Twilight Zone- 80s Revival: The Toys of Caliban

The 60s classic sci-fi series was revived twice, once in the mid 80s and later in 2002-2003. While I can briefly recall a memory of the show’s return to television and my excited knowledge of it, it wasn’t until 2009 (I had assumed it was earlier, but just the same…), when it debuted on Chiller, that I could truly get an idea of how it compares to my favorite television show of all time. I will also be watching the 02-03 revival for the first time.

Tragic, heart-wrenching episode of the 80s revival of Serling’s Twilight Zone has the great Richard Mulligan (Empty Nest) offering a sympathetic agonized father of a special-needs kid dealing with a child-like mind, equipped with the power to summon objects using brain power. If the kid looks at a book with images, all he has to do is mentally yearn for them and they appear! 

Mulligan’s weary and tired wife, played by Anne Haney (many of us 80s/90s kids know her quite well; my own most memorable part of hers came in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Survivors”), succumbs to a heart attack when she enters his room and finds the boy playing with bloody organs from a magazine he demanded from memory (he remembered it from a hospital stay)! 

Alexandra Borrie would appear to be a nuisance and threat to the familial regularities of the Ross trio, but she just has the kid’s own welfare and best interest at heart. Ultimately—and this is why the episode’s story is so grueling and seemingly hopeless—the kid’s “curse” is the undoing of them all. The kid (played by David Greenlee; “Fame” & “Beauty and the Beast”) isn’t to blame for the use of the power he’s “inherited”, but this proves to be what truly has rented the family in two. Alexandra’s family services counselor is unable to rescue any of them from the inevitable. 

Truly depressing conclusion and overall the execution of the episode is just heartbreaking. Mulligan’s heavy burden is so realistic and understandable. Any parents of special-needs kids (in this episode, Toby is considered “retarded”, but he’s more or less simple-minded and a mentally/behaviorally a child) can relate to the dilemma of the parents, but I don’t think that is necessarily the burden as much as his supernatural ability and what it could bring to him. 

Specially emphasized is Mulligan’s fear that his son would be a government experiment, while Alexandra sees the situation as he’s imprisoned in his own home when he should be allowed to have friendships with other children and attend a type of school. It’s presented as no-win, with the result a desperate act of a father to keep his son from what he believes is detrimental. Not exactly a fun time to be had but comments on the effects of what a family might endure if parents to a child with special abilities.

Probably, besides the bloody organ scene that results in a coronary, the most troubling scene involves Toby's request for his mother, with her dead body returning to where she once sat! Another scene has Mulligan talking about the dead animals he has had to bury in the back yard because Toby summoned them from television (before the parents had to get rid of it).

 **½