“A Penny for Your Thoughts”
Season Two, Episode 16 (#52 overall)
Cayuga Production # 173-3650
Cayuga Production # 173-3650
As I’ve stated repeatedly in these pages, comedy and The Twilight Zone don’t typically mix. But as with anything in life, there are always exceptions, and one those happy exceptions celebrates the big 5-0 tonight.
“A Penny for Your Thoughts” written by George Clayton Johnson and directed by James Sheldon, starts off with a near-brilliant concept: what if an average guy accidentally pulled off a feat so near-impossible that, in doing so, he somehow unlocked mental powers normally off limits to mortal men? Okay, the episode doesn’t really put it in those terms, but that’s what happens. Mild-mannered bank clerk Hector B. Poole, wonderfully played by Dick York (last seen in season one’s “The Purple Testament”), drops a coin to pay for a newspaper… a coin that lands standing on its edge. For reasons unexplained, this simple and unintentional act allows him the ability to hear other people’s thoughts. Hilarity (okay, mild comedy) ensues.
The episode is light and breezy, but dwelling on its implications leads to more sobering ruminations: what if reality operates as a sort of video game, where special abilities can be unlocked by the completion of unusual tasks? What if we’re just avatars, being manipulated without our knowledge by higher forms of life? What if this is all just a game?
Okay, I’m thinking too hard about this. “A Penny for Your Thoughts” is intended as fun, and it succeeds.
George Clayton Johnson wrote four TZ scripts, and another four episodes were based on his short stories. Despite his relatively small output (Rod Serling wrote 92 of the series’ 156 episodes!), Johnson is responsible for a few of the show’s high points: “A Game of Pool,” “Nothing in the Dark,” and “Kick the Can” (all in season three). He’s still around, and has appeared at several TZ conventions. He looks a bit like Gandolf the Gray these days.
Next week: This week’s levity segues into a nightmare about a morgue. Is it The Twilight Zone, or One Step Beyond? Tune in and see for yourself… we’ve always got room for one more.
1 comment:
"...what if reality operates as a sort of video game, where special abilities can be unlocked by the completion of unusual tasks?"
That's a nice way to think of this episode that I hadn't considered before. I've tended to imagine that there were randomly occuring magical forces in the vicinity of the newsstand that increased the probabilities of freakishly unusual events. (One such event being the quarter's landing and remaining on edge, and another being Poole's brief acquisition of telepathy.)
"What if we’re just avatars, being manipulated without our knowledge by higher forms of life?"
This is how I've always thought of "And When the Sky Was Opened."
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