Tag Archives: rod serling

Rod Serling on Going Home Again

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Every time I read something by Rod Serling, I think, “My God, that man knew how to write.” When I read the memoir penned by his daughter Anne Serling, I thought “that man knew how to love his family.” He may have worked too hard, smoked too much, and spent a lot of time thinking about the ills of society, but he found a way to make it work for him.

In the book Night Gallery with stories based on the TV series, Serling explores several of his favorite story-telling motifs. “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar” examines the idea that a man can’t go home again. After 25 years of service, Randy Lane is on the verge of losing his job to a back-stabbing assistant. As he descends into acceptance of the situation, with the help of copious amounts of alcohol, he takes part in hallucinations that come from his memories of 1945, the best year of his life. Lane learns that a man can’t go home again, but if he is lucky, his memories and friends from now will help him find a way back to the present, so he can live a more fulfilling and satisfying life.

Rod Serling is a gift to us as human beings. Find his stories and devour them. And then try, with a mighty effort, to live up to them. We’ll all be better for it.

At Lincoln City Archery, we provide archers the opportunity to increase their knowledge of traditional archery and practice their skills at our indoor archery range in Lincoln City, Oregon. Like traditional archery, reading books takes focus and concentration. Turning off your electronics and reading a book for an hour will improve your focus and concentration. If the story is good enough, it won’t even seem like practicing. Plus, it’s a great way to pass the time when you can’t make it to the range. Happy shooting, happy reading, and let’s get on target.

Affiliate links used in this article allow us to earn a small commission on your book purchase while costing you nothing. Thank you. If you would prefer to order your books directly from us, we will be happy to ship them directly to your home for $3 plus shipping if they are available. You can even have them gift-wrapped!

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Episode 9: ‘The Twilight Zone’ Perchance to Dream

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Charles Beaumont’s first episode for “the Twilight Zone” explores the power of the imagination. It’s main question: “Could someone imagine him- or herself to death?”

The mind is undoubtedly powerful. It creates much of our reality. Self-fulfilling prophecies, the placebo effect, the law of attraction, “If you can dream it, you can do it…” These are the ways the mind bends reality.

When the psychiatrist’s new patient shows up in his office, the patient is concerned and facing a catch-22. If he goes to sleep, his dreams will deliver him a shock his heart can’t withstand; if he stays awake much longer, his heart will give out. He tells the doctor that the doctor won’t be able to help him. The patient has already made up his mind, all that’s left is for his body to figure out how to fulfill the reality the patient sees.

The same is true in our lives. How we think of something is what it becomes, and we can imagine both good and bad things. When someone doesn’t call you, do you imagine something like a car wreck or do you think his or her phone has run out of battery power? If it’s the first, they may not be in an accident, but your body reacts in the same way as if that person had experienced something terrible. You face worry and stress even if nothing has happened. Removing worry from the equation is hard, but if you can achieve it and face reality as it comes, you’ll be healthier and happier.

Episode 8: ‘The Twilight Zone’ Time Enough at Last

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This classic and much-lauded episode features acclaimed actor Burgess Meredith as Henry Bemis, a man who loves to read in a world where readers aren’t welcomed. His boss derides him for being a reader who isn’t dedicated to his job and instructs Bemis to stop reading at work and at lunch. His wife is worse. She scribbles on every page of a poetry book Bemis hid in his chair. When he tries to read it to her, at her request, he sees the vandalism. She then snatches the book and tears out the pages – one by one. This world is not for him, much like the gunslinger world wasn’t for Mr. Denton.

When everything is blown up, Bemis survives. He has plenty of food, but the isolation and the lack of entertainment start to get to him. Bemis finds his salvation in a destroyed public library where he is able to pile up books sorted by month and year. Then the unthinkable happens.

What Bemis did to deserve his fate is unclear – except for his last phrase. That’s not fair. It’s not fair. And so it isn’t, because life isn’t always fair, and this may be how Rod Serling reminds us that not all villains get their come-uppance and not all good men get what they long for.

Episode 7 ‘The Twilight Zone’ The Lonely

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In the not-too-distant future, humanity is going to have to decide what it should do with artificial intelligence. As much as human beings have a fear of playing God, there’s going to be a time when artificial intelligence is indistinguishable from human intelligence. At that point, it will need to be called intelligence or people will face the problems associated with slavery, its consequences and what it means in relationship to being human.

Unfortunately, people aren’t yet equipped to understand when the change will take place. What separates the artificial from the organic? The programmed from the born? Especially when so many people are programmed through their culture, their religion, and their media choices.

In “The Lonely,” the captain of the rescue ship, who also happened to bring the robot in the ship has no moral dilemma. He knows who is real and who is not, and he makes his decision accordingly. But for the prisoner, the robot was a living being with emotions who saved his humanity and kept him from isolation-related madness (something addressed in “Where Is Everybody?” and “Time Enough at Last” and, to a lesser extent “Sixteen Millimeter Shrine”).

What happens when a machine saves a man from loneliness and madness? What happens when our phones and computers do the same?

Episode 6: ‘The Twilight Zone’ Escape Clause

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When the Devil comes calling, regardless of the name he’s using and what he looks like, turn him down flat. Unless your name’s Johnny, you can’t beat the Devil. In ‘Escape Clause,’ the Devil offers hypochondriac and professional worrier Walter Bedecker immortality, invincibility and the retention of his current physical attributes, more or less, in exchange for Bedecker’s soul. Bedecker tries to find the Devil’s loophole. After all, if he Bedecker lives forever, he doesn’t need a soul. Finding none, the Faustian bargain is struck.

The problem is that immortality and invincibility make life dull. Bedecker does everything to find a thrill to get the sense of living again. Drinking poison, getting hit by a bus and a subway, and everything else fails. Without the possibility of death or harm, life becomes unlivable and boring.

Mortality is what gives humanity its edge. The adrenaline rush that shows we’re still alive accompanied with the compassion knowing that others are just as likely to die as we are help us create a world where people are able to live up to their potential if they choose to. Sickness contrasts with health. Happiness contrast with sadness. These contradictions are what allow a person to have a full life.

Enjoy the good times, and bless the hard times. Each of them together are the stuff that life is made from.

Speakers’ Club May 11, 2019: ‘The Twilight Zone’

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Rules:

For this Speakers’ Club, time willing, we’ll discuss three episodes of “The Twilight Zone”: ‘To Serve Man,’ ‘Eye of the Beholder’ and ‘Monsters on Maple Street.’

Rod Serling’s seminal series ran for five years from 1959 to 1964 and perfected the art of the twist ending. Be prepared to take a trip to the fourth dimension.

Bring the popcorn and be ready to think about what you see, hear and feel.

Grim, Grinning Ghosts:

Episode 5: ‘The Twilight Zone’ Walking Distance

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You can’t go home again. People try to return home, to their past, to their roots, but life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes, however, you do have to find its memory to improve your life today. Martin Sloan arrives near his home town and walks right into “the Twilight Zone” and his 11th summer. Once he realizes when he is, he tries to find his younger self, Marty, and reconnect with his mother and father.

The consequences are drastic and enervating, but his father comes to Martin to return his wallet. Dad knows who the older Martin is, but he urges Martin to leave. There’s only one summer per customer and this summer belongs to Marty, who shouldn’t have to share it.

Dad hypothesizes that Martin is wrong. Maybe, there are calliopes and merry-go-rounds near Martin, but he hasn’t been able to see them because he’s been too focused on the past and looking backwards. Dad says that Martin needs to start looking forward in his current life to enjoy his future.

Like Martin, we need to live in the present to enjoy the future. We can look to the past to draw strength, but it would be foolish to attempt to go back there… because you can’t go home again, even in “the Twilight Zone.”

Episode 4: ‘The Twilight Zone’ Sixteen Millimeter Shrine

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When faced with the reality of aging and the passage of time 20 to 25 years after her last big movie, Barbara Jean Trenton retreats in to her study. Curtains drawn, she sits in a chair watching her old movies and drinking – day after day, week after week. While she would welcome a starring role as a leading lady, she cannot accept that her star has faded in Hollywood.

When reality finally catches up with her, she rejects it and claims her home as a sanctuary returned to the 1930s. She escapes into the past, watching her movies and wishing for a better day, one that probably never existed but looked sweeter with time. When she returns to the past, it’s two-dimensional, but it fits her because she herself is shallow. She values looks over substance, and status over possibility.

Barbara Jean Trenton gets her wish and is seemingly none the worse for wear, but the days past aren’t always what they a cracked up to be. Should we move backward toward the comfort of our nostalgia, or should we look forward to a better tomorrow? A theme that the Twilight Zone explores further in “Walking Distance.”

Episode 3: ‘Twilight Zone’ Mr. Denton on Doomsday

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Town drunk Al Denton is more than he seems. The other men in town abuse him, make fun of him and make him sing for his drinks. When Fate steps in, Denton is forced to come to grips with his gunslinger past.

Formerly, Denton was the fastest gunslinger in the area. Every day men would come in to challenge him to a duel. Every day he would start drinking earlier in the day. One day he killed a 16-year old; that’s when he put up his guns.

Denton lives in a time that is contrary to his nature. He doesn’t want to kill people, even if he’s good at it, because he realizes that one day he won’t be fast enough. He’ll be the one dead in the street. Unfortunately, word gets out that he has quit drinking and he has bested the fastest gun in town. Denton receives warning that another gunfighter is coming to challenge him.

Denton couldn’t forgive himself for killing the 16-year old because there was no point in doing so. If he had been able to, someone would have shown up the next day and the day after that. Denton would’ve kept having to fight men and boys who thought they were fast with a gun. Forgiveness can only happen when the behavior that has brought on the need for forgiveness has ended, and Denton had no control over ending the behavior without dropping into the bottom of a bottle.

It’s not until Fate steps in and lends a, uh, hand that Denton is blessed to be able to live a life free from the threat of his times. He is redeemed, and he his able to forgive himself. Some people aren’t able to free themselves of a situation because their times don’t allow it; they need help from someone or the luck of Fate. If you can get yourself out of whatever situation is keeping yourself from forgiveness, do it.

Episode 2: “The Twilight Zone” One for the Angels

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Death comes in with a gentle kindness though obtuse in his assertions. Maybe, he needs people to recognize that their time is up, or he is unable to tell them outright. He is firm in his proposition but explains the ways out that Lou Bookman could take. The last one suits Bookman’s purposes: he never got to make a big picture, one that opened the skies. Death grants bookman a reprieve and asks him when he thinks the pitch will be made. Bookman shuts the door on Death and shouts that he is done pitching.

Death follows Bookman pleading with him to reconsider and telling him there are consequences to his actions. Bookman refuses to listen until he hears squealing tires and one of his neighbor children is hit by a truck. Death had to take someone if Bookman wasn’t going to come willingly. Death will arrive for the girl at midnight, leaving Bookman to consider what has happened and what he can do to stop Death, who will no longer listen to Bookman’s pleas.

Bookman has two things in his heart. He has really wanted to make a big pitch and never gotten to, and he loved the children in his neighborhood. No one has to fear death who accomplishes in this life his or her heart’s desires and loves children. That’s true of Bookman, who has his last wish fulfilled and saves a little girl in the process. If there is something that you want to accomplish go out there and do it, but do it with kindness.