The Twilight Zone: What You Need
Oct. 6th, 2025 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerSeeing Christmas presents in Rod Serling’s next-episode preview had me wondering if “What You Need” would have The Twilight Zone already getting around to a “holiday episode.” I wasn’t that far into the episode itself before I supposed that wasn’t the case. It instead had me thinking about previous episodes of the show.
An aged salesman with a suitcase filled with sundries brought “One for the Angels,” and the old question of whether that was a familiar urban element at the end of the 1950s or some form of callback, to mind. That the salesman happened to bring in the element of the fantastic had me thinking of “Mr. Denton on Doomsday.” The setting of the episode’s opening, anyway, had me thinking back just one episode with the distinct impression a set from “And When the Sky Was Opened” was being used again...
The salesman being able to offer people “what you need” did provoke first thoughts of this being one of the sentimental outings of the series. When things took a darker turn, that might have been more surprising than the eventual twist ending; still, things not being altogether a matter of “a foolish attempt to exploit some force far larger than you” but somehow a more balanced competition were interesting. I noted the episode had been adapted from a story, with the name “Lewis Padgett” reminding me to look up my SF history (and note it was a pen name for C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner’s collaboration); I also noticed a previous adaptation from a different TV series was included as a bonus feature. The problem there is wondering when I’d find the time to watch it.
An aged salesman with a suitcase filled with sundries brought “One for the Angels,” and the old question of whether that was a familiar urban element at the end of the 1950s or some form of callback, to mind. That the salesman happened to bring in the element of the fantastic had me thinking of “Mr. Denton on Doomsday.” The setting of the episode’s opening, anyway, had me thinking back just one episode with the distinct impression a set from “And When the Sky Was Opened” was being used again...
The salesman being able to offer people “what you need” did provoke first thoughts of this being one of the sentimental outings of the series. When things took a darker turn, that might have been more surprising than the eventual twist ending; still, things not being altogether a matter of “a foolish attempt to exploit some force far larger than you” but somehow a more balanced competition were interesting. I noted the episode had been adapted from a story, with the name “Lewis Padgett” reminding me to look up my SF history (and note it was a pen name for C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner’s collaboration); I also noticed a previous adaptation from a different TV series was included as a bonus feature. The problem there is wondering when I’d find the time to watch it.