It never occurred to me back in the day that some episodes of The Twilight Zone were an hour in length, I just never thought about it. Maybe it had something to do with being transported to another dimension of time while the show was on. They seemed to breeze by as quickly as the half hour shows did.
'Valley of the Shadow' once again offers us a tranquil, idyllic setting like a Homewood or a Willoughby. It's right there in the name of the town - Peaceful Valley. But Philip Redfield (Ed Nelson) comes to find out that just like in the Eagles' description of the Hotel California - 'you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave'.
The story poses an interesting dilemma for the viewer - faced with the same situation, would you agree to remain in a place with no crime, violence, greed or illness, in exchange for your freedom. Rod Serling explored the themes of personal freedom and liberty in a number of stories, often in ominous terms as in "The Obsolete Man". Here he poses the concept of choice as everything or nothing. Although it may be true, as posed by Dorn (David Opatoshu), that ham sandwiches and roadblocks are better than total destruction, the price paid in terms of relinquishing that power of choice to the state or any other self imposed arbiter is a violation of free will.
You wouldn't think that Serling's stories were so multi-layered with subtext and meaning. I don't know if that was the intent or not, but regardless, a lot of the episodes made you at least think about some of these things. On another level, I'm sure Serling was just having some fun with the audience, as he does in the opening narration for this one where he observes that the viewer is about to travel to the capital of the Twilight Zone. From the vantage point of almost a half century later, he certainly would have been right - $4.42 to fill up a bone dry tank of gas! That REALLY qualifies as a Twilight Zone episode.
'Valley of the Shadow' once again offers us a tranquil, idyllic setting like a Homewood or a Willoughby. It's right there in the name of the town - Peaceful Valley. But Philip Redfield (Ed Nelson) comes to find out that just like in the Eagles' description of the Hotel California - 'you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave'.
The story poses an interesting dilemma for the viewer - faced with the same situation, would you agree to remain in a place with no crime, violence, greed or illness, in exchange for your freedom. Rod Serling explored the themes of personal freedom and liberty in a number of stories, often in ominous terms as in "The Obsolete Man". Here he poses the concept of choice as everything or nothing. Although it may be true, as posed by Dorn (David Opatoshu), that ham sandwiches and roadblocks are better than total destruction, the price paid in terms of relinquishing that power of choice to the state or any other self imposed arbiter is a violation of free will.
You wouldn't think that Serling's stories were so multi-layered with subtext and meaning. I don't know if that was the intent or not, but regardless, a lot of the episodes made you at least think about some of these things. On another level, I'm sure Serling was just having some fun with the audience, as he does in the opening narration for this one where he observes that the viewer is about to travel to the capital of the Twilight Zone. From the vantage point of almost a half century later, he certainly would have been right - $4.42 to fill up a bone dry tank of gas! That REALLY qualifies as a Twilight Zone episode.