The Twilight Zone - Five Characters in Search of an Exit

A clown, a hobo, a ballet dancer, a bagpipe player and an army major are trapped together in an enormous cylinder. They don't know who they are or how they got there.

Just a barrel, a dark depository where are kept the counterfeit, make-believe pieces of plaster and cloth, wrought in a distorted image of human life.

A clown, a tramp, a bagpipe player, a ballet dancer, and a Major. Tonight's cast of players on the odd stage—known as—The Twilight Zone.

Five improbable entities stuck together into a pit of darkness. No logic, no reason, no explanation; just a prolonged nightmare in which fear, loneliness, and the unexplainable walk hand in hand through the shadows.

“We’re in hell. God help us. We are in hell.”

When I was a kid welcoming Twilight Zone into my life for the first time, Five Characters in Search of an Exit was one of the very first episodes I ever watched. The show, as magnificent as it was in presenting such unusual tales with extraordinary events that built compellingly over twenty two or so minutes, to me benefited substantially from the incredible talent pool working in the 60s. Television certainly was the beneficiary of such a limitless supply of skilled, multi-faceted actors/actresses, and there were quite a number of such fascinating faces for the camera to close in on. In Five Characters… all five actors are a treasure of faces with the great William Windom (God, this actor is just a marvel, really) as an impassioned “major” who will stop at nothing to find his way out of some metal cylinder concealing him and four other peculiar characters. These people are practically caricatures almost specifically designed for the place they currently inhabit. The other four—a docile but pretty ballerina (Susan Harrison, almost portraying her character as a mannequin), a saddened hobo with a droopy disposition (Kelton Garwood), an excitable and chatty clown resigned to his fate with little faith in ever leaving (Murray Matheson, stealing the show, with no filter, just saying whatever comes to mind), and bagpiper complete with musical instrument and kilt (Clark Allen)—have practically given up on finding a way out. But Windom, however, doesn’t have it in him. He’ll go until there are simply no other options available to him. Finally, after scanning the cylinder for any method of escape or flaw in its construction, the option of standing on each other’s shoulders as building blocks so the top character can try and go over the side becomes a possibility. But what lies outside of the cylinder?

Windom is a force of sheer determination. His desperation and will to escape from his prison has an admirable drive that the others not only observe but respect. And he gets them to believe eventually…until they all realize the truth of their situation. I certainly didn’t see it coming as a kid watching it, that twist. It is a fun twist. They don’t really know anything about who they are or where they came from. They don’t know their purpose. Then we get that “woah” twist that turns everything we watched on its head. That’s pure Twilight Zone. This kind of twist is used again somewhat in an episode I’m a big fan of called Stopover in a Quiet Town. I think what makes Five Characters… so worthwhile is its mysterious setting imprisoning these most unique characters. They each represent a particular character among society but do in fact look a part so their true “identity” at the end does make sense. Except maybe the hobo…a nice touch, just the same.

Garwood’s sad eyes, Matheson’s hippity-hoppity shenanigans, Allen’s clueless response to the situation with no answers, and Harrison’s haunting beauty absent much in the way of personality provide interesting characters emerging after spending some time in the cylinder to discuss with Windom how kicking up such a fuss is futile because all the options he went to were already tried by them. It does send off the question of how did they get there and is there really any means of escape? When this bell goes off, rattling their entire area like this tremor/aftershock, it adds to the enigmatic nature of the situation. I think Five Characters… has endured as a classic because of the direction, actors, and mystery behind the setting. The twist, aided by Serling’s closing narration explaining just how they can “find a way out of their loneliness, welcomed eventually into a new place by the right company”, certainly leaves this “A-ha” quality that has kept the show such a landmark of television. What a great show.