The Twilight Zone - Astronauts Don't Fair Well

 So I was revisiting "The Little People" and it follows a theme that seems to be recognizable in more than one episode during the series about unreliable astronauts who seem to eventually snap. Joe Maross (a pilot of a spaceship in "Third from the Sun", a solid first season episode) is sick to his stomach of being ordered around by Claude Akins, told to tend to a map with his slide rule. Maross wants to be the one giving orders, benefiting from commanding others, getting to do this when he comes across a tiny civilization on a planet Akins had to land their ship on in order to make badly needed repairs. I couldn't help but think of "I Shot an Arrow in the Air" when Dewey Martin's Corey puts himself above all else, even killing his commanding officer (Edward Binns) and fellow astronaut, Pierson (Ted Otis) so he could outlast them a few more days. In the case of Maross' Peter Craig, he gets a bellyful of Akins' Fletcher, to the point that he wants to be left behind on the planet to be catered to (and worshiped as a god due to using his giant foot as a weapon of fear since he can stomp on their homes and take their trees) by the tiny residents of the civilization he found. Until the two giant astronauts land on the planet, one of them seeing Craig on the surface, crushing him in his hand upon curious pickup. It is the twist of "you are only god until another more powerful than you comes along" and karma being a bitch intruding upon your tyranny. 

In the case of Martin's Corey in "I Shot an Arrow in the Air", he was an unbearable asshole at the start while Maross' Peter Craig spent his time at the beginning griping so much about landing on a planet and eating rations, having a problem with this nuisance of the situation, Fletcher tears him a new one for being such a whiner, just not in any mood to hear him constantly complain. By the end, Fletcher realizes just how power hungry and obsessed Craig is with his status on this planet, trying (and failing) to appeal to whatever possible humanity might still (but ultimately doesn't) exist. These astronauts often seem to have mental issues that you'd think would pop up during evaluations when tested before any space mission. But I notice that case after case, certain astronauts seem mentally unfit or turn on their commanding officers. Craig shoots at the head of his built statue, grazing Fletcher with laser pistol fire on the face, letting him know that he will not be leaving the planet. This episode also proves that astronauts often don't fair well in the Twilight Zone. At least Fletcher was able to blast off from the planet, even though I imagine it will be a pain to navigate it all alone. But Craig stays behind, hurls his statue head on the civilization to remind them of how much of a terror he might be if they don't behave and obey their new god...laughing on the ground, quite tickled by his treatment of them. Yep, power corrupts for sure.