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| A giant hand reaches down to snatch a two urbanites trapped in a vacant small town in “A Stopover in a Quiet Town”. (The Twilight Zone) |
Part three of a three part essay looking at the perception and representation of urban and ex-urban space on television during the late-1950s. Particularly during the five season run of the seminal science-fiction/fantasy prime-time television show The Twilight Zone. If you did not see the episodes when they were originally aired, or you missed the yearly SyFy New Year's marathon, know that this essay contains spoilers.
Read "Part I" and "Part II"
In a handful of episodes urbanites are placed in ex-urban
situations, some willing and others not, and a dire cost is paid for their
leaving the city. In more than one of
these episodes Bachelard's concept of “eulogized space” space is explored.[i] This concept describes the, often
unrealistic, positive memories of spaces from one's past. In these episodes disenfranchised city
professionals long for the perceived peace of small towns.
In “The Fear” a overworked writer retreats to
a small cabin outside of a village, only to be terrorized by a giant alien.[ii] She is trapped in the cabin with a local
police officer, as they are cut off from any help from the outside world. In “A Stop at Willoughby” a television
marketing executive longs for the simpler life he dreams of every evening as he
dozes on the commuter train home.[iii] When he decides to try and escape to this
imagined place by getting off the train in his dream, which stops in a 19th
century small town, he throws himself off of the real commuter train to his
death. Taking a slightly different
approach to this concept, “Ring-a-Ding Girl” has a young movie star return to
her home town after having a disturbing premonition.[iv] Throughout the episode she is criticized by
some of the townspeople for what they see as a big city ego. In the end though, she comes out as clever
and selfless. By tricking people into
going into a high school auditorium to see her, she saves hundreds of the
townspeople who would have otherwise been killed by a plane that crashes into
the town. Once again, this voyage into
the ex-urban comes at a price, and in a cruel super natural twist she loses her
own life in that same plane crash. In
other episodes in which characters find themselves in the ex-urban, the
situation has similarly hopeless narratives.
In episodes such as “Come Walk with Me” or “Nick of Time,” characters
become trapped in rural or small town settings because of superstitious
conditions coming true,[v]
[vi] perhaps an easy poke at a stereotype of
ex-urban education, or lack thereof.
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| The giant hand belongs to a young girl, who has turned the couple in to playthings. (The Twilight Zone) |
Over the
course of 156 episodes running from 1959-1964, the Twilight Zone touched on
many of the social and cultural issues of the time. Race, class, beauty, death, and greed, to
name a few, all had their episodes. In
many instances these themes would be set into contexts so fantastic that the
impact of the episode would be specific to the commentary, and in these cases,
viewers could more easily absolve themselves from critique through dismissal of
the fantasy of the story. In the
episodes, as discussed in this paper, in which the setting was the normative
world, this dismissal becomes much more difficult. Not only do many of these episodes, either
directly or indirectly, deal with all of these themes, they also turn a mirror on
the viewers' way of life. The episodes
that specifically use urban and ex-urban conditions touched on the very real discussion of the time
concerning the American way of life.
This commentary, both explicitly and implicitly, takes the viewers to
the places of their own lives, and shows them how little would have to change
for their world to be pulled in to disarray.
When used normatively, the settings of these episodes work as a steady
reminder of a particular way of life.
When the setting is forcefully changed or juxtaposed, and the character
is taken out of their chosen element, the idiosyncratic traits of both their
normal setting and the inherited setting
are flushed out. The effect, often
attempted but rarely duplicated, sets the Twilight Zone apart as one the
the most memorable examples of spatial story telling. But perhaps this should not be surprising for
a show whose title is the description of such an evocative place.
[i] Bachelard
describes “Eulogized Space” as that which those “seek to determine the
human value of the sorts of space that may be grasped, that may be defended
against adverse force.” This plays itself out in many episodes of the Twilight
Zone. Often to the result of disillusion has the myth of a place of safety
is shattered. Bachelard,
Gaston, and M. Jolas. The Poetics of
Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print. pg.XXXV
[ii] Serling, Rod.
"The Fear." The Twilight
Zone. CBS. 29 May 1964. Television.
[iii] Serling, Rod.
"A Stop at Willoughby." The
Twilight Zone. CBS. 6 May 1960. Television.
[iv] Hamner, Earl, Jr.
"Ring-a-Ding Girl." The
Twilight Zone. CBS. 27 Dec. 1964. Television.
[v] In “Come
Wonder With Me” a folk singer travels to a rural area to try and find his next
hit song. His general disrespect for the
people of the area eventually leads to him being killed as is foretold by the
very song he hoped to turn into a hit back in the city.
Wilson, Anthony. "Come Wander With Me" The Twilight Zone. CBS. 22 May 1964.
Television.
[vi] “Nick of Time”
takes place in a small Ohio town. The
Characters, a young white couple from St.Louis, become trapped by fear as the
husband (played by a young William Shatner) becomes obsessed with a fortune
telling coin machine in the local diner.
As the couple finally is able to pull themselves away from the machine
and leave the town, we are shown another aging couple coming into the diner,
presumably trapped by superstition for years in the small town.
Mathison, Richard. "Nick of Time." The Twilight Zone. CBS. 18 Nov. 1960.
Television.
[vii] Hamner, Earl,
Jr. "Stopover in a Quiet Town." The Twilight Zone. CBS. 24 Apr. 1964. Television.