Brief Passages - Twilight Zone (One for the Angels)

With the Coronavirus dominating everything, television, the internet, and the talk of folks everywhere (folks at work can’t stop talking about it, and the fear has just exploded), I needed to decompress when I got home—I commute back and forth—so I checked into the Twilight Zone for Ed Wynn, trying to outsmart Death himself (Hamilton), the chatty and good-hearted pitchman always hitting the streets and sidewalks, concrete and asphalt, hoping to “make that one masterful pitch”. When a cute little girl is hit by a car after Death is forced to “replace” Wynn’s Bookman  (Bookman tricking him into giving him more time to make his great pitch, admitting he never planned to do so in order to stay alive), the pitchman will need to keep him preoccupied until after Midnight…the time when the girl is to come with him into the afterlife. A unique spin on “cheating death”, never fails to win me over thanks to Wynn. This was his TZ classic character—he does return for another death-themed episode—I think most remember. It being so early in the series, too, gives it a huge lift. But his enthusiasm and just the energy he brings with his scenes with the children and opposite the daft Hamilton who is easily manipulated through his pitches (a bit silly, but I think this if forgiven because the heart is in the right place) lifts the episode past its basic premise.

--Brian

 ----

So just for 2020, along with my other ongoing projects for the horror genre, I thought it would be fun to build towards my [now annual] self-created 4^th of July Twilight Zone Marathon with a “brief passages” series for the first season. I thought it would be a neat sort of 2020 episodic footprint and the point of the “brief passages” part is to try and limit myself to just a “mini-review” five-to-six line paragraph for each episode of the Twilight Zone (and some Universal Monster films as well) in the first season. My marathon for Independence Day will not be as extensive as it was in 2019…ten episodes, five from the third season and five from the fifth. Because I have written big reviews for many of the first season episodes in the past, this “brief passages” format won’t be as difficult while those certain few that might not have gotten a more elaborate, detailed treatment, it should be quite a challenge to limit myself.