Description: Season 1, Episode 34
Air Date: June 10, 1960
Plot Summary: While looking for a gift for her mom, a woman is taken to a hidden floor at a department store.
Review: I suppose this is one of the classic episodes, but it's mostly mediocre to me. Sure, it has its moments, and the title is cool, but it makes virtually no sense. You have a woman, named Marsha, shopping at a random department store that, apparently, has 8 floors as she attempts to find a gift for her mother. At one point, Marsha is invited aboard a private elevator despite the fact that there is a long line for the main elevator. She does question this unusual scenario slightly, but she should have been more unnerved once she arrives on the mysterious ninth floor and there is nothing there. Wouldn't a normal person believe they were tricked somehow? Well, our dear Marsha still tries to shop on the barren ninth floor like a complete moron. It's okay though, because Marsha comes across a sales woman that just happens to have the exact item she wants: a gold thimble. The two women exchange awkward dialogue as the sales woman reveals she knows who Marsha is ahead of time; seriously, a normal person would be bothered by all these strange events. When Marsha leaves the floor, she notices the thimble is damaged and decides to speak to a manager or whatever. The one manager is a little bitch boy and calls in the store manager to deal with Marsha's nonsense. They question Marsha's story, especially in regards to a nonexistent ninth floor, as well as her lack of a receipt proving she bought the thimble there. Then Marsha believes she sees the sales woman that sold her the thimble only to discover she is a mannequin. This is clearly too much to handle for a mild-mannered '60s girl, so she passes out pathetically.
After a series of zany antics, Marsha is seemingly locked in the store overnight as she awakes from her slumber. Marsha begins to hear people calling out to her as multiple mannequins speak to her psychically or something. This part is kind of creepy as one of the mannequins moves right when Marsha walks by; this is followed by another scare when Marsha escapes in the elevator and is met by the sales woman from earlier. The sales woman tries to console Marsha as she takes her into the ninth floor with many mannequins all coming to life. The group of living mannequins help Marsha remember that she too is a mannequin and has spent too much time away that it made her forget her true self; apparently the mannequins each take turns spending a month as a human. With Marsha's memories returned, the sales woman goes out into the world as a human just as Marsha becomes a mannequin again. The episode ends with that bitch boy seeing the Marsha mannequin and doing a double-take.
Believe me, I appreciate the intrigue and attempt to make the episode scary, but these facets are overshadowed by an incoherent plot. Why are mannequins coming to life and pretending to be humans? If they can take human form what is stopping them from prolonging it? Shouldn't we get a little back story on this aspect? And when they're human they can forget that they're mannequins? Also, they can forget to the point that they believe they have a family? Besides the logistics of the situation being nonsensical, what about the whole hidden floor? Why did no one see the extra elevator? Is everything in their heads? We see that the mannequins are actually used in the store...you're telling me no one notices them disappearing and reappearing? How do they have money to survive on their own for a month? Well thank god this episode was before the surveillance era or else we'd have even more problems; Orwell would be proud. Ugh. I know I'm looking too hard into this, but I expect a lot more from my TZ and this isn't cutting it. On the surface, this is a cool episode, but a closer examination reveals a brainless twist that wastes all the buildup leading to the payoff. Hell, it would have been creepier if the mannequins were simply evil and turned others into mannequins to join the fold.
Marsha does mention how odd it is several times about there being a ninth floor and them having nothing there except the item she wanted, she mentioned it very prominently to the saleslady on nine. Then, she mentiones it again to the manager, she doesn't just mention the scratched thimble, she mentions there being a ninth floor too which he keeps replying that there isn't.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the episode, you described very well. And it was an interesting episode, and those are all good questions such as why can't they prolong their human form for more than a month? How would they survive moneywise? Why no one notices the elevator? Why do they forget they were mannequins while they're human? I have a guessed answer for that one; it's kind of like in TZ ep "Five characters in search of an exit" while they're trapped in that circular whatever thing, they've forgotten who they are or anything before they were there. I'm not sure why, it's just part of Twilight zone's mysteries like what created the invisible time barrier in "100 yards over the rim".
I also wondered why if all the mannequins can walk around live on the ninth floor together, why couldn't they do the same elsewhere? Why did they have to humanize only one at a time for a month? Was it some kind of loyalty to the department store to remain mannequins for them most of the time?