Miniature

Description: Season 4, Episode 8

Air Date: February 21, 1963

Plot Summary: An odd man becomes obsessed with a dollhouse that he believes has living people inside.

Review: This is definitely ranked among the weirdest of episodes. Robert Duvall stars as Charley, a Norman Bates-esque guy who loses his mind in the most nonchalant way possible. Apparently Charley is a robotic-like person that goes with the flow and shows little emotion. One day Charley is fired from his job for "not fitting in" which apparently was a legitimate reason to fire someone back then. The boss also makes a jab at Charley for living with his mom. Ouch. Speaking of such, the mom is a bit on the emotional side, but I wouldn't say she was that bad; she does baby Charley though by making his bed and taking off his shoes for him. Uhhh...okaaaay. Maybe she is worse than I thought. Most people think Charley is weird, but they keep implying the reason is because he doesn't have a girlfriend. If this weren't the '60s, I'm sure they would have suspected him to be gay.

One day, while at a museum, Charley stumbles across a weird dollhouse exhibit that catches his attention. Inside is a beautiful woman who Charley instantly falls in love with. Every other onlooker simply sees a doll, but Charley claims that it's a living woman going about everyday life. They really don't go into much detail beyond this so you have to accept this aspect at face value. Charley's sister tries to set him up with a date, but the girl is the '60s equivalent of a skank. The sister even says you don't have to tell the girl you're coming, just show up! That's a good one. At one point, Charley believes the doll-woman is going to be raped--or at least that's what's implied--and he breaks the dollhouse's display case to stop it. This act leads to the institutionalization of Charley as they try to explain to him that what he's seeing is only real in his mind. I definitely loved the psychiatrist here; he tries to explain to Charley's family the difference between being normal and conformity. TZ was usually pretty understanding and considerate to mental illnesses or misdiagnoses of said mental illnesses. Charley fakes getting better just so he can return to see the dollhouse. When the family, psychiatrist, and police try to find him at the museum, he, of course, managed to get himself inside of the dollhouse's world to be with his love interest. The episode ends how you would expect, and the only person who realizes the truth was a guard who came to know Charley from the daily visits.

It's tough to really say if this episode is good or bad since I'm not entirely sure what they were going for. Was this supposed to be a love story of sorts or a twisted spiral into madness? Was Charley truly insane or did he manifest his wants and desires into reality? We don't get a lot to work with beyond the clearly bizarre aspects of Charley's life. Your guess is as good as mine as to what was going on here.