The Twilight Zone - A Thing About Machines

Mr. Finchley sure hates those machines. His abuse towards them, mistreatment and verbal assault full of sound and fury, is epic in its theatricality. He has the gift of corrosively articulating his toxic candor towards those with very little patience for him. A secretary just tired of his lousy attitude and a mechanic exhausted with his persistent and scathing critique of committing “larceny” due to charging him fees for fixing machines he himself destroys are just two characters in this episode of Twilight Zone raked across the coals by Finchley’s caustic prose, not desired or appreciated. Finchley tries calling up women in a book on his nightstand near his bed, but none of them are interested…gee, I wonder why. Before you know it, the machines are giving back as they have taken, but not before he breaks a few more devices such as a clock and telephone. I think he just has to vent because he’s lonely and rejected, particularly due to his offered, unwanted, opinionated ramblings and indignation, rarely, if ever, positing anything positive or friendly. He’s a misanthropic aristocrat, with a wit that doesn’t amuse as much as irritate. So when a Flamenco dancer on the television and a typewriter tapping out “get out of her Finchley” aren’t enough to convince him to leave, an electric razor chases him out of the house, with his car taking care of the rest. Finchley can’t escape or flee no matter where he goes, with a pool awaiting him. The episode is simple: Finchley combating devices and losing. Granted, devices turning on their owner is more than a bit silly on paper, considering Finchley’s rotten personality it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving jerk.

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April, 2013 IMDb

Admonished as a striking example of Twilight Zone at its most mediocre, I have to say I had fun with "A Thing About Machines". It is basically a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek entry about a loathsome sophisticate who uses his education and his firm grasp of the English language to alienate, polarize, insult, and exhaust those he comes in contact--not just people, but the machines, in his very expensive, "grotesquely decorated with all the finer things in life" mansion, are tired of his spiteful, raging, snide, caustic outbursts. So the machines say enough and cause Bartlett Finchley ("Get out of here, Finchley") to lose his mind. Or perhaps he just despises machines so much he becomes totally nuts due to his inability to rein in such wholly passionate hatred for them. This is The Zone, so add to or take away from the tale what you wish. Either/or. I like to think all of what happens--voices from a telephone unplugged, a dancer on the television stopping her cha-cha act to tell him to just leave, a homicidal shaver coming towards him, and a car that wants to chase him down and run him over--is possibly all a delusion. Finding his way into a backyard swimming pool, the final image before him as he drowns being headlights, kind of interferes with that impression of a delusion, but however it happens--a trick of the brain or real machines so fed up they spring to life on their own to get rid of their tormentor--the final result is the same, Finchley, quite the miser, winds up at the bottom of the pool. This is one of those TZ comedy stories aimed to tickle the funny bone not demand heavy thought and contemplation. I just went with it and laughed along. It just isn't demanding intellectually or emotionally of the viewer unlike many episodes that left such a mark on viewers during the show's first run, afterward until today.

Richard Haydn is all in with this character, and he's so off-putting that I can't imagine many viewers will lament his fate. When Barbara Stuart's secretary tells him off when quitting due to his nagging and belligerence, she was perhaps speaking for a large number of people in similar situations who wish they could just tell their employers to f-off. When he momentarily puts aside his ego and bad manners in an attempt to have her stay with him as a reprieve against the wrath of the machines, it is a brief chance to see him vulnerable (in a pitiable way). But, primarily, Haydn is a monster. I can't forget to mention Barney Phillips, who had his most memorable TZ part in "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up", as a television repair man belittled and criticized by Haydn for supposedly bilking him for costs unreasonable. Phillips, however, sets him straight on why these repairs happen to start with (foot through television, tossed radio down flight of steps, etc) and sets up the punchline by questioning whether or not Haydn is responsible for the machines reactions towards him.