The Twilight Zone: Elegy
Dec. 9th, 2025 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAlthough I do wonder if Rod Serling’s next-episode previews altogether stick in my mind over the week I take getting to the next Twilight Zone episode, I reached “Elegy” with the general anticipation of another “science fiction” episode. I’m half-convinced this had something to do with my recollections of the preview including the mention of “space travel”; anyway, I also recall Serling mentioning Charles Beaumont would be the episode’s writer.
As it turned out the episode did begin with a rocket ship, if one that brought to my mind certain Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes that featured “movies” put together from a less reputable 1950s TV show. I also had the impression the three astronauts making a desperate landing were wearing the spacesuits from Destination Moon. With all of that admitted, once the landing had been made I was struck by the frozen people the astronauts found (although I could see some of them moving just a little to my simple amusement) and noting a few comments about a destructive war in the past (which was eventually revealed to have happened in 1985). Some early mentions of “millions of miles” had me supposing that was just an inaccurate underestimation; when “asteroid” got mentioned I supposed it was rather a matter of another “conveniently habitable tiny world” turning up again. So far as further admissions go, I was inclined to suppose a stairway that turns ninety degrees halfway up is a stairway I’d noted in two episodes already; I was already tempted to start thinking of “The Twilight Zone stairway.”
The twist ending was unhappy (while making certain things clear), and yet it wasn’t quite the one I’d imagined to start with. So far I haven’t been troubled by anticipating the endings of Twilight Zone episodes, but I’m quite willing to accept having been surprised this time.
As it turned out the episode did begin with a rocket ship, if one that brought to my mind certain Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes that featured “movies” put together from a less reputable 1950s TV show. I also had the impression the three astronauts making a desperate landing were wearing the spacesuits from Destination Moon. With all of that admitted, once the landing had been made I was struck by the frozen people the astronauts found (although I could see some of them moving just a little to my simple amusement) and noting a few comments about a destructive war in the past (which was eventually revealed to have happened in 1985). Some early mentions of “millions of miles” had me supposing that was just an inaccurate underestimation; when “asteroid” got mentioned I supposed it was rather a matter of another “conveniently habitable tiny world” turning up again. So far as further admissions go, I was inclined to suppose a stairway that turns ninety degrees halfway up is a stairway I’d noted in two episodes already; I was already tempted to start thinking of “The Twilight Zone stairway.”
The twist ending was unhappy (while making certain things clear), and yet it wasn’t quite the one I’d imagined to start with. So far I haven’t been troubled by anticipating the endings of Twilight Zone episodes, but I’m quite willing to accept having been surprised this time.