Description: Season 1, Episode 20
Air Date: February 19, 1960
Plot Summary: Astronauts land on a planet that mysteriously resembles Earth except all the people are frozen in place.
Review: Very rarely will you hear me say an episode of TZ is outright bad, but this episode most certainly falls into that classification. I don't know how else to sugarcoat it--this episode is flat out stupid. The plot makes almost no sense, is completely outlandish, and the production itself is amateur which is strange for TZ. On top of that, the ending is so predictable that even one of the characters points this out in a "I told you so" fashion. That's pitiful.
All that happens is three astronauts conveniently land on a planet that is identical to Earth. The rocket's landing process looks horrible and especially lame when you consider other aspects of the episode. Immediately the astronauts come across structures from Earth as well as humans. The only problem is that everyone and everything appears to be stuck in a state of suspended animation. As you may guess, the actors are simply trying their best to remain perfectly still, but the camera shots hang on people far, far too long. This leads to embarrassing shots of the actors blinking, shaking, and outright moving. You may think I'm nitpicking, but it's too obvious when it could have been fixed easily. Furthermore, any movement is unacceptable once you learn these people are not in suspended animation but are already dead. Anyway, the astronauts wander about until they come across an old man claiming he's the caretaker and that this place was created by some rich bitches to be a futuristic cemetery where you could forever live out your fantasies in death. The old man is supposed to be an android or something--I don't know--and of course he kills the astronauts to add them to the collection. This is what I meant by predictable, and, like I said, one of the astronauts says before they die that he knew they shouldn't trust the old geezer. And that's it. Even Mr. Serling had little to add in the closing narration. I mean, what is there to say really? Elegy my ass. Nothing happens! Lame technical problems accompanied by a shallow story equals one shitty episode. Well, at least a couple of the frozen beauty queens were kind of hot, but I guess they were trying to be humorous with the winner.
Well, the caretaker of all the frozen bodies on the astroid does have one point, "as long as there are humans, there will be no peace". It's true. I never understood people that say " lback in the old days, it was so safe and everyone left their doors unlocked". It's a load of crap. Back in the 1950s, there was even more racial tension in America than today (which was shown quite accurately in TZ ep "I am night, color me black"). Back in the 1930s during the depression, crime and murders were about twice as high in America than today. You had all the speakeasies owned by the mafia, the bootlegging, and gangsters like Al Capone.
ReplyDeleteAlso, all the desperate unemployed depression hit people in the 1930s turning to crime just to survive. It was a surprisingly large percentage.
ReplyDeleteAlso, all the desperate unemployed depression hit people in the 1930s turning to crime just to survive. It was a surprisingly large percentage.
ReplyDeleteWell, the caretaker of all the frozen bodies on the astroid does have one point, "as long as there are humans, there will be no peace". It's true. I never understood people that say " lback in the old days, it was so safe and everyone left their doors unlocked". It's a load of crap. Back in the 1950s, there was even more racial tension in America than today (which was shown quite accurately in TZ ep "I am night, color me black"). Back in the 1930s during the depression, crime and murders were about twice as high in America than today. You had all the speakeasies owned by the mafia, the bootlegging, and gangsters like Al Capone.
ReplyDelete