New Year's means the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi channel...and that means that I get to see the cornfield episode, "It's a Good Life." This is one of my favorite episodes, second only to everybody's favorite, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." (That's the one with William Shatner and the crazy monster guy ripping at the airplane wing...)
Why do I love the "It's a Good Life" episode so much? Well, because I also wish people into a cornfield...it's just that it doesn't work as well for me as it does for the little boy. It sounds great to remove irritating people and things from your planet, however, this little boy is actually quite mean. He can read people's minds, and if they aren't thinking good, happy things, they are sent away. I'm not into mind control; I'd just prefer the uncanny ability to remove irritants from my universe.
The other disturbing aspect of the episode is that the little boy wants everything to be "good." If they aren't good, they get the cornfield. Therefore, when the little boy makes it snow and it threatens to kill all of their crops, his parents are forced to tell him that he did a "good" thing because they are afraid of angering him. Same with when he turned one of their friends into life-size jack-in-the-box. So, these people are being forced to be positive...forced to agree with a tyrranical ruler. It suits the Cold War well.
Wondering why I blogged about this? Just to remember the name of the episode, mainly....
Posted by Julie Young at January 1, 2004 11:53 PM(trembling in fear of the cornfield) It's a good thing that you blogged this, Julie!
My favorite TZs include, besides the two you mentioned, the one in which a bookish guy locked in a vault overnight realizes that he suddenly has all the time in the world to catch up on his reading; and the one in which an "ugly" woman undergoes plastic surgery that fails.
Hmm... I wonder if I should screen that one for my "media aesthetics" course...
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at January 2, 2004 12:28 AMI, like DGJ, claim "Time Enough at Last" as my favorite (I feel a disturbing kinship with Burgess' Meredith's character - from the bibliophila all the way to the ironic clumsiness), with "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" as a close second.
And although I do think of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" EVERY time I fly, I prefer Shatner's performance in "Nick of Time."
Posted by: Sarcasmo at January 2, 2004 03:46 PM