This is a great episode. For all those whining about the hour long format and the humour: this reminds me of the tongue-in-cheek X Files episodes, which may well have been influences by episodes like this. It also reminds me of David Lynch's scathing critiques of Hollywood in films like Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. What I took from this is: as is portrayed in Mad Men and other TV shows and movies, a great TV show is being ruined by produces kowtowing to the advertisers.
The show (in the episode) is written by Shakespeare, one of the al time greats, and Reynolds' caricature of Brando thinks Shakespeare is an uncultured hack. He asks what his tertiary motivation is for walking through the door, making a great mockery of method acting, and of Brando himself. The fact the producers, at the command of the advertisers, remove Shakespeare's ideas, from balconies (no one has them anymore, they won't relate) to suicide (the advertisers don't want to upset the viewers), is a very scathing criticism of the way TV is controlled these days.
Considering how famous and successful tragedies are, including both Shakespeare and the Greek tragedies, it's ironic that now we can almost never have a TV show or film end tragically. People miss the point that tragic endings can be powerful, leaving the audience thinking about how badly the protagonists screwed up.
Given Lynch's several criticisms of Hollywood, I get the impression that film and TV were already that bad back in the 1960s and that Serling was making a very clear point about editorial oversight ruining good art; advertisers changing brilliant scripts to fit with product alignment; something which wouldn't have been possible in Shakespeare's time (although there was always the risk of the King having you killed if he didn't like your play. Old fashioned censorship).
The show (in the episode) is written by Shakespeare, one of the al time greats, and Reynolds' caricature of Brando thinks Shakespeare is an uncultured hack. He asks what his tertiary motivation is for walking through the door, making a great mockery of method acting, and of Brando himself. The fact the producers, at the command of the advertisers, remove Shakespeare's ideas, from balconies (no one has them anymore, they won't relate) to suicide (the advertisers don't want to upset the viewers), is a very scathing criticism of the way TV is controlled these days.
Considering how famous and successful tragedies are, including both Shakespeare and the Greek tragedies, it's ironic that now we can almost never have a TV show or film end tragically. People miss the point that tragic endings can be powerful, leaving the audience thinking about how badly the protagonists screwed up.
Given Lynch's several criticisms of Hollywood, I get the impression that film and TV were already that bad back in the 1960s and that Serling was making a very clear point about editorial oversight ruining good art; advertisers changing brilliant scripts to fit with product alignment; something which wouldn't have been possible in Shakespeare's time (although there was always the risk of the King having you killed if he didn't like your play. Old fashioned censorship).