The last night you looked so lost and lonely. But I saw you shown me? No, you can't be here. When you were making me dint you feel a certain inspiration.
Almost like your hands were being moved by force none of this world's. You may keep the body so that I could come to life. I was like, my child I told her, my just nut. Hey and welcome to Soundsite in Mind, the podcast where three brothers debate and accept their classic series of Twilight Zone three episodes at a time.
We are in the throes of fall now and it's a crisp 90 degrees outside, but it's still I'm not gonna let that get me down. This is Prime Twilight Zone viewing weather. We should point out that Ken is in California, Steve's in Massachusetts and I'm in Connecticut and we all have 90 degree weather right now. It's ridiculous.
Ray! Yeah, what's the, what's the, the episode? Now I forgot the name of the episode. We're moving closer to the sun.
Right, no that's for a future episode. Right. Yeah, so Chris already gave us our shout outs. Chris, Steve, joining us always.
And I'm Ken. This is going real smooth. That's what I get for trying to inject some sort of like little slice of life bit instead of getting right into it. Okay, so on this episode we're talking about twisty protagonists.
Where the main character is not who they say they are or in these cases they don't know who they are and they're going to find that out over the course of the episode. There's so many episodes like this we chose three two of which I think are very classic episodes. One which I hope we all agree is awful, but we'll see. I don't know.
Well the interesting thing about the one that I think we were talking about is even though it might be not the best one. It is kind of an interesting landmark for Twilight Zone which we'll talk about when we get to it. It is, yeah. So to start off we're going to start off in season one and this is episode 34 and it's called the after hours.
And this is one of my personal favorites. I remember this one really strongly from when I was a kid. It was very, very, very creepy to me. So it's interesting to revisit and to see kind of if I've been looking at it through my nostalgia goggles or if it holds up.
So let's get into it. It was directed by Douglas Hayes and written by Rod Sterling and starred and Francis famously of Forbidden Planet, Elizabeth Allen and James Mill-Holland. And it first aired on June 10th 1960. So this episode concerns a young lady named Marcia and she is shopping for a gift for her mother in a department store.
She's specifically looking for a gold thimble. So Marcia goes over to the elevator in the department store which is crowded with people and she's waiting for it to open. And then all of a sudden right next to that elevator kind of off to the side, another elevator door opens and looks to be sort of a freight elevator almost. But there's an operator in there.
No one else notices it. So she goes in and she tells the operator what she's looking for and he says that she needs to go to the ninth floor. And that's when we hear Mr. Sterling.
Express elevator to the ninth floor of a department store. Carrying Mr. Marcia White and the most presaic ordinary run of the miller end. Ninth floor!
There must be some mistake. There's nothing here. Mr. Marcia White and the ninth floor.
Specialies department looking for a gold thimble. The odds are that you'll find it. But there are even better odds that you'll find something else. Because this isn't just a department store.
This happens to be the Twilight Zone. So Marcia's dropped off on the ninth floor of this department store and it's a completely empty floor. And it's very dark, very, very creepy. Looks like it hasn't been used, almost like an attic.
She's about to leave, I think, when she hears the voice of the sole sales lady on the floor who asks Marcia what she's looking for. And Marcia explains to her, I'm looking for a gold thimble as a gift for my mother. And she says, oh, I think we have something like that. And she walks over to a display case in the back of the floor where the only thing in the display case is one gold thimble.
There's nothing else to be seen anywhere. So it continues to be super weird and creepy. But she buys the thimble, pays cash, and the sales lady says, you know, will that be all Marcia? And catches her and Marcia notices, you said my name.
And thinks that's really odd. But the sales lady kind of waves it off. She must have mentioned it before. And then as Marcia's walking away, she stops her to ask her, are you happy?
Which is another weird thing that catches Marcia off guard. And she kind of says, it's not your business. And she huffs off. So she goes back to the elevator.
And she tries kind of explaining how weird everything is to the elevator operator. He's not having it at all. He's being kind of cold to her. And then she notices the thimble has scratched.
And she wants to complain about it. So he kind of sighs and goes, play in third floor and he dumps her off on the third floor. And he dumps her off on the third floor. So then we cut to a scene of the store manager.
And I think what's like a floor manager of the department store in an office talking. And they're talking about Marcia. And the store manager is saying, did you explain to her that we don't have a ninth floor? And the floor sales manager is saying, yes, I explained that, but she insisted she went up there and bought the thimble from a saleswoman.
So they go out to talk to Marcia and try to explain that they don't have the ninth floor. And she's trying to tell them her story. And then she sees the back of the sales lady from the ninth floor in the distance. And she says, there's the one who's told me the thimble over there.
And then that back gets turned around. And you see that it's actually a mannequin. And she freaks out. And then there's a commercial break.
And when we come back from a commercial break, we found out that she's fainted and she's asleep in the office right now passed out. So this other sales lady kind of gets put in charge of watching her, I guess, and paying attention to her. But she's off and handling customers. So what happens is the store gets closed and Marcia gets locked inside, which is its own creepy thing.
She wakes up in this empty department store. Everything's locked up and she can't get out. So while she's looking for an exit, she starts hearing her name whispered from all corners. This really creepy like Marcia.
Marcia. Marcia. And everywhere she turns, she sees mannequin faces looking at her. And she's starting to panic.
And the name calling is getting more frequent and louder. And she's really losing it. And she starts crying. And she ends up kind of backing herself back into that freight elevator.
And it automatically brings her up to the ninth floor. And when the door is open, the mannequin of that sales lady standing right in her face. And she completely loses it and collapses into the corner. But then the human version of the sales lady walks into the elevator and sort of picks her up and brings her onto the ninth floor.
And as they're walking, you start to see all what appear to be other mannequins kind of climb down from their podiums and follow them. And they end up kind of circling Marcia. And the saleswoman is explaining to her, you have to remember, don't you remember who you are? And it turns out, this whole time Marcia has been a mannequin like them who has been on a sort of sabbatical or leave.
She's basically on like mannequin rum-springer. For 30 days, she got to be out in the real world. And she was due back because another mannequin was supposed to go out into the real world. And Marcia forgot.
So it sort of explains why everyone was acting cold to her and being weird around her. And then you find out it was a sales lady's turn to go out. So she waves by everyone and walks away and Marcia is left with the elevator operator and yester. She had fun and she says it was ever so much fun.
And then she kind of takes her mannequin pose and freezes into position. And then there's like a little stingers scene at the end where the floor manager is kind of opening up the store and he sees her in her mannequin form and does this big double-take mug in the camera. It's a little goofy, but that's the episode. And I'm curious to know what you guys think because I still really like this episode.
It's very simple. It's very cut and dry. But I think it's got some really cool visuals in it. It's got a good creep factor and some really great performances.
And particularly I think Anne Francis is awesome in it and does such a great job of being this sweet innocent character who has to kind of grapple with this thing and kind of terms with who she is. What do you guys think about this episode? Yeah, I like this one a lot. I think it's also one of the episodes that improves on multiple viewing.
Because sometimes you see the episodes that have a choice in them and then when you watch it again knowing what the choice is and where it's coming, it's just not as entertaining. But once you know that she's a mannequin and she's been due back, suddenly the demeanors of the elevator operator and the saleswoman and just the things they say become a lot more apparent what they're actually saying and why they're acting the way they are. Like the elevator operator's coldness after she gets back on the elevator. Obviously he expected her to remember and be ready to go back so when she doesn't and she still thinks that she's just there by a gift for her mother.
That's another thing that I'm kind of wondering about. Is there a whole invented reality that they get when they leave? You know who is her mother? She obviously doesn't have one because she's a mannequin but she thought she did.
So it's just kind of interesting to think about that too. And the saleswoman, I love her performance. That was Elizabeth Allen is the saleswoman because she comes off, like you said, there's a sinisterness when you first see it because you don't know what they're getting at but then watching it again, you can see she's just kind of testing Marsha to see how much Marsha remembers. And that one moment when she says, are you happy?
And then Marsha snaps and says, that's none of your business. And then the saleswoman just laughs at her and says, you're right, it's none of my business. It's just like, oh God, this is going to happen. Oh well, none of my business.
Keep going. So I think it works really well. I like watching it a lot. Yeah, I think there's also like the great moment where when Marsha is completely crumpled in the elevator, freaking out and the saleswoman steps in to pick her up.
Marsha is being so childlike. She's just bawling her eyes out and she grabs onto Elizabeth Allen's waist, kind of like a hug. And Elizabeth Allen just like drops her arms off. It's a really great little thing where she's just like her body language is just like kid, get it together.
We're not doing this. Like get in here. I need to be somewhere. Yeah, and she's friendly, but it's definitely more business like.
Yeah. No, for me, I had first encountered this episode through the remake they did for the 1986 series. And the Marsha character was played by the woman who would later go on to be Jazia Dax on Star Trek. Terry Feynman.
Wait a minute. Hold on. You're going to call me out after Ken uses a bunch of stuff. Ken uses obscure esoteric Amish culture references and it's quite like, oh my god.
Mannequin rumish. Bring it real. Okay. At least I'm keeping it kind of under the sci-fi umbrella here.
Good grief. In any case, as I was saying, my point and I did have one. In the remake, they played up the suspense angle more. It was, you know, she was kind of dumped on the floor and it was empty.
It was after hours and you got the sense that maybe she stumbled there accidentally, got off on the wrong floor. In the new one, it's clear that there is no ninth floor from the beginning because not only does the elevator only go up to eight, then it's got the R for roof. So it's not even like it goes pat the needle on the elevator, now goes past the R to get to the ninth floor. So they're tipping you off that something is seriously wacky right away in this original.
In the remake, they played up the suspense a little bit more. They strung you along and then when she's faced with a reveal in the remake, she doesn't want to go back. She wants to remain human. She doesn't want to admit she's a mannequin.
So it's got a different vibe. So seeing this for me, it was like, oh, okay, this is cool. This is a little bit different. And it is the weird conceit, that 30 day vacation from being a mannequin and where do they go during that time?
Where are they sleeping? Where are they staying? Is there a mannequin safe house that's set up where they go? That's the whole back story.
That's not in there. But it's just, okay, this is the fairy tale. The mannequins, they each get 30 days to go off. It's almost like a Hans Christian Andersen type thing.
Don't think about it too hard. This is just how it has children. And this is how it is. The performances in this are great.
Well, there's the arguable performance of the middle management guy there. Oh my god, I love you. I love Armistice. I love Armistice.
It's character actor gold right there. Absolutely. And he played that character in just about everything he'd ever done. He was always playing these slightly effeminate, slightly befuddled, put upon, you know, middle-roomed types.
Where are you guys? Right. And it's very much that product of the time, you know. He goes in and has to go in and see the owner right away because he's just dealing with his hysterical female.
And you wouldn't believe it, sir. Well, just the fact that he goes from being so sick of Antech to the manager and then like just such a dick to his underplays. That is the one little like the little tonal thing that sort of bumped for me because I was so into the mysterious creepy vibe of everything that that final scene where he does that. That takes straight at camera.
I think it's just, I don't know, I kind of like the fact that they went with such a broad character because it's a nothing part, but then you remember it because he's acting the way he does. And I think that last take, I mean part of it is just the guy's face. He's so odd looking. He's like a living caricature.
So like even if they just told him to look just kind of confused at the camera, like that's what it would look like. That's what it's going to look like. Right. It was just my face.
This is how it looks. But the casting was great because Anne Francis, who by the way was voted number 18 in TV guides top 50 sexiest celebrities of all time. She made number 18. But she has, as you said, can this child like quality, she reminds me, I was trying to think of who she reminded me with with the eye makeup and everything.
And she reminds me of a blonde Bjork. Okay. If you look at it like early Bjork stuff when she was really playing up the pixie girl thing, it's like she used Anne Francis's face in this episode as her makeup template. But she's just got that kind of otherworldly quality where you get the sense that something's not quite right with her either, you know, from the beginning.
Right. And she did this beautiful little tiny thing which Stevie talked about, repeat viewing is kind of giving you new goodies in these ones. I never noticed it before. It's probably the first minute of the episode when she's walking through the department store.
She's kind of walking along one of the display cases. And I can't remember which hand it is. It's the other one that she's touching the display case with or the other one. But she makes a mannequin hand.
You know what I mean? Like the kind of like open. Like the hand that she looks the poisey ends up. Right.
Yeah. She makes that hand and then stops briefly and raises it and looks at it. And she has an odd look on her face. Like a fleeting memory of who she is.
And then she keeps moving. And it's like you said, if you didn't know the twist, it doesn't look like anything. You know, it just looks like she's kind of moving through. But if you're a little zeroed in on it, I was like, that's a really cool little Easter egg that she's in there.
I mean, it still might just be a coincidental thing. But like even so, you know, we talked about this other episode. Once you know what happens, you read little things into it. And even if it was a coincidence, it still works towards the effect.
I really love at the very end when she assumes her mannequin pose. There's such a kind of a wistfulness there when, you know, the elevator operator, who now is like super friendly. Yeah. It's real nice at the end.
He just asked her. You know, did you have a good time? And she just says like it was ever so much fun. And then I think she repeats at once.
And there's just this wistful tone. And there's a little bit of sadness. Like, oh, it's my time is up. It's sad to go back to this.
So I really like that. And I wondered if her image, the way she's dressed, the way that she does look innocent, child. Like when I was trying to think, Chris, of what happens out in the real world with these mannequins, I was wondering if their experience is kind of tied to how they're dressed. Because she goes out kind of looking like, you know, a young, like 18-year-old innocent girl.
And if that's the personality she inhabits, and that's how she has that backstory of having the mother and everything. And then when those terrifying guys in the ski masks go out, do they have the balance? Or do they start holding up pause? Well, you know what I was thinking with the ski masks?
I was like, those guys aren't even mannequins. They're guys who came to the Rob the department store and they dressed in the ski masks. And they're like, oh, there's people here. We better just move along with them.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You're mannequins, all right? I thought for being like first season, this episode was shot pretty well. Great. So that one shot when she's being brought into the night floor and you see all the mannequins kind of coming down on a wide shot and gathering around her, just a really cool, eerie shot.
Yeah. Well shot, a lot of really good lighting, a lot of attention to light and shadow. And apparently they built a set for this department store. So they were able to, you know, move things around when she was doing the scenes, when she's like running through trying to find an exit.
So they were able to arrange things lighting-wise, have like the most impact. I'd also point out that this is another one of the episodes that you stock music in music use. And I believe some of those cues actually came from... They reused music from the first episode.
That's right. Where is everybody? And I think that they did a very smart job of arranging the music. And one of the things that I think was the smartest thing that they did was in the scene when the mannequins start whispering her name.
There's no music. There's no music at all. It's just the whispers. In fact, I think almost the entire time she's there by herself after the lockdown, it's not scored.
And I think that that is really effective because it just really hammers home that idea and that feeling of just being somewhere all by yourself and it's all dark and closed in and you don't know what's happening. Right. And that does make the whispering much more eerie than if they had chosen to try to find some ominous music to lay Andre. It would have just taken away the intensity.
It does help that mannequins are inherently creepy looking. Oh, obviously. Although they did a really good job on the mannequin faces. Her is actually made from a life cast that was done by a well-known makeup artist.
And I imagine they did the same thing for the other actresses as well. Elizabeth Allen's mannequin is spot on too. Yeah. Now we should also mention that over the course of the series, Serling ran into a lot of plagiarism accusations from other sci-fi writers.
And this is one of them that people came after him a little bit. Namely, there's a pulp writer named Frank Ruber and I guess he'd written a bunch of detective stories. And he claimed, well, he had this teleplike called the 13th floor and he had optioned it to Sam Goldwyn and it never got made. So when he got it back, he submitted it to Kyuga Productions when they were taking script submissions.
And he believed that Serling completely ripped him off because it was basically a story about someone getting locked in a department store, I think, after hours and going to the 13th floor which they claimed didn't exist in the building or something. But that was kind of where the similarities ended. So he went around town running his mouth about it saying that Serling ripped him off. So when Serling got with that, he wanted to respond because he believed other than the similar setting, there weren't any similarities at all.
So he sent a copy of the script to Ruber just to be like, look, I told you. And I just wanted to read it because I love the way that Serling talks is monologues. It seems to be the way that Rod Serling talked in real life, which I think is incredible. So he wrote this letter to him that said, if upon reading the enclose you're not satisfied, I do think we should either sit down and discuss this as two honorable men or as in the words of the prophet, put your money where your mouth is, secure a lawyer and make your accusations in a courtroom where I shall have a legitimate forum in which to answer the charges.
I'm sure you must know that thievery is no sideline of mine and never has been. I think that's fantastic. He's a writer's writer. So then, Grubber did respond to him and still complained that they were too similar, but Serling responded to him one more time and was just basically like, look, people come after me all the time.
I never read your thing, just drop it. This is ridiculous and he didn't hear from him again. But that certainly wasn't the only time Rod Serling was accused of plagiarism throughout the series, but it was a notable one. So moving on from one of my favorites to one of my least favorites, I think, this episode is actually very similar, has a lot of similar things to the after hours going on.
It's called The Lateness of the Hour. It's from season two, episode eight and it aired at December 2nd, 1960. And like Steve said, this was a major episode for Twilight Zone because... One of the dreaded videotape episodes.
The first video tape episode. And the reason it came about was because the network was worried because the episodes were getting more expensive to shoot. So they were looking for ways to keep costs down and one of the ways they can do that was through videotape, which was cheaper to produce and also cheaper to edit because a lot of the editing was done basically while it was shooting. So they had multiple...
It's basically, they kind of pioneered the setup that's used for traditional sitcoms now where you have multiple cameras and in the control room the technician will determine which camera it cuts to and that kind of edits on the fly. Drawbacks though have to do it on a sound stage. Very limited range of sets. And of course, picture quality I think is for me that's the big.
You don't get the same visual perspective, your depth. No, yeah. Depth contrast. You see there's a couple really obvious camera moves in this episode where the camera shakes getting into position.
And you get that artifact if there's too much white where it would just glitch out and go black. So you get those little black artifacts in there. According to the Find People at Wikipedia, it says they wound up saving a grand total of about $30,000 for all six videotaped episodes that they did. So it wasn't enough to justify all the drawback.
So it was originally done as a cost cutting maneuver and then after that they said it just wasn't worth it, we'll suck it up and find different ways to save money. Yeah. That's why they kept for using props from Forbidden Planet. That's right.
And actors. Yep. Well, speaking of reusing actors, this episode, I will say it stars three actors who acquit themselves in much better Twilight Zone episodes later. All three of them.
It stars Inger Stevens, who also was the lead in the hitchhiker. And then Dr. Lauren is played by John Hoyt, who's in Will the Real Martian Stand Up, which I love. That's great.
And Steve also, he was in Flesh Gordon. He was. Save that. Wow.
That's... And then Irene Tedro, T.D. Drow, Tedro, who played his wife, appears in Walking Distance. So at least we could say that these actors were in superior episodes.
But let's talk about this one. Okay, so, Lateness of the Hour starts in this Dark and Stormy Night in this mansion. And he's in this Dark and Stormy Night. Exactly.
And we're in this parlor where Dr. Lauren is lounging and Mrs. Lauren is getting this uncomfortably orgasmic massage. Okay, I'm glad you said it.
Because I was like, am I going to be the pervert here? Oh, good. You beat me to it too. Because you just give the moans off screen and you're like, am I on the right Netflix channel here?
Yeah, it's so awkward. And they're also in the room is their daughter, Jaina, who's Inger Stevens. And she's agitated, as you should be. She's yelling at her mother to cut out that moaning and basically telling her it's inappropriate.
So yeah, her mom ends up dismissing the maid. Jaina is basically kind of just throwing a tantrum for the lack of a better word. She's just talking about how they're constantly cooped up. They're in the house all the time and surrounded by these servants.
And they're not doing anything. They eat all their meals there that are prepared by their chefs. Mrs. Lauren's just constantly getting weighted on and massaged by their maid.
And there's no life to anything. She feels like they're kind of cooped up in this mausoleum. And Dr. Lauren is trying to explain to Jaina that they have this great life.
Everything's awesome. I mean, how could you want for anything? And Jaina storms out into the hallway, which is one of basically the only other set you get in this episode. And she's yelling about all the servants and they all kind of emerge and there seems to be maids and groundskeepers.
And she's just kind of going off about how they shouldn't have any of them. And it's turning her parents into these kind of cage animals. And she goes up the stairs and there's a maid on the stairs. And Jaina takes her and tosses her down the stairs.
Has a big fall. Definitely has much of a fall that killed Telly Svalis. But that maid is tougher than Telly Svalis. So in one of the few kind of creepy moments of the episode, the maid gets up and she has this very kind of disturbing smile on her face that she just stands up and she's fine.
And that's when you know, okay, something's a miss. And then we pan over to Rod Serling for his monologue. The residents of Dr. William and Robert, which is in reality of a nazure for machines, were about to discover that sometimes the product of man's talent and genius can walk amongst this untouched by the normal ravages of time.
These are Dr. Lauren's robots, built to function as well as artistic perfection. But in a moment Dr. William and Robert's wife and daughter will discover that perfection is relative that even robots have to be paid for and very shortly will be shown exactly what is the bill.
So yes, so we know now that we are in a mansion full of Dr. Lauren's creations, his robots. So the episode basically just continues on with Jaina complaining about the robots. And that's all it is.
It's pretty repetitive. Yeah, it's very, all high school, high school, one act play-ish. Yes. So long story short, she's complaining about the robots and she keeps threatening to leave.
She says she's going to storm out and she's going to leave and her parents don't want her to do that. They say, Jaina, you can't do that. She says, I swear, it's them or me basically. So the doctor and his wife or the doctor agrees, all right, I will shut down all the robots.
I will dismantle them if it means that you'll stay. So we cut to Dr. Lauren coming out of his basement where apparently he's disassembled all his robots. And Jaina, she comes into the parlor and she's ecstatic and she's like, did you really do it?
We can finally live. We can go out. We can go see the world. We can travel.
We can eat dinner at restaurants and I can beat a man and have babies. And it's that having babies line that makes the doctors and his wife look at each other like, oh shit. She picks up on it. She's like, what's wrong?
What's wrong? And then she starts to freak out and she goes and finds their photo album and saying, why aren't there any baby pictures of me in here? Why aren't there pictures of me as a child? And then she realizes that she is in fact one of Dr.
Lauren's creations as well. And she just loses her mind and runs up the stairs and bangs her. Please tell me you have that audio. We got to hear that.
Yeah. Let's quickly listen to it. I can't do it justice. I can't be your daughter.
I'm a thing. I'm a machine. I'm a machine. J.O.D.
No pain. No stopping. No. It's so rough.
Oh yeah. So then, and that leaves Dr. Lauren and his wife with this weird conundrum where they're like, oh, we we care so much about her. What are we going to do?
And then you cut to a scene where once again, orgasmic moaning coming from Mrs. Lauren and we pan over and they've reprogramed Jaina to be the maid who has to give her her massages, which I think is so crazy. That's pretty fucked up. That you want.
So messed up. Oh, we can't just assemble our daughter, but we can make her give us massages and be subservient and think she's a maid. Right. And they rename her and everything.
That's a funny thing. It's like they there's if you could really do all this, then it should be no problem. Just tweak her memory or tweak her personality that she just. No quit your line and your Nell done now.
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, clearly, I there's so much to dislike about this episode. We talked about the technical issues that come with it being shot in video and it doesn't give it any favor.
Yeah. I mean, I seem to amplify those performances a little bit. It gives it that extra soap opera. Well, I think also too is when I was reading about it, when they decided to do the videotaped episodes, they did an extra days worth of rehearsal in two days of shooting rather than the usual three days of shooting.
So because it was going to be presented almost more like a stage play. And I think because of that, a lot of actors, I've noticed this in a couple of the other video ones too, they kind of slip into stage acting mode, which, you know, when you're in a theater and people are delivering your lines to the cheap seats in the balcony, I mean, you can get away with that. But when you're on television, it doesn't translate so well. And as Janna Inger Stevens is just so over the top, especially at that end.
And it's funny because when she's in the episode, the hitchhiker, and she does a really good job of being pretty understated through the whole episode. Yeah. But I wonder if it's just the fact that this was more of a stage play and it's more acting because she was just, she was belting it out. And same with John Hoyt.
I mean, there's a couple moments when, you know, given that really cheesy blocking that they had to do where he walks up to clearly his mark to this extreme closeup to deliver this monologue and he can't help us sort of look a little bit at the camera when he gets there before he remembers to look away. It does seem like everyone's very conscious of their blocking and yeah, they're really going for it. Yeah. Well, it's a shame because it was such a cool concept.
It really was. I mean, it's a deeply unsettling kind of thing. As far as this, you know, finding out the monster as you trope goes, this had a ton of potential to it. And some neat little unexplored avenues too.
Like when he goes and he's gathering up the servants and sending them down to the basement and they have this little moment of rebellion saying, what, do my service is not satisfied? No, I know I've done everything I should. I'm a good but I'm an excellent. I can fix anything.
And they all start piling on and finally says, that's enough go and then they all go. But you know, the idea of, well, how much autonomy do they have? How much of a free will do they have? Clearly, Jaina has developed or has been given in some way a certain level of identity and emotional complexity and all that.
And, you know, there's, there's a larger story here somewhere. Instead, they just, you know, wind about Jaina and turn her into a massage bot 3000. I think that that was really the turning point for Jaina. So there's a critical error in her her robot brain, whereas hearing her mother brought to climax just triggered robot madness.
It would have been fine. It would have been fine if it wasn't for the massages. But later on in season four, there's a Charles Beaumont scripted episode called In His Image that explores a lot of similar themes. It's one of the season where they switched to an hour long format, which led to a lot of episodes that were kind of not as memorable because they had to stretch out the twist for an hour.
So it was a little more difficult. But In His Image is one of the ones that's really good. And maybe we'll talk about it on a future podcast. But it's very similar themes about, you know, what makes a robot a robot or a person.
You know, what's the dividing thing that turns that switch? Yeah, I think this ends up being a really good companion episode to the after hours. Not that I would recommend anyone has to watch it. But I mean, you have these two young women who at the end are confronted with what they really are and you see the different ways that they handle it.
But just, I mean, in the after hours, you're preconditioned to root for Marsha and you're there for her emotional journey because she's this lovely little innocent person. And just from frame one of Lateness of the Hour, you're just like, ah, shut up. Yeah, it's all across the board. It's just not as strong.
I will say that one of the things they did kind of smart with this first video taped episode is they deliberately chose the script where it is a sense, there's supposed to be a sense of claustrophobia, there's supposed to be a sense of being trapped. And now that aspect actually works well with the fact that they can only film unlimited sound stages, because it's only supposed to be this one tiny little house that's her whole world. So that makes sense. And some later episodes where they use the video technique are not nearly as effective in that sense.
But yeah, I think this one's kind of a deservedly not a classic. Yeah. And you don't want to speak ill of the dead, but did you happen to read any of Inger Stevens bio? No.
She had a rough time and she died when she, I think she was 35 when she died. Oh, yeah. From, I think, Barbitchaway overdose or something. So now I feel bad.
But she had a crazy career because she would do these movies where she played kind of the blonde bombshell and she had an affair with basically every single person she acted opposite of and then had crazy addiction problems and stuff. Yeah, kind of a downer of a story. But it's good that she was in a hitchhiker and has that good performance because it would be sad if this was kind of her one artifact from the Twilight Zone and such a dud. Well, let's take our focus from a single character and let's expand it to a very, very well-known episode called Five Characters in Search and Exit.
And this is a season three episode, episode 14, aired around Christmas time, 1961, directed by Lamont Johnson, another one written by Serling. And this one was based on an unpublished story by a guy named Marvin Petl called the Depository and he claims that they changed the title because it sounded too much like this deposit. And this stars Susan Harrison, Bill Windham, Marie Mafison, Kelton Garwood and Clark Allen. So this episode begins with one of our characters, an army major, waking up in a strange cylindrical room, no doors, no windows, just kind of a big gray massive tube.
And the first person he meets is a very creepy clown. And Major explains to him he doesn't know who he is and how he got to this room and the clown informs him that, yeah, none of them do. And he turns around to see there's also a ballerina, a tramp and a bagpiper. So there's this weird mix of people stuck in this room.
None of them know how they got there. Let's kick it to Rod Serling. Clown, Obo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major. A collection of question marks.
Five improbably entities stuck together into a pit of darkness. No logic, no reason, no explanation. Just a prolonged nightmare in which fear, loneliness, and the unexplainable walk hand in hand through the shadows. In a moment, we'll start collecting clues as to the why is the what's and the where's.
We will not end the nightmare. We'll only explain it because this is the Twilight Zone. So Major immediately kicks into action. He wants to get out.
So he's trying to figure out a way out by cutting through the walls with a sword, trying to break it down, calling for anyone to come help them. And the clown is kind of in between doing sort of clown riddle stuff. He's also kind of the rational one saying he's very calm saying that we've already tried all this stuff. There's no way out.
They don't know how they got there. They might as well kind of make the most of it. And then suggest a little dancing and music to where the bagpiper starts firing up bagpipes and how it starts dancing around. It's just like holy hell.
I'm trying to drive you over. Just what you want to do. I think cylindrical metal room is bagpipes. Right.
Guys, I've figured it out. We are in hell. So then he figures out that they would have a good chance to get out of there because even though the room is very tall, it appears that it's open at the top. So if they could just make it to the top over the edge, one of them could get out and go for help.
So he enlisted them all to build this human tower. So they all climb up on each other's shoulders to try to reach the top and they put the ballerina on top. And she's desperately trying. She's just a little too short and then it's really, really loud bell rings and topples them all over.
And the ballerina hurts her ankle so she can't go back up. So Major makes a little grappling hook out of his sword and they all rip up garments and time together and they're going to give it one last go. So they make a four person human tower and he's able to hook his sword over the edge and climb up and they ask him, what do you see? And he just shrieks and falls out.
He falls out so gracefully. Yeah. Just like that. Yeah.
But then we see basically an action figure, a doll of an army major fall into snow and he gets picked up by a little girl. And you see we're out in a street corner and there's a woman with a big barrel collecting toys for the orphanage. She's ringing a bell and a little girl says here this one fell out and she hands back the doll and she throws a major back into the cylinder and we go down and see them all in a pile in their doll form and there's a tear that runs out of the ballerina's eye which is super unnerving. And that's it.
That's what we get. We find out they were all dolls all along. Yeah. And it's not one.
It's very theater of the absurd, like kind of existential, like a little bit different than the usual Twilight Zone. Oh, and the title is a reference to two very famous, absurdist existentialist works. Luigi Perindello's six characters in search of an author which later influenced Tiden O'Zell writing impromptu, so if you may have studied in high school English or theater and also John Paul Sartre's no exit. So the five characters in search of an exit is a mashup title of those two works.
So it was definitely a conscious decision to frame it that way. Yeah, it even has the tip off of major saying like he's discovered there in hell. Because that very hell is other people, no exit moment. I think because of the location and the subject matter, it does feel very much like a piece of theater.
But I think because of the weird performances and everything, like it doesn't tip into that broad amateur hour theater of Lateness of the Hour, sometimes they get a little monologuey because what else are you going to do when you're trapped in this room? But I think Murray Maficine's clown is a really interesting character. I thought he was just brilliant as a clown in this. Yeah.
And the dialogue is also kind of like the classic Shakespearean theatrical clown also is the one who tells the truth, the one who gets to the heart of the matter, even though he's caperic and grinning and dancing, but he's all the one with the little barbs of wisdom. Yeah, he's really great in this. The other, I mean the bagpiper and hobo are just there for women. One note characters.
And the ballerina is kind of interesting in a very kind of ethereal way. She's very kind of like almost apart from the others. Yeah, she's very otherworldly. But she does have maybe the one most tip-off line when she says perhaps that's who we are, the unloved.
Right. You can sort of take that as like, okay, there you are, they're the discarded toys. Yeah, because who wants to play with a goddamn bagpiper? Some rich kid got that for Christmas like, why am I getting a goddamn bagpiper?
I told you I wanted an Optimus Prime or whatever passed for Optimus Prime in 1960. So they consider this their Christmas episode too, which is, you know, it's kind of Christmassy. Oh, sure. I think I'm collecting toys for orphans.
But you know what a weird Christmas episode to have all five people talking about existential dilemma. Right. The clown, Marie Mafison, his final role was in the Twilight Zone movie in the remade segment of Kick the Cans. That's a nice little way to go out for Marie Mafison.
Yeah. And then I feel like everyone else was kind of like a seasoned TV actor in their own right, except for the bagpiper. It hasn't had not done a whole lot. It's probably just a male model, you know, just somebody there.
Very much. And well, speaking of looking good, Susan Harrison, I thought the ballerina, she's drop dead gorgeous. But yeah, even, you know, if she's so out there in the performance, it's great because when she says maybe we're the unloved and she's kind of cozying up to the major at that point and almost uncomfortably close and as attractive as she is at the same time, you're weird. Stop it.
She's got that. She's got that. Okay. So you're unloved.
Well, good luck with all that. It's, you know, it is. There's this unreality to the interesting footnote on her is she is the mother of Darva Conger, best known as the contestant, the lucky contestant who won who wants to marry a multi-millionaire on Fox. Oh, man.
Oh, remember that one? I tried. I suddenly do and now I'm ashamed that my brain is taking up space remembering that. Well, the sad thing is I remember that being so sensational at the time.
And now it just feels like, yeah, I mean, yeah, like, okay, what network is that on? That's so crazy. Yeah. Another interesting fact I looked up on this episode.
This was actually the inspiration for the science fiction movie, the cube, which I don't know if you guys have seen where it's like four or five people wake up in this featureless cube and have no idea how they get there or how they got there and what's happening and have to find a way to escape. And it's very much in the same vein. You know, you see a lot of what the characters are and how they're being revealed as they try to plot the way out of it. And also this was a big influence on the movie Toy Story because the original draft, the toy story, I don't know if you guys know this, the original draft was Woody and Buzz just holding existential conversation at the foot of Andy's bed.
And the original voice actors they wanted for Woody and Buzz were Werner Herzog and what's the guy from the Exorcist. The next one side. The next one side of those are the original voice actors. No, I'm not serious at all.
I'm joking. But wouldn't it be great if it was? How is that the first time I've ever heard about this? I want to see how I might get you guys.
I'm very impressed with your gullibility, Dan. Well done. But wouldn't that be a better version of Toy Story? When one is to say how infinity and beyond.
How does one actually go beyond infinity? That was a really shit we've heard of Herzog. That was basically me trying to do Paul of Top in the three versions of my apologies. But I do want to see that movie.
Yes. Let's do a Renegade Director's Cut. Anyway, it's back to the episode on hand. Yeah, I really like this episode.
I think out of these three episodes, I get the most pleasure on rewatch of the After Hours because you pick up new things and it's just a nice neat little story. I really like five characters in Search of an Exit but I feel like once the twist is known, then sometimes I get a little weary of the very theatrical dialogue. So it's not as rewatchable. The only thing about this episode that makes me enjoy it on repeat viewings is Murray Matheson's clown performance.
Because once you know the twist, it's not a big thing. There's not any other details to be gleaned but I really love his performance and that's the one thing that I find engaging every time. I have to believe there's a production photo of him on whoever the costume designer was on their bulletin board who did the Pennywise costume for the hit remake. It just seems like the perfect inspiration of a Victorian.
Not only that, but listen to his first dialogue and tell me you don't hear Mark Hamill's reading of the Joker in there. Oh, a little bit? When his first laughter and he's doing his Brigadier. Yeah, it's like I'm going to eat today.
Brigadier, Brigadier, tomorrow. It's just a wonderfully nuanced performance. And if you compare this, which once you find the twist, it's like, okay, they're toys and a giant bin, you know, to them a giant bin and being picked up by a giant girl, compare this with stop over in a quiet town. And look at how much more successful this one is with some arguably similar material.
Right. Yeah, but there's nobody boozin in this one. That's right. Although the clown could have been swacked on it.
Well, let's assume that the hobo is swacked. I think that's racist. That's hobo is. That's hobo is.
Well, those are our three twisty protagonists. And there's so many more in the universe that we could probably end up doing a twisty protagonist round two at some point. But next episode, we're going to move on to a different theme. And Chris, what's that going to be?
We're going to look at nostalgia. Looking at the past, your rose colored glasses, although since it's the Twilight Zone, slightly skewed distorted rose colored glasses. Yeah, Sterling loved writing about childhood and nostalgia and the whole simpler times kind of attitude. So that should be a fun one to get into.
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You should also check out twilies on vortex.blogspot.com. We're linked on there. But those guys who run that site have a lot of real interesting material. They have episode guides.
They deep dive into certain episodes. There are some really great essays about inspiration for certain episodes. Really cool stuff. So check that out if you get a chance.
And I just realized I did not really put the catchphrase this week. Oh, we supposed to do a different one each week? Well, I was on a roll. Last time you had a pretty good one.
It's going to be hard to top that one. Yeah, I guess well, let's stick with it for now then. From Soundsite in mind, this episode has been submitted and we don't care if you approve or not. So bye.
Say goodbye, guys. Bye. Bye.