SYFY TZ Marathon - The Monsters are Due on Maple Street

 

A particular shot of the gathering of folks in the neighborhood of Maple Street before Akins tries to diffuse the tension I too often fail to appreciate enough. Right after kid Tommy (Jan Handzlik) mentions that in the books he reads the aliens send down a family that looks like humans. And these faces absorb that and you can see each and ever person in that group lets what Tommy says stay quite active. And not very long after Atwater has a mob approaching him because his car started. Friends who have known each other for years easily turn on each other, offer accusations about being up at a particular time in the morning ("an oddball, always an oddball"), question why a ham radio is being build in the basement, lights going on and off, and before long Weston is propping up nearby with a coke and plenty of pointed fingers. Weston, especially, and some of the women (2020 would probably call them Karens) even will accuse anyone and everyone by the episode's end. It can never be emphasized enough: Serling was prophetic. He realized humans can be manipulated into turning on each other, even killing each other. Just the right motivation, friends for years turn on each other.