The Twilight Zone excelled in telling tales of terror, exploring the darkest aspects of human existence in myriad ways. To celebrate the Halloween season, we’re counting down the 31 most frightening and unsettling moments from The Twilight Zone, one for each day of October. We’ll be revisiting some of the episodes we’ve already covered and looking ahead to episodes from the final three seasons of the series. -JP
#21 - Transformation, from “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You,” season five,
episode 137
Written
by Charles Beaumont and John Tomerlin, directed by Abner Biberman, starring
Richard Long, Collin Wilcox, Suzy Parker, Pam Austin
Based on one of Charles Beaumont’s
earliest short stories, “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You” combines the grim
futurism popular on the series with the atmosphere of dread and horror characteristic
of Beaumont’s work. The episode was produced at a time when the combination of
overwork and quickly deteriorating health forced Beaumont to seek the
assistance of his friends to help honor his writing commitments. Beaumont
called upon his friend and fellow writer John Tomerlin, who co-authored a novel
with Beaumont in 1957 titled Run from the
Hunter using the joint pseudonym Keith Grantland, to adapt his short story
into a teleplay. Tomerlin took the original idea and ran with it, adding nuance
of character and setting to Beaumont’s original story. Under the direction of
Abner Biberman, the episode presents a vision of a sanitized, minimalistic future
which perfectly represents the mindless conformity of a society in which a
young, independent girl finds herself at war with a forced cleansing of her
individual appearance and personality. The most disturbing moment of the
episode occurs at the very end, in which the girl emerges from her forced
transformation. She has changed mentally as well as physically and it is wisely
left ambiguous whether the operation caused the mental effect or if the girl has
succumbed to the change on her own. It is a scene which adds an additional
layer of horror to the preceding events. Many of the episodes in the fifth
season of the series had a uniquely grim feeling, likely caused by a
combination of the departure of producer Buck Houghton, the near cancellation
of the series, and the strain placed upon both Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont
from overwork and health issues. “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You” reflects
the stifling creative environment the show had become but remains a chillingly
effective exercise in the style of science fiction horror story the show made
famous.
Trivia:
-Charles Beaumont’s original short story,
“The Beautiful People,” was first published in the September, 1952 issue of If: Worlds of Science Fiction. The
magazine was edited by Paul W. Fairman, author of the 1952 short story,
“Brothers Beyond the Void,” which was adapted by Rod Serling into the memorable
first season episode, “People Are Alike All Over.” “The Beautiful People” was
collected in Beaumont’s 1958 volume Yonder:
Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
-The
similarities between Beaumont’s story and Rod Serling’s classic second season
episode “Eye of the Beholder” are obvious, and the two episodes work quite well
in tandem, as separate but equally compelling treatments of the theme.
Beaumont’s story also shares characteristics with the 1967 dystopian novel Logan’s Run, which concerns a future
society so covetous of youth and beauty that citizens are voluntarily executed
upon reaching the age of 21. The novel follows one of the society’s appointed
executions, a Sandman, named Logan who resists the process and is forced to
flee an isolated city. The novel was written by Beaumont’s close friends
William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, who were also acolytes of Ray
Bradbury. Logan’s Run was turn into a
successful film in 1976 and a television series, far less successful, followed
a year later. William F. Nolan complete a trilogy of Logan novels with Logan’s
World (1977) and Logan’s Search (1980).
This is a very memorable episode but it pales in comparison to "Eye of the Beholder." This was the show that made me look up more info about Suzy Parker...
ReplyDeleteOf course, "Eye of the Beholder" is a classic but I really like the way this episode handles the theme with a psychological complexity typical of Beaumont's work and without an over-reliance on a twist ending. Really like the art design in this one as well.
ReplyDeleteActually, the "transformation" is the very last thing that any government -- whether nominally democratic or openly despotic -- would ever want to do to its people. The one function of government that matters to it above all others is the capacity to keep track of people; and that is something that would become hopelessly complicated if everyone looked like everyone else.
ReplyDelete