlessly were considered to be fairly dim and detrimental to society. Then Rockefeller came about and basically said ‘no, if you speak loudly and confidently, people are more likely to believe you even when you’re demonstrably wrong, and it is better to be believed than to be right.’
Obviously both of these ideas are flawed to an extent, though I personally lean towards Rockefeller’s being the more problematic. But while this was initially moving into commonplace ideastream, I’m sure it was fought against quite harshly. So the purpose of that episode could very well be no deeper than ‘being loud and lacking severe self control is objectively bad’. And I can’t say I disagree wholeheartedly... the idea of ‘it is better to be believed than to be right’ is more prevalent than you’d ever recognize at first glance in today’s society.
Shyness and introversion are unwaveringly viewed as traits that should be corrected. Parents raise their children under statements like ‘you need to get out there and make some friends!’ when some people simply aren’t wired that way. And it can’t be blamed on electronics- I consistently chose to simply read or draw as a child rather than go out with others. Public speaking is a highly valued course in most colleges while that rarely involves studying what makes an intellectual debate. The book ‘Quiet’ by Susan Cain is an incredibly interesting study on this situation we’re currently in in society and I think the discussion in it of how America was once so highly appreciative of self-control and reservedness and quite suddenly moved into this era of loud arrogance would give you some strong insight into the minds of the people behind that episode.
And perhaps their message should have been heeded better... look where loud, confident speaking being valued over intelligent speaking has gotten America...
Yeah, some of Joel's hot takes in this one were a bit too hot, for me. Felt like he was limiting his perspective on things a bit too much, not giving the writers the benefit of doubt and just assuming the worst about them. That being said, I have not seen any of these Twilight Zone episodes, but I came to that conclusion based on the material Joel presented alone.
Mellow Dramamine I haven’t seen that particular one though I had seen the first one and most of the ones mentioned in the second point, but yeah, based on the clips shown and the point he made out of it it seems like that episode was literally just ‘being loud is bad’ and that was a real viewpoint back then.
Honestly, the best episode of the Twilight Zone, in my opinion, has to be The Monsters are due on Maple Street; because of how timeless it actually is (and unfortunately so.)
Worth mentioning: its sister episode "The Shelter", which scales the action down to the only house on the block with a bomb shelter, rips out any fantastical elements and tells the same story with twice the bite.
MegaOrwell1984 we read the play version and I loved it
"For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy.... and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone." - Rod Serling
Oh, of course. Easily one of the greatest pieces of TV ever.
@@johnathonhaney8291 I wouldn't say that they're the same story entirely, because while they both talk about the ease of which people can turn on each other in high stress situations, the moral of the two episodes are different; The Shelter is definitely about how people will turn into monsters to save themselves and their loved ones in situations of life and death, but The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street seems to be very clearly about the Red Scare and the fear being stoked at the time that your neighbors could be soviet spies, and how it's this fear rather than actual soviet espionage that's tearing the USA apart. So one episode is a cautionary tale about the lengths people can go to in order to survive, the other is about how our fear of danger only makes us more vulnerable to said danger and may in fact be more dangerous in the first place.
Old folk, blues, and jazz riffs landed in the 'public domain' . This episode of the 'Twilight Zone' exposes the 'Intellectual Property' (IP) debate that pits the creators' right to 'own' a song as original, or a record company selling it for money without proper compensatio to the original artists (aka the record industry in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, 20Now, etc.)
I think the point of the last episode discussed was that your pain doesn't entitle you to inflict pain onto others. Even if your mother was abusive and you're traumatised by war and being loud is your way of coping with it, that's not a good cope if other people can't stand being around you. That's being toxic.
Yup, I think that could be it
OMG that's what I thought! The guy reminded me of the narcissistic people I know, who expect you to withstand constant drama and basically act as their therapist by emotionally blackmailing you with the abused they have suffered
I like the rare Twilight zone with a happy ending or at least a decent ending.
It's okay you can say night of the meek
Emma
That and "One for the Angels". 😃
@@bbrbbr-on2gd oh dang I forgot about that one. A pox upon me. Those two episodes always make my cry.
Emma
"The big tall wish" always gets me, I guess it's the idea of losing your innocence.
Where Is Everybody? is another one.
"you like to torture animals"
"Hey lay off"
That got me.
Beauty is in the eye of the boulder.
And that's a nice boulder.
It's not just a boulder...
*sniff*
It's a rock!
I like that boulder.. that is a nice boulder - Donkey.
Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder.
And that's 10d10 necrotic damage unless you make a Dex save against beauty!
When I first watched Eye of the Beholder I thought that Miss Tyler had a deformed face under the bandages. When her face was revealed I gasped in horror to learn that she is a beautiful woman and the doctors and nurses had the deformed faces.
This rock’s looking pretty cute! I’m starting to like this rock!
My favorite episode of the Twilight Zone is "Miniature" (Season 4, Episode 8). First of all, it stars Robert Duvall, who does a fantastic job. Since this episode aired during Season 4, it was 51 minutes as opposed to the standard 25 minutes of the other seasons, which makes it kind of like a short film. The plot focuses on Charley Parkes, who is just too nice. He's such a friendly and passive person, it's hard to believe he isn't hiding something. It turns out that the thing he's hiding is that he's madly in love with a doll in a dollhouse museum exhibit. Every free moment he has, he spends at the museum just admiring the doll.
However, this obsession with the doll isn't just some weird kink the guy has for no reason. The show takes great care to show us Charley's back story. We meet his overbearing mother, his sister who is obsessed with setting him up on a date, and his brother-in-law who constantly urges him to be more ambitious in his career. The episode eventually becomes less about Charley and the doll and more about his oppressive family. As a viewer, you start to feel a great amount of empathy towards Charley, especially as his condition starts to worsen. He starts to hallucinate that the doll is really a miniature woman who plays the piano, walks around, and is in an abusive relationship with another figurine. One night, he snaps and breaks the glass in the exhibit to protect the doll from her abuser, which obviously leads to his arrest. Charley is placed in a mental institution, where the doctors correctly analyze Charley's situation in terms of his family dynamics. The doctor encourages Charley's family to consider how their own behavior might be influencing him.
Nevertheless, his family doesn't change, but who could blame them, really? They only behave the way they do because they love Charley and they sincerely want the best for him. His condition worsens. By the end of the episode, Charley literally becomes a doll and winds up in the dollhouse with the doll. That's the end of the episode.
I love this episode because it takes the idea from this video about people "getting what they deserve" and turns it on its head. At first, it might seem like Charley's oppressive family "got what they deserved" by losing Charley completely, but it's hard to blame them. The mother is overbearing, but she acts that way because she just wants to have a close relationship with her son. His sister pressures Charley to go on dates, but that's just because she believes he would be happier if he had a girl in his life. His brother-in-law constantly pressures him to come work for his business, but he's only doing that because he believes it would be a positive thing for Charley. None of the family members act out of malice, but rather out of a deep love for Charley. Therefore, it's not really a story about punishment, but just a snapshot of just how delicate someone's mental health can really be. Such a dope episode.
One of my favorite episodes also. Love Robert Duvals' character, he's a great actor
I think there is no morality in And When The Sky Was Opened, which is one of the most frightening episodes of the show. Being retroactively erased from existence is brutal.
Great episode!
The moral might be that there are certain things that mankind would be better off leaving alone in the universe. The astronauts wanted to reach the stars, much as Icarus wanted to fly higher or Prometheus wanted to bring fire to his fellow humans. They paid the price for their human curiosity. "The Twilight Zone" presents us with a metaphorical god of death -erasing offending humans from existence itself.
Not all Twilight Zone episodes had morals. It was, first and foremost, a light horror television series. But Serling did enjoy his morality plays.
And When The Sky Was Opened was essentially cosmic horror. No rhyme, no reason, you just wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
HARRINGTON!!!!!
I'm suprised that I haven't see nearly as much of this show as I thought I did. I just remember the iconic episodes. I should really go back to see more. Thanks Joel!
Three characters seeking an exit and will the real Martian please stand up are my favorites. One that kinda freaked me out as a kid is midnight sun. God damn this show was so ahead of it's time it's actually ridiculous.
@alexandra galici yep! That's in my top 10
Nice profile picture! :)
They have all but season 4 on Netflix
Be prepared for a lot of bad episodes as you search. But any series that has The Obsolete Man, Deathshead Revisited, Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville, He's Alive and In The Attic AKA The Encounter in its lineup is worthy of immortality.
I would argue the old man committed suicide by putting on the skull mask
He was explicitly going to die regardless, at pretty much the exact same time.
@@eggynack It's been a long time since I saw the episode, but I thought the implication was that he used his "impending death" as an excuse to pull this trick, and gave himself the death mask so he wouldn't have to deal with the consequences and because "fuck it, I'm old and gonna die in a few years anyway."
@@bowen13 No, he asks the doctor how long he has to live and the estimate is in the hours range.
@@eggynack Well damn, I always like how I remember it in my head, but I hadn't seen it since I was really little.
Would love to see a part two.
If he does, he should talk about the episode where the dead grandma calls the kid on the toy phone.
One episode I always found interesting was ‘Time enough at last’ because the central protagonist of that one, the dude who really likes books, is both written as and framed as this really common character trope we see in a lot of political/social satires like the twilight zone and often serve as an author or audience surrogate, the misunderstood artsy intellectual who doesn’t get why they have to go along with society. Often these characters are sympathetic or presented as ‘in the right’ and that’s what I think makes that episode of the twilight zone so interesting. Because he does get punished, in his search for peace and quiet not only does he survive the apocalypse with his books but his glasses break so he may never enjoy them. Because in the end the ‘hoohum I just wanna read or do my art and stupid soicety gets in the way’ attitude is toxic both to the self and others. Very reminiscent of Fritz the cat in moral actually.
Your theory about ‘Time enough at last’ about his attitude being toxic, kind of makes sense, and It never came to me as such. Though, the message of this episode IMO is more like: You can never have it all in life. As soon as you get something that you have wanted all of your life, you somehow lose another "key element" that would prevent you from enjoying what you got i.e he had finally enough time, a lot of books, and no one to bother him, but he lost his glasses in a situation where it's impossible to replace them.
mikidmv I think it’s both. He‘s the only one on earth to survive the apocalypse and, fully recognizing this, just makes him feel happy that he has time to read. That’s so unquestionably sickening that he doesn’t deserve the reward. He’s selfish and unsympathetic toward anyone but himself and thus he shouldn’t get to ‘reap the benefits’’ of humanity’s destruction. His glasses break so he can’t.
I brought it up in a different reply thread but I think a lot of it has to do with luxury and entitlement. This idea that this guy benefits from society and his boss and his wife and his favorite authors doing things for him but him never doing things for anyone else. But that’s a bit of a stretch because he’s portrayed as so nice and sympathetic, but there’s a lot of douchebags like this in the arts and I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Sterling probably didn’t find them to be favorable company, given the type of man accounts make him out to be, and I can imagine him or someone in his position making ‘Time enough to last’ with a protagonist set up to seem so nice and reasonable specifically to get back at these asshats he has to deal with day in and day out
I'm blind without my glasses and this episode was a nightmare for me when I was little
This one is one of my favorites because it traumatized me so much as a kid! Lol
Lots of episodes, including two that you mentioned, deal with beauty=morality- I'm surprised you didn't bring that up at all
kalokagathia, one of the oldest and most persistent tropes
Beauty is morality. Our bodies are scripture.
While it's definitely a hyper-present theme in The Twilight Zone, I would assume it wasn't mentioned because it's more of a meta-reading (ways that societal context and norms are reflected in storytelling decisions), whereas pretty much everything discussed in the video was a textual reading of what the stories were *intending* to communicate.
N. Paris Yeah I was thinking about this too.
I actually find that first episode he talked about kind of insidious in the same way as a lot of other works with that kind of "what if the people who are privileged in our world were the ones being oppressed" works. They often fail at really creating empathy because they still end up portraying the privileged as Good and the oppressed as Bad. The message is obvious but it doesn't really land, it just helps to other the oppressed even more, especially since it's always from the perspective of the pretty people or the straights or the whites or the men or... etc.
Syksy I think that Twilight Zone episode is one of the few examples that subverts this, to be honest. There’s something that happens by the end of the episode, when we’re looking at shot after shot of the sad, ‘ugly’ faces watching the woman leave, where the attractive/straight/white viewers are forced to recognize “This is you.” It’s an implicit acknowledgement that just because a society says you’re perfect doesn’t mean you are. In fact, you’re empty and hollow. The audience identifies with the pretty white lady throughout the episode, but the end of the episode has their true selves stare straight back at them unflinchingly. “You aren’t her. You’re us. Check yourself.”
I think the message of Come Wander with Me's ending is that as we own more and more (a.k.a. overconsumption and greed) in the way Floyd commodified Mary Rachel and her song, but over and over, the value of the things we "own" (and own us) gets worse as we have so much, i.e. the decreased quality of the noises (mass production = shit products). This episode has a lot to say about assigning market value to things that have intrinsic value, imo.
For the Sound of Silence hot take. Earlier in American culture there was an appreciation of character, which is supposed to be represented through a quiet hard working person. That’s probably why it focused so much on loud=bad. We’ve since moved on to be focused on personality which involves being open and talkative. That’s why the analogy may seem even more odd because we now value the same traits that are devalued in that episode.
THIS GUY'S TOO LOUD
QUIET DOWN LOUDMOUTH
AND WHEN HE DOESN'T THEN HE'S PUNISHED WITH BEING DEAF
THAT'S WHAT YOU DESERVE LOUD-O
@@chaosvii HE SHOULD'VE BEEN MUTE TOO PEOPLE STILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH HIS OBNOXIOUS VOICE
If there was real poetic justice in this episode it would be not only would he lose his hearing but also his voice too.
I wish you mentioned the hypocrisy that comes from having an episode that shows the horror of beauty standards, and then punishes people by making them ugly in another episode. That happens... so much in anthologies and such.
On top of that, even the pretty characters in EotB get a happy ending still (sorta).
But in defense of The Masks, the external pressure of being as physically ugly outside as they are on the inside would affect them socially regardless.
Isn't that a fitting punishment for vain people?
I think the point is that they are do vain as to consider such a punishment to be one of the worst things that could happen to them.
Not really defending the episode, as I think its pretty mediocre, but it isn't internally inconsistent.
I think it was more of a metaphor, notice that the masks aren’t just ‘ugly’ they’re supposed to represent the bad trait of the family member, the aggressive one gets a mean mask, the selfish one gets the upturned nose, the mother gets the unpleasant cowardly one for being too dependent on others and not raising her children better, etc. it’s about like. Not pretending to be good people when you aren’t and having to be honest and stuff
This comment thread is sooo good.
I think it's often because the Twilight Zone is always (more than not) a little over-the-top with its moralistic punishments that I tend to favor and hold up the episodes that more deal with existentialism (Shadow Play, Five Characters in Search of an Exit, Where is Everybody?). I would argue the Twilight Zones that hold up best to modern scrutiny are either existentialist or horror (my favorite horror being It's a Good Life).
That's not to say that Twilight Zone was never good at moralizing. The staple Monsters are Due on Maple Street is still a pretty despairing view of the human condition, and a pitch perfect reflection of the Red Scare and bomb paranoia plaguing the time of its airing.
But my favorite episode of cosmic punishment from the Twilight Zone, is one in which we outright know its protagonist doesn't deserve his fate: Henry Beemis, in Time Enough at Last
Great video! I never thought of Come Wander with Me this way. You just made me wanna revisit that one.
Oh my god. I LOOOOOVE Time Enough at Last. Just by hearing this episode give me chills.
I often think of The Twilight Zone as "That Irony Show"; the guy who finally has enough time to read all he wants will never be able to read, your loud guy example is deafened, the cheap hood finds out that getting everything he ever wanted is actually hell, etc.
my favorite episode is the one where everyone in this town has to constantly have to say and think positive things around a superpowered kid because if they don’t their minds will get fucked up by the kid. don’t have anything insightful to say i just like it
I always assumed that the old man did match his mask (the skull) because now that he is dead his face will soon be the mask he wore.
And it makes no sense to deform his face.
he will not be able to see it anyways
I absolutly love the Twilight Zone, and I always feel like a grandma whenever I sit someone down and tell them to watch it. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" will always haunt me. I really need to watch "Come Wander with Me" now, i have never seen that one!
In true post modernist fashion, the first ever episode of Twilight Zone i remember is the one with the goblin on the plane because i saw the parody in the Simpsons halloween special before i even watched the actual episode.
Tbh the Simpsons version was scarier
It was a gremlin. I saw The Simpsons version and The Twilight Zone episode and I think the original story was scarier then The Simpsons episode.
The reason the Simpsons episode scared me more is because Bart isn’t believed because he’s a troublemaker and has lied before, but he’s trying to save their lives all while they refuse to listen to him. And at the end, he’s never validated. He gets taken away to a psych ward.
@@jeniferjoseph9200 The lead character in The Twilight Zone wasn't validated either. Unlike Bart, he was just released from the psyc ward and was flying home with his wife. Just like the ending of The Simpsons the man ended up going back to the pych ward.
Yeah but to me the gaslighting was worse when it’s a kid and played for laughs
"The Twilight Zone" is probably the best show I've seen. Not in horror or in action or any of that, but in storytelling. It's beautifully crafted in each episode. Even if the plot is simple or it's complex, the show never ceases to amaze me and make me think after I finish any episode. I love it. "The Twilight Zone" changed the way I see storytelling. I never had an experience like it.(except The Clone Wars)
The Twilight Zone is the best TV show. It can balence hard hitting questions with charming goofiness perfectly. For example: Yeah that episode presents the dilemma of discussing where we came from and our place on Earth. But also they're all dolls and that's funny as hell. It's an amazing show. I love it.
This is the most Henry™ video you've done so far tbh and I live for it
Eye of the Beholder is such a complex episode. So many possible ways to read it. Interesting how we can see (as she’s being lead away) the absolute empathy and pity the “beautiful” doctors and nurses have for the unfortunate one they couldn’t save.
Thematically speaking the old man is not punished. He was going to die soon anyway and rather than being distorted by the skull mask, he is granted a peaceful death. His punishment of his family is framed as just and imo this reveal is supposed to justify him taking on the role of punisher wrt his family, so I think Joel's take is pretty spot on.
7:30 "Hypochondriacs are terrible people" -Joel 2018
The Twilight Zone is, to this day, some of the best television ever aired in my eyes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
For the third take, seems like the episode is about big business trying to profit off of things it has no right to. The sleaze being attacked by a barrage of sound he can't control might parallel the fact that he can't control the music.
You're wrong. Deforming your family is good.
Oh, so when my parents give me a deformed face, they did good by giving me "the gift of life", but when I do it back to them, I'm the bad guy all of a sudden!
Oh? Really? Tell me more.
* scoots away slowly towards my phone to call 911 *
I remember watching twilight zone & Ed the horse, staying up to wait for my dad to come home. That's how my mom put us to sleep. We watched TV in the living room. He came home around 11. But I was supposed to be sleeping tho.
You seem to suggest that the old man in The Masks has a presumed moral high ground he ruthlessly dishes out comeuppance from, and you also question if he's really so much better than the people whose visages he morphs into what we perceive as grotesque bastardizations of a more "normal" face. I see where you're coming from and on some level I agree with it (Even though The Masks is like...in my top 3 for the entire series), but where we diverge is here: I think the episode isn't as lacking in self-awareness as you say, with all due respect.
The only people around who care about the man's approaching death are people he's hired which I personally think is a little depressing, and the family he seems to wish was closer to him hate his guts even when hadn't been doing a thing to them. That's what he has to die knowing, that's his "punishment," as it were. Besides, I think his relations actually get off pretty easy, in comparison to most people who venture into the Zone. Their faces simply match their personalities now, it's not like they're going to be in any physical or mental torment.
And the money they're inheriting will enable them to hide away from people, so suffering jeers at the hands of an unsympathetic society won't even be a big problem. Their ugly personalities make it so that they view a "hideous" face as the worst thing that can happen to them, but it's really not as bad as what could've happened to them, all things considered. I don't blame the old man for what he did, not really, even if I'm inclined to side with you he's not as kindly as one is given to think on first glance.
But the overarching criticism that the Twilight Zone is preoccupied with the unintended glorification of what it deems as justice, to me, seems like it's missing the bigger picture and is looking for problems where there aren't any....mostly. Granted I think there are some episodes like this (Night Call's an excellent example: It contains a horrid ending in which judgment is cast on an elderly woman because her husband died in a car accident she was behind the wheel of...that's fucked up but the episode seems to think it's just), but half the time whatever entity governs the Twilight Zone hands out punishments to people the audience is definitely meant to think deserve better than what they get, and in many circumstances that aren't like that, it isn't just "violence for violence's sake," it's simply a case wherein karma is dispensed to people, meaning they receive an outcome that's within reason considering what the person had been like in their life.
I don't really have any moral objections to awful people getting their just desserts, but perhaps that says more about me than anything else lol. I do think it's important not to overly delight in any of these conclusions to these types of episodes, but it is interesting to imagine a reality that people who treat others deplorably get the same treatment in return. If someone watching the Twilight Zone can see the error of their ways and reflect on questionable behavior, I think the show has done its job.
Thanks for the video! I've watched ALL of the episodes a couple of time. They make for a great binge worthy weekend!
I appreciate your foresight to get us excited about the the twilight zone New Years marathon
I actually think I'm going to watch a few episodes because of the inspiration you provided
Ooh! You absolutely should. It's a classic. I've now seen all the episodes at least once and while some were definitely better than others, I'm very glad I got to watch the original Twilight Zone in general.
Please Mr.Big (or Mr.Joel), do more of these.
I’m so happy that someone loves the twilight zone enough to make a video like this. Rod Serling is from my hometown and he is so under appreciated
so ready for the over the hedge video
It's one of my favorite shows of all time. Something about the shows from that time period of history is so fascinating. It's a brilliant show that had aged so damn well. It's themes and ideas are so complex. It's twists and ironies are genuinely shocking. It's a show that all lovers of TV should watch!
Possibly the only pre-1990 TV show that has stood the test of time
Gregory Tyson 100%. It’s a pure classic and is still great to watch even in this day and age.
@@gregorytyson995 that's a very bold but also preposterously dumb take
@@princejellyfish3945 Name one?
i was truly THRILLED to see you talk about the masks. my absolute favorite episode and my mom's as well. whenever the syfy marathon's on we make sure we watch it. the old guy is like,, chaotic good in dnd terms lol.
You might like an episode from fellow anthology show Thriller called Mr. George, which has a similar moral bent and was also directed by The Masks' director Ida Lupino.
I’ve seen and loved most of the show, and this was a very interesting dissection of the messages of some of its best, and worst episodes. I’d love to see more if I’m honest
This made me happy, every time you named an episode that I have watched I just.... Squealed. I love the old Twilight Zone so much.
I feel that Twilight Zone episodes always in some way focus on subjectivity. These characters are motivated by greed, lust, interpersonal relationships, all human flaws and qualities, who then are forced to confront their smallness in a vast, cruel, and unpredictable universe. It inspires a lot of current sci-fi in that way. Their punishments aren't necessarily because of their inherent evil qualities, though, since it was the 60's that's definitely part of it, but because like Greek heroes, they have let hubris cloud their judgement and the universe has smitten them.
I think you are over thinking the Mask episode. Pretty sure the skull mask simply just represented death. The mask delivered his death, while the other masks delivered whatever they represented (sloth, gluttony, vanity, malice, cowardice).
I know you know this. I just mean I think that this episode has a more simple writing
I mean, the point he was making was that the simply written episode can be used to demonstrate a thematic flaw in the show. Oftentimes, the simplest stories are most revealing.
Shot RIGHT UP when you brought up Come Wander With Me. I’ve seen that episode three times during three different years of my life, so I’ve been drawn to it for like twelve years now. It’s definitely the song I return to, but I’ll reconsider the content of the story next time it comes into my life again. The deep woods look of it is so nice too
the twilight zone is one of my favorite shows of all time! I love the way you analyzed these eps
One of the most well written shows of all time.
In "come wander with me" I came to see this as a perspective of Mary Rachel. Think of this whole story as a song that Mary Rachel sings about.. over and over again... each time she sings this tragic song.. the song comes to life. Where the man she sings about.. Billy Rayford.. becomes self aware. Billy Rayford is a man that wants to be known to the world through his songs.. but Billy Rayford IS the song. Watching this story is the same as listening to this song on a radio.. and as the story (or song) goes on, we know more and more about Billy Rayford. So in the end, his popularity happened not the way Billy intended.. which is by this song and not by the songs he plays. How? Well by the person who survived in the end... Mary Rachel.. who is the one that made it well known. Why do I know this? Because she is the only one who exhibited her talents as a musician.. and even has a tape recording of it. Even though Billy Rayford is a musician.. we didn't get to hear what he could do. So the moral really is.. you can't buy success.
One of these shows that I strangely enough got introduced to when I was 10 and have loved ever since. Beautifully thought provoking even to this day
this was a really enjoyable video! i like how you present ideas in a casual, but well thought out way. keep it up!
For the second hot take:
The old man is getting punished. He gave himself a skull mask. Skulls sometimes represent death. Everyone became the mask they were wearing.
It's not a punishment if he was dying anyways, and even if that makes sense from a logical perspective his hot take was more about the thematic and ethical failings
Time Enough At Last was always my favorite. It scares me to this day. Hello from a Fellow New Yawka. #Harlem
this is my favorite video from you! thanks for your work!
These takes kept me warm on a wintry day, so thank you Big Joel.
I always tried to get into TZ because it seems like the sort of thing I should like... but honestly the constant ironic hell type morals made me incredibly uncomfortable. I always ended up feeling a little sympathetic for the people who were punished or tormented.
You should try some of the ones without ironic moral type endings. Even the bleak episodes aren't always like that. It's a Good Life, for example, doesn't precisely feature an ironic punishment. Neither does Five Characters in Search of an Exit, The Midnight Sun, or Number 12 Looks Just Like You. There's also a bunch of more positively oriented episodes. A Passage for Trumpet, One for the Angels, I Sing the Body Electric, or even The Nick of Time. All of these are pretty great, I think, though you may want to stick to the former half if a hell that isn't particularly ironic or punishing doesn't appeal to you.
The First Episode of TZ has an actually happy ending. Nobody is punished and the protagonist learns a lesson..without anything bad happening.
Like Marauder said, that's kinda the point. You're SUPPOSED to feel slightly uncomfortable at the situation these people are put in regardless of whether or not they had it coming. Simply because it IS an uncomfortable situation to be put in.
I've personally seen a bunch of the episodes to be a little bit of a wake-up call, reminding the viewer about the guilt over small bad actions. It's all about facing it, in a "what if there was ACTUAL karma for things you did" kind of way.
Ballz Corps. Do you mean the first episode discussed in this video or the first episode period? The first episode of the Twilight Zone is “Where is Everybody?” in which (spoilers ahead) a man learns about and is driven insane by the crushing loneliness he feels in a simulation. In the end we find out that he’s going to be sent out into space and experience much more severe loneliness for an even greater period of time. Wouldn’t exactly call that a happy ending.
@Aspiring Marauder oh gee, I'm supposed to feel uncomfortable? Well that changes everything. I love it now. /s
That old man did nothing wrong
I loved how each episode of Twilight Zone was as effective as a movie but short as one hour long. Rod Sterling was such a great and imaginative storyteller. My favorite episode is actually the Christmas episode. One of the most wholesome yet sad short films I’ve ever seen.
I we really into TZ for many years. I'm sure I've seen every episode and taped many of them. Thanks for the great video!
With your second hot take, the one about punishment fitting the crime. I'm surprised you didn't mention Time Enough at Last, that seemed to me always unjust that he was punished. Yet he was still punished in that formate of those other episodes, he just didn't have a /real/ crime.
Sure I suppose it's bad to read at work, but is it immoral?
it's ironic, but I don't think it was framed by the episode as justice. unlike a lot of them, it really is just indulging in a cruel twist of fate without trying to justify it somehow.
I think the idea was that he was unproductive, and didn’t recognize reading as a luxury the way the people around him did. He wasn’t even a writer, just a reader, just consuming the work of others. He wasn’t productive for his boss, who provided him with the money to feed and clothe himself, and he wasn’t productive for his wife, who we can assume spends most of the day cooking and cleaning and just keeping house for him, working with the presumption that he will do his fair share of work during the day that will in turn provide for her as she provides for him, as his boss provides for him and how the authors of his books provide for him. This is why he doesn’t just find himself alone but with broken glasses. No one left to provide a replacement. Because he doesn’t get to consume the works of writers and storytellers and never produce for anyone himself. It might seem unjust or overtly capitalistic but you can imagine that Sterling had probably had enough of pseudo intellectual artists who lived their lives a similar way, ungrateful of that which all those around them provide. I think that’s why the reader is framed so sympathetically and likable. Sterling really wanted to set those guys up for a good kick in the pants
Time Enough At Last strikes me as closer in spirit to Black Mirror than The Twilight Zone, in that his fate is cruel and darkly ironic without necessarily being a karmic punishment for his moral failings.
Cool
I don't think reading at work is immoral. I did feel the boss had the right to chew him out for reading on the clock. However I hated the way his wife had destroyed one of his books or yanking the newspaper out of his hands. Let him read his newspaper awhile. As long as he don't neglect her or take her for granted. ( After all she does cook and clean for him while he is at work.)
Joel I love the editing on this, please marry me
My girlfriend and I marathon Twilight Zone every New Year and dissect the themes and whatnot. Most of these episodes are always on our watch list, especially Eye of the Beholder and Masks. Great show, great video, great channel. Thanks!
I thought I'd have proper context for these, but you got me with Sounds and Silences. I've never even heard of that one, fittingly enough.
Come wander with me scared the crap out of me when I was little
Anyone else notice that he begins every video with "Hey everybody"
You are so good. I just luv your vids. So professional. A thousand thumbs up
Your channel has quickly become a favorite. Love your content!
I love Twilight Zone! I used to watch the marathon they would play on one of the cable stations every new years eve/day. Maybe in that last one sounds and silences Serling was just tired of hearing about WWII as the end all be all of experiences as by the 1960s the young men who fought in the war were old men running everything. Just throwing that out there tho id gladly hear another interpretation
@@lovelyme1068 that's a great interpretation! I didn't even think of that thank you!
Had completely forgotten about Come Wander with Me until this. Never knew it was the last one actually filmed. Definitely have to go back and check it out again. Great video as always.
Also fun fact, it's incorrectly labelled on Netflix.
Ace Backspace As what?
@@jeniferjoseph9200 It's listed as "Come Wander With Us" instead, which is odd
I'll have to watch that last one again. I don't remember it that well, but I remember that I wasn't really crazy about it. Very well done. Thought provoking for sure.
the first one you talked about always stuck in my head the most. Not because of the message, but because I remember it terrifying me so much as a kid that it made me scream and run out of the room.
Quality takes here
Also my favorite TV show since I was a kid. They showed reruns on TV during the 90s and I'd always watch those over any cartoons. You picked some of my favorite episodes. What do you think of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"? There is zero dialogue accept for the very end, which makes the story telling exceptional. :)
Watched in my high school class instead of reading the actual short story by Ambrose Bierce. The ending left a chill in me that lasted for the rest of the day.
This was great, I hope there's more of this coming
I'm definitely gonna watch Come Wander With Me. I'd never heard of that one before, but you make it sound fascinating. And that song is beautiful.
Chopin's Nocturne #1 is my jam, Joel
6:03 Underrated scream , how is this not a comment meme?
VERY good video about a truly iconic show!
Funny that I get to see this one after reading every single Twilight Zone summary for several hours straight, so I know about every single episode you're talking about! What a nice collection of piping hot takes.