A Quality Of Mercy - Twilight Zone Episode REVIEW
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- Опубликовано: 22 июн 2023
- Legendary actor Dean Stockwell stars as a short-fused, young Lieutenant who tries to make a name for himself as World War II draws to an end.
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If you come out of the military and still have compassion then you've beat the odds. War, such a depressing topic but so fascinating at the same time. I hate it, lol. I didn't realize Rod Sterling had served in WWII, if anything his compassion for others grew.
Hey Rainbow! No doubt, the topic is interesting but it also can be depressing. And in this case its a 60's tv show so things don't get as grim as they get in movies....yet you still get the somber tone. Anyway, much thanks for popping by, have a nice weekend!
Wow... a young, clean-cut 20 year old Dean Stockwell........Damn! ♥
As a Trekkie, I always loved seeing Leonard Nimoy in this episode much like George Takei and William Shatner in others. The old saying goes "War is Hell". It's horrible what soldiers have to go through. There's that difference between following orders and doing the right thing. I have friends who are veterans and served in the army They told me the literal horror stories they had to endure. Compassion, mercy and empathy are the greatest strengths any human can have.
Very well said Charles. Yeah the horror stories are REAL. I think the reason I have not covered any of these just yet is because this is such a tough, yet important topic. Much thanks for watching as always, have a good weekend man.
Some trademark Serling right there. I would have known he wrote it even if I hadn't seen his name in the credits. And of course, Dean Stockwell is great. I didn't know he was a child actor. Great trivia and background as per usual.
I agree, he had a very distinct voice. Even when the characters are an 'everyman' there's still a poetic quality to the Serling dialogue. Thanks Rob!
I’d love to see reviews of The Encounter, Deaths-Head Revisited and He’s Alive.
Hey Philip, those are all interesting ones too. I'm aiming to cover Deaths-Head Revisited before the year is done. Have a good one!
Why isn't this channel more viewed? Your reviews are stellar, and they don't just recycle the same themes that the other reviewers and critics do.
A few additional thoughts.
1. Speaking only for myself, as half-Chinese, I do not find Dean's race swap as either dated or offensive. In fact, compared to other movies and tv shows, like John Wayne as Ghenhis Khan or John Gilgud as a fellow named Chang in Lost Horizon and Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's as the only person of color in a yellow face charicature so bad that he was embarrassed and apologized later, this is downright respectful and should no more be censured than RDJ in Tropic Thunder. Offensive? I'd say rather of its time as the best Fx they could do, and the makeup is well done, and no taping up the eyes that I could see, just the natural slight emphasis...it works better than all the others above-mentioned, perfectly tailored to get the point across.
Notice that at first the American turned Japanese exaggerates what he perceives as a Japanese accent, but as the scene progresses the mannerism stops and the accent isn't so strained, he's speaking in a more natural rhythm like the other Japanese (who are also not putting on a thicker stereotypical accent, but are speaking English standing in for Japanese normally, with whatever they normally sound like). This is not business as usual, but real acting by Stockwell, to embody someone of another ethnicity respectfully. So kudos to him and Serling and whomever was directing.
2. This is not dated. Unfortunately, it is timeless. People still think and act like this young lieutenant, everyone knows this guy. The owner's son, the new hotshot management hire, one that is insecure as hell and has to prove himself to the Powers that Be by being what he thinks a leader is (and confusing a hardass for a badass). Notice again that every uniform on set is dusty, wrinkled, and only the new Lt's uniform is clean, pressed, completely parade ready. While some of the men look scruffier than others, they all act as if they'd been on the front lines for months, and their appearance sells it. The contrast with the young parvenu could not be more stark and it is masterfully set forth by the wardrobe alone, without a word being spoken. Serling knew what he knew, and the entire audience at the time knew it too, no one needed it spelled out. Go back or forth to any conflict - switch out the combatants - everything works the same. Don't tell me that some Russian soldier isn't having the same conversation with a martinet superior as I type this. It has happened, and so long as Man fights wars, it will keep happening.
Dated? Unfortunately, never. I know you mean the method of presentation, not the message, but I see them bound together, so respectfully, I believe that this episode will never be, can never be, dated.
Hi Marie, hope you've been well! Good to hear from you & happy to hear your thoughts on this, especially with respect to the race swap. It's good to know that as a person who is half-Chinese, you do not find the race swap dated or offensive. Most who are familiar with Serling knows there's no way that would have been the intention. I'm glad you noted some of the other examples in this area as it is clear, there's a pretty big difference. Anyway, thanks as always for watching, be well!
Very interesting perspective Marie.
That was a great review and analysis. I remember seeing this one, and you know, I never really considered this from a Quantum Leap-point of view in that here, Dean Stockwell gets to be the one to jump into someone else's shoes for a change. :)
Hey Rob! Hope you've been well! Glad you enjoyed it! I'm pleasantly surprised to see so many fellow fans of Quantum Leap.
Wow, I never made the connection that Dean Stockwell played a character who ‘leaped’ into another person until you mentioned it.
You know there was that one episode of Quantom Leap when he and Sam switched and Al leaped into someone.
By coincidence, it was a WWII vet coming home from the war.
I sort of recall that one, when Al & Sam switched, but I have not seen the series since it aired. Thanks WW!
“We were soldiers” did a good job of showing both sides of war.
An excellent episode with a great moral, war is not about killing the guy on the other side, it's fighting to bring the fighting to an end. Those who go to war seeking an excuse to kill are not soldiers, they're murderers with a license.
Bloodlust is not noble or glorious, and mercy and compassion for an enemy that is already beaten is not failing or a weakness.
Well said! Serling was touching on some very deep issues here and for that reason alone this one is well worth a watch. Thanks Glenn! Have a good one!
Another tremendous entry in your flawless series Anthony. Great to see Dean Stockwell and Nimoy in TZ. Quantum Leap was just excellent back in the day. I know they remade it recently but I neglected to check it out as I suspect it would be a waste of my time. Wonder if you saw it?
Hey T! Thanks man! I have not checked out the new show, not sure if its' still on. I loved the old one though, so I was happy to have an excuse to talk about it for a bit. Be well!
you can tell all the war episodes were very personal
another excellent review Anthony........there was a awesome two part episode of The Outer Limits that was also anti-war - Quality Of Mercy- The Charge Of The Light Brigade......two of the very best shows with a lot in common.
Heeeey Patrick, thanks for checking in! I have to give that one a watch.
I remember watching this episode strong episode that speaks volumes, I didn't realize the young General was Dean Stockton, I remember him from Quantum Leap also.. excellent episode and great episode to cover 🙏 enjoy your weekend Anthony
Heeey Cirespeed, thanks for popping in man, hope your weekend is going well. I'm happy to find an excuse to show some love to Quantum Leap. lol.
Excellent video. I too first became familiar with Stockwell in Quantun Leap! He had such a prolific career as you covered, I still keep seeing films for the first time and he turns up. He's always great. I totally see what you mean about the race-swap issue and your suggestion of doing it the Sam Beckett way is spot on. Also agree there's no malice involved, so in context it still holds up imo. Love to Nimoy! Classic Spock clip, haha love it! Superb job, sir. Live long and prosper, Anthony!
I love to play 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon but with Star Trek whenever possible. 😆LoL, typically I don't have to go too far. It was the 60's so the same actors of the era popped up in both series pretty frequently. Thanks as always man, hope you are having a good weekend. 🤜🤛
Interestingly all three of these main actors also guest starred on three episodes of my favorite war time series Combat! Dean Stockwell actually plays a super soldier so gung-ho and bold that he freaks out the rest of Sargent Sanders platoon. Spock plays a similar roll as communications and interpreter but Salmi should have won an Emmy for his sergeant portrayal with Sanders. All three episodes are worth seeing!! Jim C.
Awesome, I always it love it when you guys contribute further info and trivia! Thanks Jim, I'll check into those Combat episodes you noted!
Great observations about an under appreciated episode. Salmi was one of those dependable actors that not many people remember unfortunately. As for Serling I read that he actually witnessed a horrible accident where a pallet of food came apart as it was being airdropped causing a can to hit the ground and then decapitate his friend and fellow soldier. It’s one thing to expect that not everyone will survive combat but that incident probably caused Serling to think about and incorporate the concept of Fate into his work.
That's the story I read too, which is is just nightmarish. It's great he was able to keep it together and channel that trauma into creative works.
This is the fourth or fifth time you’ve persuaded me to take another look at TZ episode that I really didn’t care much for the first time I saw it. Great job as always👍
Much thanks Mike! I definitely recommend the Blu ray set, but the episodes are streaming on PlutoTV too. Have a good weekend!
I am Japanese-American, 50% and I was shown this episode by my father who was 100% ethnically Japanese. His father (Cpl. Miyagawa, 1945.) served in the War, assumedly against his own cousins. I have no shame in my heritage.
And this is why I subscribe. 💯 Another great analysis, did not know Leonard Nemoy was in this! I remember Dean Stockwell from Quantum Leap as a kid, he was awesome. Thanks for doing these marathons!
Much thanks dowsingelf77. Honestly with each review I just appreciate the classic series even more and can't wait until the next one. Thanks for watching. Have a good one!
Dean Stockwell travels through time to inhabit someone else's body - The main plot of Quantum Leap
Coincidence?
Wow I didn’t realize that about Rod serving in WW2, seems like it changed him to look at things with a different perspective. Many become activists when they return. Cool to see Nimoy in a different role too, I know he enjoyed that. Another great one to review and well done my friend!!
Hey Karen! Thanks for checking in! Yeah I wanted to touch on the war stuff a bit more since this was the 1st war themed episode I talked about.
Surprised to see Albert Salmi playing a normal character for once. LOL I can see why people dislike this one due to Stockwell's makeup but his performance is quite good. I showed this one to my students when we read war stories like "The Things They Carried." They responded really well to it despite the dated elements. Great review as always!
Heeey Betamax! Thanks for checking in man. That's cool to hear the students enjoyed it.
What the fuck? How have I not been getting notifications from this channel for months? Great vid!
My uphill battle with random RUclips glitches like that has always been a thing. All the same, I'm glad to have you here. Thanks xraypunch. Hope you are having a good weekend. Be well!
Great video. I'm surprised you're not done with the entire show at this point. Had no idea Lenord Nimoy was in TTZ. This show gets great actors for each episode; and once again, a great twist that gets a message across and has some karma for the main character.
Hey Scofield! Yeah I think William Shatner is the most famous one but between the main cast of Star Trek and others who appeared on the show maybe once or twice, there's a lot of fun crossovers.
Love your reviews. Glad to hear you're from the Bronx. Fellow New Yorker!
New York representing in here! 🤜🤛 Boom, thanks!
This episode was very good 😊
Great job. I have been a Twilight Zone fanatic for decades. Glad I found your channel. Love the quality and detail of your reviews. Subscribed!
Hey robpop! Glad to have you here & thanks for the kind words. Always cool to meet a fellow TZ fan. Have a good one. 👊
This is an excellent review of a difficult subject. You balanced your comments perfectly.
Much thanks, I appreciate that riverbluevert!
This is an episode that could only have been written by a veteran, even though I felt it would've been better if The Lieutenant actively chose to not attack instead of being ordered not to be because it would've shown he's changed more, also I think to really hammer home how pointless attacking it would've been I think it would've served the episode better to be set during September 1 because it would've shown that the Lieutenant is eager for blood, and this is pointless better, even though it does do a good job showing those things.
Totally agree, you have to respect how real this feels. I also tend to agree, a little more agency on the part of the Lieutenant actively deciding to not attack would have went a long way. Much thanks for watching Goody Good good!
After watching your review I'll have to watch this one again. Remember much preferring The Purple Testament. But I do like the actors cast here such as Albert Salmi. Strange now seeing a person of European descent playing a Japanese character. Dean Stockwell did a good job doing this
I prefer Purple Testament as well. I think no matter which war episode it is, you can always tell those were important to Rod Serling.
..by the way thanks for giving it a Fair review,.. unlike a phony reviewer by the name of Channel Awesome who only just spends 5 minutes faking being offended by 'yelloface' and automatically gives it a bad review without talking much about the story or ending. lol
Hey wassup Seabreeze, I hear you, these are classics & they all deserve a fair shake. This particular episode had so much to unpack, you can tell it was truly personal for Serling. The one aspect you noted was something I had touch on; but the bigger picture was far more intriguing...that being what you mentioned - the actual story and the conclusion. This tale has such a strong and powerful message, and the performances from the leads make it well worth a watch. Much thanks as always for watching & commenting! Hope your weekend is going well! Take care! 😄
Loved the idea of a `quantum leap`! Very before it`s time! Awesome review! :)
Thanks SciFirst! Have a good weekend dude.
Thank for such a wonderful review ❤👵🏾🇺🇲🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
Hey Rusty! You are welcome, much thanks for watching and dropping a comment! 🙏 be well!
Pre-Spock Nimoy 🖖
Another great review brother 🦊👍
Always enjoy watching your vidz on my day off.
Fox! Much thanks man 👍
Good stuff! Have you ever seen the Outer Limits(1995) episode "Quality of Mercy" ? It's almost a twist on this, in a way.
Aw I wish I had seen that prior to this, I could have done a quickie comparison. With Outer Limits I'm still randomly working my way through the original series but I have not seen anything from the 90's. I'll still give that a go now, you have me curious. Thanks for watching! Have a nice weekend.
Coming from a retired entertainment writer/movie reviewer, you do fine reviews man. I appreciated this & went straight to Pluto TV to catch the episode. Cheers. Btw, your accent is solid. Brooklyn ?
Thanks mrd3016, appreciate hearing from you & hope you enjoyed the episode. Glad those are on Pluto too now, so even more people can watch the classics. Bronx accent! ✌🏻😊
I'm finally back, Anthony, and. as always, am happy when you post something, as you always have cogent arguments to defend your position. (Btw, I have some catching up to do as I'm lagging behind. In particular, I got bogged down writing a response to your video on one of my favorites, "The After Hours". So bogged down, in fact, that I think I need to do some hefty self-editing. 🙄 For now, let's just say I give it 5 out of 5 tickets to Uncanny Valley.)
You rate "A Quality Of Mercy" as 3 out of 5, but I'd bump it up a star to 4 out of 5 gung-ho officers. Though it's not without its problems, I like it quite a bit. In general, I'm not a fan of Serling's war episodes, because we usually get a big helping of Rod as his preachiest, and an overly preachy Rod isn't Rod at his best imho. Actually, he's preachy here, but not excessively so; one of my main gripes is with his caricatures of the officers. Granted, he fought in a war, and I haven't, but the behavior of Lt. Katell and the Japanese captain struck me as too extreme, too hotheaded in real-life, though I'm sure there were some outlier nutcases who fit the profile. Given the end-of-war battle situation of a handful of soldiers holed up in a cave, the officers' response was overkill in what would be a literal sense. (Technically, the story is someone else's. but Serling made it his with the teleplay--he took the ball & ran with it.)
Considerations: Who were the men in the cave, just average troops of the Imperial Army or among the 900 Japanese soldiers who would stand trial and be executed for war crimes? Then, too, rather than surrender peacefully, which would be the most reasonable resolution of the dilemma, for all the G.I.s knew, there might be a land-based version of kamikaze suicide counterattacks planned if the American troops attempted to storm the cave. In other words, lots of uncertainty, and more than enough to warrant blindly going in the cave after the enemy--better to simply wait them out by cutting off their food & water (hunger & thirst can effectively break down resistance & lead to surrender with few--if any--shots being fired [best case scenario]). *Fun Fact:* There were a few Japanese soldiers, such as intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda (separated from his troops and was lost in the jungles of the Philippines), who confusedly thought the war hadn't ended, and thus only surrendered decades later. _Oops!_ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda.
The cast is uniformly (no pun intended) excellent with Dean Stockwell turning in standout dual performances as Lts. Katell & Yamuri. I find myself liking his portrayal of Yamuri a bit more than that of Katell, because of the great dignity he brought to the role, helping the viewer to appreciate that the underlying goodness that unites humanity at its best should outweigh the negatives. Therefore, I strongly object to the "race swap" being called "dated" or that anyone should have an issue with it. We need to be careful not to get hung up with virtue signaling or allow a smattering of strident, hypersensitive voices cause us to imagine insult that, as you point out, wasn't at all intended. (Side note: You mention a racist comment by Katell, but I don't recall any. I think his war rant would be just as virulent if he was talking about soldiers from the other Axis powers, be they German or Italian.
Having Stockwell take both roles was, of course, Rod Serling's creative decision, and we know that he was very always careful to respect different races, ethnicities, and nationalities. Frankly, I think Rod's brilliance came out with this choice, because casting someone of Japanese descent wouldn't have worked half as well in a story based in the Twilight Zone; we need to know that Katell has undergone a _TZ_ transformation that's turned him into his counterpart Yamuri, and having Stockwell play both turned out to be quite effective. The only way I can think of using a Japanese or Japanese-American actor as Yamuri would have been to fall back on the familiar _TZ_ trope of using a mirror to signify a change, such as in "The Four of Us Are Dying". But even there I think the effect wouldn't have accomplished the point being made as well as it was conveyed in the episode.
It's the conclusion, where Katell & his men learn that there's no need to fight anymore due to the bombing of Hiroshima that I wonder how we're supposed to take it. The irony is that you can stop killing a few soldiers holed up in a cave, because a U.S. bomb just killed nearly a quarter of a million people (mostly civilians) in the terror bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Some strange "mercy" in that... 🤨
Okay, I've gotten a bit prolix here, so my apology, but to conclude I liked how you brought up how Rod's war experiences came to inform his writing. His use of the beautiful passage from Shakespeare is a great way to wrap up the episode: _"The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."_ It's a sentiment we should carry with us always. Thanks again for your analysis, Anthony, and stay well!
Hey Galantski, always a pleasure man! I agree with you regarding Lt. Katell and the Japanese captain as being too extreme. I think at this point with Twilight Zone I'm used to some broad characterizations, as I know they were so limited with runtime. Though that's not to say I don't also appreciate some of the more subtle and nuanced performances throughout the series.
In the case of the race swap being dated, no virtue signaling intended. I just meant we don't see that creative choice as much anymore. Which is partially why I brought up Quantum Leap and how they handled Sam's leaps. But as you noted, that route has issues too because it is a familiar trope as seen in "The Four of Us Are Dying" and it could have had less of an impact. In any case - all the better if the race swap isn't an issue for anyone. Which thankfully seems to be the case and I'm happy to see. All the better to just sit back and hopefully enjoy the story.
Lastly, you bring up a really excellent point about the conclusion. There certainly is an irony in avoiding killing a few soldiers holed up in a cave, as a huge bomb has just wiped out so many. That's certainly the bigger picture here beyond the smaller story being told. That's an aspect I have to think on a bit more.
Again, always great hearing from you! Hope your summer has been going well, looking forward to your thoughts on The After Hours. Be well man!
another great one, Anthony
Much thanks Jack!
Interesting one. Never seen it. I'll have to now.😊
Hey Nye, yeah if you get a chance give it a go. Have a good one!
Another banger
Hey, thanks KiddXBaby! 👍