One
of the common themes with The Twilight Zone is going back to relive past
glories. Youth seemed great when
compared to adulthood. In the case of
Booth Templeton, he longs for his first wife, Laura, who was taken from him
after too short a marriage. Sure, he has
a great career. He even has a second
wife, who is younger and more beautiful than he deserves. It’s not the same, though.
True
to Twilight Zone fashion, Booth gets the opportunity to step back to 1927 and
have a second chance with Laura. It
dawns on him that maybe his first marriage wasn’t exactly the way he remembered
it. He’s taken back to 1960 to continue
with his life in his present.
One of the problems in reviewing episodes of The Twilight Zone is that they’re often basic. There’s not much to them. This is the case here. (It’s what Rod Serling might call a detour into The Twilight Zone.) It’s just enough time for the main character to get the message.
It
is an understandable message. At some
point, you realize that most of your life is behind you. You would be forgiven for thinking like Booth
does. It would be nice to go back and
relive the fun parts. Unfortunately,
it’s not always that fun.
I
think this is what made the show so accessible.
It didn’t try for anything fancy. It told its story plainly and was never
insulting or condescending about it.
This may be a byproduct of the half-hour format, but it works. Don’t live in the past; live in the present.
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