Monday, March 9, 2015

Where Trek Actors Had Gone Before: Five Episodes of The Twilight Zone with Trek Actors

Before the dawn of Star Trek, there was The Twilight Zone. The cast who would eventually be known for their roles on Star Trek: The Original Series was made up of mostly veterans who had been acting on television for years already. Rod Serling's Twilight Zone featured a plethora of prominent actors of the early 1960's, made possible by the show's anthology format; as such, many regulars and some guest stars had appeared in Twilight Zone episodes.

While many of the articles here on The Nerd Gimoire that could be called 'episode studies' deal with drawing conclusions about common themes, plot threads or motifs, there will be no such analysis in this article. The only common thread between these episodes is the presence of actors who would later appear together as part of the same cast, and other than this there is little to tie these episodes together. But, if you're a fan of Trek and haven't seen a lot of Twilight Zone, these episodes happily provide a variety of Zone offerings, differing somewhat in content, tone and narrative structure. There are a few classics, but also some obscure episodes and even one that was pulled from syndication for its controversial subject matter.

What do William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan and George Takei all have in common? They acted together on that 60's TV show - you know the one, the Twilight Zone!

1. Nick of Time (Season 2, Episode 7)


"The hand belongs to Mr. Don S. Carter, male member of a honeymoon team on route across the Ohio countryside to New York City. In one moment, they will be subjected to a gift most humans never receive in a lifetime. For one penny, they will be able to look into the future. The time is now, the place is a little diner in Ridgeview, Ohio, and what this young couple doesn't realize is that this town happens to lie on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone."

Of all the actors featured here, William Shatner would have been considered the most notable by the audiences of the 1960's. Shatner's career has been a somewhat unusual one. While he looked poised to take the industry by storm, his career began to fade for a time; it would be several years before he would return to the same levels of mainstream prominence.

Most are familiar with the second Twilight Zone episode in which Shatner appeared, possibly because it was remade for The Twilight Zone movie. Nick of Time was his first, and it is a much more subtle episode, with a more underplayed performance from Shatner, who plays a young, newly-wed professional - Don Carter. Don and his wife Pat are on their honeymoon when their car breaks down. After having it towed to Ridgeview, Ohio, the couple decides to wait at the Busy Bee Cafe (a thinly-veiled name for a locale in the Twilight Zone). When the two sit down, they find that their table has a magic 8-ball-esque 'fortune-telling machine'.

We immediately get the impression that Don Carter is the kind of man who always has his mind on work, or all of his problems for that matter, even when on his honeymoon. What begins as an interest born out of novelty or just as a game to pass the time quickly becomes an obsession for the afternoon as Don begins asking question after question to the 'mystic seer'. After a few of the fortunes the couple receive turn out to be correct - possibly by coincidence, possibly not - Don's credulity only increases. It starts to look like Don is becoming enamored and maybe even dependent on the machine for guiding his every decision, as his wife, Pat, concerned with her husband's developing neurosis, tries with all her might to reason with Don. Unfortunately, as the episode progresses, Don is only sucked deeper and deeper into a feverish interrogation of the machine for the 'right decision' in regards to every last life decision, no matter how big or small.


This episode might be taken as a commentary on the very human tendency for many to turn to superstitious means to alleviate their anxiety about all the 'unknowns' in life. Or, more generally, about confirmation bias and obsessive disorders and their affect on one's mental well-being. There is also something a bit sinister about the little 'mystic seer' - the episode achieves the not-inconsequential feat of tonally connoting a sense of mystery and even 'devilry' behind an inanimate object with an unmoving face. It certainly seems like something of a 'deal with the devil', as the seer threatens to hold Carter in its thrall, as he anxiously seeks safety and certainty within his every decision.

As we reach the end of the episode, it's implied that such a thing might even be possible with the 'mystic seer', but not desirable. As long as he feeds his own dependency on the fortunes, Carter is crippled in his ability to interact in the real world. We're left to wonder if seeking to be totally secure in every aspect of one's life is really attainable without supernatural means, and what it would really mean for one's life if it were.

2. A Quality of Mercy (Season 3, Episode 15)


"It's August, 1945, the last grimy pages of a dirty, torn book of war. The place is the Philippine Islands. The men are what's left of a platoon of American Infantry, whose dulled and tired eyes set deep in dulled and tired faces can now look toward a miracle, that moment when the nightmare appears to be coming to an end. But they've got one more battle to fight, and in a moment we'll observe that battle. August, 1945, Philippine Islands. But in reality it's high noon in the Twilight Zone."

Leonard Nimoy's episode out of the bunch, A Quality of Mercy unfortunately features the least screentime from a Trek actor on this list. Nimoy plays Hansen, a soldier stationed in the Philippines who, like his brothers in arms, is wearied from years of brutal fighting against the Japanese. When Katell, a young lieutenant who is fresh onto the battlefield arrives, he is put off by the lethargy of the soldiers. Many of them, Nimoy included, have the signature 'thousand-yard stare' and have made camp near a small cave where the last, wounded survivors of a Japanese regiment have taken refuge.

Lt. Katell wants to storm the cave to kill or capture the last Japanese hold-outs, but the sergeant, Causarano and the rest of the men are unsure. Katell is disgusted. He rants that he doesn't care whether it's the first day or the last day of the war - their job is to 'kill Japs'.

In a classic Twilight Zone twist, Katell suddenly finds that he has become Lt. Yamuri, a Japanese officer who is part of the command staff of a Japanese regiment two years earlier, in 1943. The enemy soldiers are hold up in the same cave - but now, Katell finds that it is his own countrymen, the Americans, who are in the cave, wounded. He argues with his superior officer that they should show mercy to the Americans, and he hears his own words from earlier repeated back to him, seeing his own ugliness when the same sentiments are echoed by the enemy.

This episode was loosely re-imagined for the Twilight Zone movie as well, into the segment 'Time Out'. I'd consider A Quality of Mercy to be far and away better, for a number of reasons. Serling writes about the experience of American soldiers fighting in the Philippines with more sincerity and honesty than most, as he actually fought during WWII in that theater, and witnessed a number of things that stuck with him, sometimes scarred him. Furthermore, the surrealist aspect included in A Quality of Mercy is just what the title suggests - a lesson learned which imparts this 'quality' into Katell, teaching him to be more merciful. By contrast, Time Out sees a bitter, angry old bigot being punished by being transported into the body of a Viet Cong soldier, an African American in the south being chased by the KKK, and a Jew on the way to a concentration camp - where he presumably dies in punishment for saying bigoted, hateful things.


The sense of 'cosmic justice' in A Quality of Mercy seems appropriate - bloodlust is discarded in favor of reprieve, an adequate medicine to turn hatred into compassion. In Time Out, someone whose only crime is holding opinions - reprehensible opinions, but opinions nonetheless - faces nothing less than a horrific death. It seems mean-spirited and vindictive (like creating an unlikeable character for the purposes of killing him off) rather than a story aimed at teaching a lesson.

A Quality of Mercy remains a relatively heart-warming episode, in a sense. At the risk of spoiling a thing or two, I'd recommend this episode for those who are fans of the magical realist style of the series but who aren't exactly comfortable with the supernatural horror elements that sometimes bring the series to a dark place. The episode stands as one of Serling's many encouragements towards progressing beyond hate and fear, even as a veteran who experienced the horrors of war - or perhaps, especially as such a veteran.

3. Valley of the Shadow (Season 4, Episode 3)


"You've seen them. Little towns, tucked away far from the main roads. You've seen them, but have you thought about them? What do the people in these places do? Why do they stay? Philip Redfield never thought about them. If his dog hadn't gone after that cat, he would have driven through Peaceful Valley and put it out of his mind forever. But he can't do that now, because whether he knows it or not his friend's shortcut has led him right into the capital of the Twilight Zone."

While James Doohan has only a bit part in Valley of the Shadow, fans of TOS may recognize the actor who plays Dorn in this episode, David Opatoshu, as the same actor who portrayed Anan 7 in the Star Trek episode A Taste of Armageddon. Ironically, he's playing a very similar role in this episode as well - as the mysterious leader of a council presiding over a backwater community, who, in strict accordance with the laws of his land, must reluctantly imprison the protagonist.

When a reporter and writer named Philip Redfield loses his way on the road to Albuquerque, he stops to get gas in the small town of Peaceful Valley. A number of factors coincide to Redfield's misfortune - his dog jumps out of his car and startles the pet of a local child. She produces a mysterious piece of technology and seemingly makes his dog vanish. When Redfield, frantically searching for his dog, brings this to the attention of the girl's father (James Doohan), he reacts with incredulity, as one would expect. They're soon able to find the dog, and Redfield leaves to explore the town; he quickly becomes suspicious by the strange and evasive behavior of the people of Peaceful Valley. When he finally gets the message and tries to leave the town, he wrecks into an invisible wall.


Redfield is brought before the city council, led by Dorn, who freely admits the town's wrongdoing - in his words, they panicked, and raised the 'screens' around the town. Confused, Dorn goes on to explain that the people of Peaceful Valley were gifted with amazing technology, which coincidentally mirrors most of the technology that seemed to be the basis of the future of human advancement in Star Trek: 'transporters', 'replicators', and other technology based on disassembling and reassembling matter, as well as medical technology that can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life.

This technology, which is heavily implied to have been given to them by an alien, came with the stipulation that it could never be known to the rest of the world, so that it would never be misused for violence or malicious ends. Redfield doesn't agree - he believes that it should be freely shared to solve the world's problems - but this is immaterial because Dorn and the rest of the town aren't going to let him leave. They put Redfield up in the local inn, managed by Ellen Marshall, who develops a relationship with him over his time there. What follows is Redfield's struggle to convince the people of the town that the technology would be best used for the rest of the world, as well as his inability to be happy in a single, isolated place.

Rod Serling famously hated the change in season four of the Twilight Zone to an hour-long episode format; he complained that this led to padding the episodes with 'soap opera'-type material. Valley of the Shadow suffers from this, in a sense - if this episode were trimmed down to the half-hour format with which Serling was most comfortable, a few of the clumsier aspects of this episode might have been avoided.

For all the time that the episode has, it neglects to get into the meat of the dilemma - whether or not man should have access to such futuristic technology, or whether it would be helpful or harmful. Twilight Zone episodes have to be careful about pacing and dolling out information at the right intervals in order to maintain the tone and avoid spoiling any twists, and consequently this episode is forced to spend a bit too much time building towards the reveal of the fantastic nature of Peaceful Valley. Then, we only have a few scenes to establish the romance between Redfield and Ellen. And, in the end, the solution to the problem seems a little too easy. Still, hearing James Doohan act with no Scottish accent was shocking enough to hold my attention, and Valley of the Shadow at least has the distinction of being one of the better episodes of the rocky fourth season.

4. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Season 5, Episode 3)


"Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave. Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home - the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson's flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown. Tonight, he's traveling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson's plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone."

Shatner's more famous episode on The Twilight Zone, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet sees Shatner once again portraying a young, nervous professional, Bob Wilson. Again, his wife Julia is ever at his side as the voice of reason. However, in this episode, the lines between what is real and what is imagined are blurred even further - the sane people around Bob begin to seem crazy and the manic protagonist begins to seem sane.

Shatner's Bob Wilson is almost an exaggerated version of the character he was portraying in Nick of Time. Like Don Carter, Wilson is obsessive and more than a little anxious. He's previously had a mental breakdown on an airplane, and now he is flying once again. While Julia is nothing but supportive and Bob believes that he's finally 'cured', he begins seeing strange things on the wing of the plane. Recalling the tales of 'gremlins' who were rumored to tear up the machinery of airplanes and cause them to malfunction, Wilson determines that this must be the strange, furry, pig-faced creature that he's seeing.

This gremlin is indeed ripping into the plane's innards - at least as far as Bob can see - but whenever he tries to tell his wife, the stewardess and eventually the captain, the creature vanishes. After a time, it notices that Wilson is watching it, and begins toying with him, even pressing his face right against the window. Shatner conjures a convincing nervous breakdown - it really seems that he doesn't want to be seeing the things he's seeing, that he doesn't want to believe it himself, and yet, there it is, right before his eyes.


The Twilight Zone definitely mastered the tried and true surrealist storytelling technique of showing us what the main character sees, and getting us frustrated right along with him when whatever it is always recedes into the imperceptible just as the surrounding characters arrive to confirm it. While the veracity of what Wilson sees is unclear throughout the episode, since we are seeing things 'from his point of view', it seems just as real to us, and we feel a real sense of injustice when he is humiliated by being put into a strait jacket for all the disturbances that he's caused.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet made its way into The Twilight Zone movie, and it remains a perennial favorite to this day, often touted as one of the classics of the series. The gremlin costume is a fair bit outdated, however, and doubtful to be very scary on its own. Thankfully, the real terror comes through timelessly - the prospect of believing, maybe even knowing that yourself & everyone around you is in grave danger... only to have them dismiss you as insane.

5. The Encounter (Season 5, Episode 31)


"Two men alone in an attic, a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterday's war. It's twenty odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons, souvenirs, mementos, old uniforms, and rusted metals. Ghosts from the dim regions of the past, that will lead us into the Twilight Zone."

The Encounter was one of the most controversial episodes of The Twilight Zone, and the reasons why it is controversial are all the more bizarre given who was involved in its making. George Takei, who has, in recent years, been a vocal advocate for greater awareness about the treatment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII, appears in one of two main roles. I can't help but wonder what Takei thought of the episode while he was acting in it, as he's been relatively quiet about his views on it in retrospect. He has said, however, that he got a chance to work with Neville Brand, an actor who he looked up to, and to meet Rod Serling, which not every Zone actor did. Perhaps as a young, hungry actor, he was able to ignore some of the controversial aspects of the script for the opportunity it presented. In any case, The Encounter was pulled from syndication after some expressed disapproval of its premise.

When Arthur Takamori (Takei) arrives at the house of WWII veteran Fenton (Brand), looking for work, he discovers that the aging Fenton harbors resentment towards the Japanese to this day. Despite a constant passive-aggressive sense of underlying racism from Fenton, he invites Takamori to have a beer with him. The two talk about the possibility of Takamori's employment for a bit, but Fenton won't stop insinuating things based on Takamori's race and nationality, and Takamori strangely puts up with it. Really soon, things start to get weird.

I get the impression that The Encounter is an attempt to tell a story about two men from opposite sides of a war that is long-since over, but who both carry on a sort of lingering hatred from the conflict; the war is not over for them. It's revealed that Fenton possesses an old katana, taken as a war trophy, and one that he's tried to throw away many times - it just keeps coming back. When Takamori tries to leave the house, made uncomfortable by the old veteran, the door won't open. The two eventually begin spilling their guts, with Fenton revealing that he killed an unarmed man in combat, and that he is tortured to this day by the wartime propaganda that taught him that the Japanese weren't human, unable to adapt to the reality that this isn't the case. Takamori reveals that his father was a traitor, who signaled the planes in as they attacked Pearl Harbor. Historically, nothing of this nature happened, and this is the primary reason for this episode's controversy.


I'm not really sure why they didn't just have Takamori be the son of a Japanese soldier; making his father an American who betrayed his country doesn't so much craft an image of two individuals with personal baggage that sets them on a collision course, but rather (probably unintentionally) serves to slander the Japanese-Americans who were nothing but loyal to the United States and were still interned as prisoners. In any case, the episode at least manages to implicitly condemn racism and prejudice, recognizing how hard it is to let go of such perceptions whilst showing that if one cannot do so, they will be set on a course towards resentment and pain.

In a word: this episode is clumsy. It attempts to set the two characters against each other, both with equal reason for vindictiveness and a festering past that drives them to carry on their own personal war even though WWII has long ended. In its execution, however, Fenton doesn't come off as a likeable character, and Takamori's reveal of his father's betrayal doesn't seem believable. This might have been excused if the episode wasn't the Zone equivalent of a 'bottle show', shot all in one location and managing to cram plenty of 'soap opera' into a thirty-minute span; it's also another example of an ending that is all too easy given the set-up. Still, it's worth watching on the merit of its controversial place in Twilight Zone history - probably the unintentional result of bad decision-making in storytelling - and as a performance early in Mr. Takei's long career.

Conclusion:

As I said at the outset of this article, there's a good sampling of Twilight Zone episodes here. There are episodes that end well and badly for the protagonists; episodes that are clumsy in their execution and masterful; there is a famous episode and a banned one, as well as a handful of episodes of varying notoriety. If The Twilight Zone is a series you're interested in, and you don't know where to start (and really, you could start anywhere), then I'd say that these five are as good as any for fans of Trek, who might enjoy a few familiar faces to introduce them to Serling's world of shadow and substance.

"Portrait of a blog: a small, relatively insignificant corner of the world wide web, one of many such periodicals of the modern age, where the common man can share his opinions, air his grievances and indulge in his hobbies. But what every reader of this quaintly-named, little blog called The Nerd Grimoire didn't know, was that by recommending this article on google, they could offer something in the way of a helping hand. Which, by the way, is something that any blogger could use. Especially because this author's posts are written, edited and approved for publication from a cluttered, little desk - in the Twilight Zone."

1 comment:

  1. Ah, and here and I thought the Internet in its entirety resided in... the Twilight Zone.

    ReplyDelete