The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV Series) The Pedestrian (1989) User Reviews

When Walking Becomes A Crime

[rigovega · 6/10 · 14 September 2019]

This one follows the idea of the short story with the same title, but it's a different take on the dystopian idea of humans isolating themselves and society seeing walking as disobedience. I prefer the short story version even though this was entertaining and well made.

Long After They Are Effective

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 26 March 2015]

I suppose this could happen. Bradbury must have seen humans as kind of ineffectual nits who had just decided to sit back and watch TV and ignore the world around them (a common theme in his writing). In this totalitarian society, mini-copters fly around keeping people from leaving their houses, threatening them with a kind of neutralization if they even walk the neighborhood. David Ogden Stiers is a risk taker who gets his friend to check the world outside. Of course, they are going to be seen by the observers and are going to pay a price. What is interesting is what they eventually find out. This is a pretty simplistic story with a pessimistic message. I like Bradbury but at times his insights and opinions weren't all that insightful.

Prescient as Democratic Party Governors Order Lockdowns to stay inside homes

[evony-jwm · 7/10 · 20 December 2020]

Who would have thunk; walking outside is deemed and ordered illegal by some in authoritah..

The only thing missing is the masks.

"The more I walk, the drunker I'll get."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 14 January 2022]

This story is oddly familiar with and quite similar to George Orwell's classic novel, "1984". Orwell wrote it in 1949, and Bradbury penned this story in 1951, and it would be almost inconceivable that he hadn't read it. Both stories speak of a dystopian society, in Orwell's case, with Big Brother watching so that citizens aren't allowed the freedom to do as they wish, whether it be work related or what to do in one's spare time. Here, the crime committed by Mead (David Ogden Stiers) and Stockwell (Grant Tilly) involves walking the neighborhood at night. That's taboo according to the drone that spots and detains them to ask incriminating questions about their behavior. Stockwell only receives a proverbial slap on the wrist, but Mead is taken into custody for his forthright answers to the questioning voice on the drone. His destination - the Psychiatric Center for Research on Aggressive Tendencies". If it all sounds too familiar in the era of Covid weariness the past two years, the story should serve as a wake up call for all those who value freedom and liberty.