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krpalmerAfter another week’s break to head home for the long weekend I returned to my Twilight Zone Blu-Ray set. As an isolated title, “The Four of Us Are Dying” had got my attention while remaining something to guess about. Rod Serling’s next-episode preview naming four actors also got my attention; it seemed a more extravagant number of potentially significant characters than I’d quite associated with the show up to now. As I loaded up the Blu-Ray I was also amused to see the option of a commentary track from Beverly Garland. She seems the person who’s appeared in more than one of the movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 who the fans of that show are most impressed with.
When the episode itself got under way Serling’s opening narration explained the man we were seeing could “change his face” in a fantastic and sudden way. It was a familiar enough concept to me, although I suppose it did cut “the number of potentially significant characters” back down to a familiar number. As the man shaved with a cigarette in his mouth, though, I got to wondering if his face was already changing and if this was somehow so subtle (even if “in black and white”) to be something I was missing. A few unfortunate thoughts about “not watching enough live action” came back to my mind. Later on, though, the face changing became more obvious as the man schemed his way towards love and riches. The next face he changed to setting up the episode’s twist ending could have been at the risk of seeming “an unfortunate coincidence,” but I was able to work towards thinking “the face he found wasn’t someone’s who’d ‘hit the big time’ yet.” My first thoughts about the number of actors playing “the four” might have carried through to an impression this episode was more complicated than its predecessors. Perhaps there was a risk of concluding it was “too complicated,” but when I can push that thought aside I can suppose it was interesting.
When the episode itself got under way Serling’s opening narration explained the man we were seeing could “change his face” in a fantastic and sudden way. It was a familiar enough concept to me, although I suppose it did cut “the number of potentially significant characters” back down to a familiar number. As the man shaved with a cigarette in his mouth, though, I got to wondering if his face was already changing and if this was somehow so subtle (even if “in black and white”) to be something I was missing. A few unfortunate thoughts about “not watching enough live action” came back to my mind. Later on, though, the face changing became more obvious as the man schemed his way towards love and riches. The next face he changed to setting up the episode’s twist ending could have been at the risk of seeming “an unfortunate coincidence,” but I was able to work towards thinking “the face he found wasn’t someone’s who’d ‘hit the big time’ yet.” My first thoughts about the number of actors playing “the four” might have carried through to an impression this episode was more complicated than its predecessors. Perhaps there was a risk of concluding it was “too complicated,” but when I can push that thought aside I can suppose it was interesting.