Mirror Image

Description: Season 1, Episode 21

Air Date: February 26, 1960

Plot Summary: While waiting at a bus station, a woman believes she is being tormented by a suspicious doppelganger.

Review: Surprisingly, this is one of those episodes that manages to take a simple premise and adds that TZ flavor to spice it up. Admittedly, not a whole lot happens, in regards to action, but it gets you thinking with a an unusual notion for that era. Anyway, we are introduced to a woman, named Millicent, who thinks she's Michael Jackson or something with that one glove, as she is growing impatient while waiting for a bus. She's hanging out at a bus depot of some sort and the rain appears to have delayed her ride. When Millicent inquires as to the bus' delay with the ticket guy, or whoever he is, he explains that Millicent keeps bothering him every couple minutes. Millie tries to explain that this is the first time she has said anything, but she is dazed by a lookalike luggage checked in with the station that resembles hers right down to a broken handle. This doesn't bother her too much until she notices her luggage is gone and that ticket guy claims the bag she initially saw was checked in by her personally. I should probably mention the banter between the ticket dude and Millicent is amusing with a lot of annoyed stares back and forth serving as unspoken dialogue. Beginning to suspect something is off, Millie goes to the bathroom just as a cleaning lady points out the fact that she's come into the bathroom a few times and must not be feeling well. Of course Millicent has to do the whole "this is the first time" shtick, but she is startled by a reflection of herself sitting in the station while she is in the bathroom.

Eventually, Millicent comes across another guy stuck at the station who probably hopes to kick it to our dear Millie. The guy tries to think up plausible explanations for the apparent doppelganger Millie claims to see; this does calm the girl for a time. When that bus finally shows up, the guy helps Millie with her luggage, but Millicent sees the doppelganger already aboard the bus peering out creepily. Like a total bitch, she runs back into the station and faints. My god lady, keep it together. Stuck holding her luggage, and probably still thinking he has a chance here, the guy stays with Millicent to look after her through the night. Waking back up, the two discuss the concept of doubles, parallel realities, and the notion that the evil doppelganger may be trying to get rid of the original in order to exist. Although Millicent claims she read this somewhere, it would appear she's pulling this story right out of her ass. Obviously the guy is like, "what have I got myself into," especially once Millie starts to stare blankly when he tries to talk to her. The guy claims he's going to call a friend, but actually calls the police. Now that's funny! I guess back in 1960 you could simply call the police and say, "hey we got a crazy lady here, come arrest her." You know, come to think of it, we should bring this practice back. Just when things appear to be all wrapped up, the guy notices his luggage is gone right when a shady character runs out of the station. Chasing after the shady character, the man realizes that it's his doppelganger who looks super flamboyant. Uhh, I guess running is not their forte.

Overall, this is a decent episode. It touches on a few cool ideas and presents an intriguing scenario despite such a boring setting. I like when TZ tries to get deep and proposes weird conclusions that characters can hardly comprehend--this was amusingly present here. Also, TZ tends to establish these ideas realistically with characters not always able to grapple with the concepts. Lastly, I should definitely address that the actress playing Millicent, Vera Miles, does an excellent job carrying the episode by herself; some may recognize her from "Psycho."

Elegy

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.

The Purple Testament

Description: Season 1, Episode 19

Air Date: February 12, 1960

Plot Summary: During the Pacific front of WWII, a man can foresee who will die ahead of time.

Review: This definitely falls into the forgettable category of episodes--mostly due to the lack of depth in the story; this is a problem common of the weaker entries as they lacked a certain oomph associated with TZ. This isn't to say the episode offers nothing of value though. We have the first appearance of Barney Phillips, who is one of the few actors to appear in multiple episodes, as well as Dick York who is better known as the original Darrin from "Bewitched." On top of that, this is one of the rarer instances where we see the Pacific side of WWII as opposed to the European front that almost always makes up WWII themed fiction; specifically, the episode's setting is supposed to be in the Philippines and somewhat close to Manila.

The episode begins with a group of soldiers coming back from a mission and one of them is troubled. This troubled officer discusses with his commanding officer, a captain (Mr. York), that he wrote a note with four names on it. In turns out those four men died during the mission, but the officer wrote the names the day before. The officer claims he sees a bright light around the faces of soldiers before they die as a kind of omen. The captain, of course, doesn't want to believe this but the conviction of the officer forces the captain to have him physically evaluated. Turning up nothing of significance in the evaluation, we see the officer's ability first hand as an injured soldier's face glows right before he dies moments later. When going on another mission, the officer sees that the captain's face now glows, and he tries to warn the captain to not go on the mission. Not entirely discounting this advice, the captain leaves a few personal belongings behind, but when regular soldiers question this psychic ability the captain reassures everyone it's not real. After the mission, the captain obviously dies, and the officer is requested to come back to base camp. Predictable as hell, the officer is preparing his gear when he looks in a mirror to see that his own face now glows. Accepting his fate, the officer gets into a jeep with a driver whose face also glows. Sure enough, a loud explosion is heard as the remaining soldiers aren't sure if it was thunder or an explosion...but come the fuck on guys. And that's it!

I mean, the episode simply feels hollow. There's no questioning what's happening. No philosophical considerations. No implications as to why this particular soldier or for what purpose. Just nothing. This is highly atypical for TZ especially considering the writers' wariness from WWII we see explored in other, better, episodes. Eh, the story is put together competently enough, with room to do something creative, but we never have an interesting idea manifest and the predictability to the ending didn't help either. Oh well, like I've said before, they can't all be gold.