After a minor hiccup with 'Escape Clause', 'The Twilight Zone' got back on track with another classic episode. By this time the series had really hit its stride and 'The Lonely' began a run of brilliance that would last for several weeks.
Focusing again on loneliness and isolation, one of the shows' most frequent themes, 'The Lonely' tells the story of a convict sentenced to fifty years of solitary confinement on a distant planet. It is a thoroughly compelling episode due to a great Serling script and some wonderful locations. The episode was filmed in the scorching hot Death Valley but it really does look like a deserted asteroid. The performances of the cast are generally decent but not particularly remarkable, save for Jean Marsh in the role of the robot woman Alicia. When she first emerges from her box she speaks a little too robotically, probably to emphasise the fact that she is a machine and create a dramatic end to the first act. However, after this initial moment, Marsh turns in a performance far more complex than a simple Robo-lady act. Hers is a performance of wide eyed innocence and intense lovability. When she is pushed to the floor by Jack Warden and lays facing the camera with her face twisted in emotional and physical pain, only the most cold hearted viewer could fail to surrender their heart. And so begins the main thrust of the story. The viewer is tricked into falling for Alicia even before Warden does so by the episode's end we are just as desperate as he is for her not to be left behind. When Allenby shoots her in the face we flinch and it is not until we see the exposed wires and circuitry that we fully realise, as Warden finally does, that Alicia is just an illusion. All this is testament to what an involving episode 'The Lonely' really is.
Focusing again on loneliness and isolation, one of the shows' most frequent themes, 'The Lonely' tells the story of a convict sentenced to fifty years of solitary confinement on a distant planet. It is a thoroughly compelling episode due to a great Serling script and some wonderful locations. The episode was filmed in the scorching hot Death Valley but it really does look like a deserted asteroid. The performances of the cast are generally decent but not particularly remarkable, save for Jean Marsh in the role of the robot woman Alicia. When she first emerges from her box she speaks a little too robotically, probably to emphasise the fact that she is a machine and create a dramatic end to the first act. However, after this initial moment, Marsh turns in a performance far more complex than a simple Robo-lady act. Hers is a performance of wide eyed innocence and intense lovability. When she is pushed to the floor by Jack Warden and lays facing the camera with her face twisted in emotional and physical pain, only the most cold hearted viewer could fail to surrender their heart. And so begins the main thrust of the story. The viewer is tricked into falling for Alicia even before Warden does so by the episode's end we are just as desperate as he is for her not to be left behind. When Allenby shoots her in the face we flinch and it is not until we see the exposed wires and circuitry that we fully realise, as Warden finally does, that Alicia is just an illusion. All this is testament to what an involving episode 'The Lonely' really is.