I absolutely love the Twilight Zone (enough that I recently bought the complete box set). I was just watching this episode last night. It was never one of my favorites, and so I spent some time analyzing what it was I didn't like about it.
The basic premise is good (as are the performances), but too much of the story just doesn't make sense.
The first problem is one of logistics. Just *where* is the other-universe woman most of the time, and how is she managing to avoid detection so much? When it is suggested to Millicent that perhaps there's somebody in the bus station who looks like her, she quickly spots the flaw in that premise: where is this look-alike? And yet, in the end, that's exactly what's supposed to be going on. How has the double been doing all the things she's supposed to have been doing (moving the bags, pestering the ticket man) with Millicent only seeing her once, briefly? How did the ticket guy not notice that there were two of them? Taken altogether, it seems strained at best.
But there's also the problem of motivation. Just *what* are the doubles up to? Millicent suggests that they have to take their places in order to survive, but the doubles are doing more than just that. What was accomplished by all the brouhaha with the luggage (both hers and his)? What was up with the male double's glee when he's running away at the end? The doubles appear to take delight in tormenting their counterparts, and it's hard to see why. You would *expect* that someone flung into a parallel universe would experience confusion, disorientation, even fear. You would *not* expect their reaction to be "oh, I'm in another universe! Let's go torment my counterpart!"
So I found this episode to be pretty flawed. Decent, but flawed.
The basic premise is good (as are the performances), but too much of the story just doesn't make sense.
The first problem is one of logistics. Just *where* is the other-universe woman most of the time, and how is she managing to avoid detection so much? When it is suggested to Millicent that perhaps there's somebody in the bus station who looks like her, she quickly spots the flaw in that premise: where is this look-alike? And yet, in the end, that's exactly what's supposed to be going on. How has the double been doing all the things she's supposed to have been doing (moving the bags, pestering the ticket man) with Millicent only seeing her once, briefly? How did the ticket guy not notice that there were two of them? Taken altogether, it seems strained at best.
But there's also the problem of motivation. Just *what* are the doubles up to? Millicent suggests that they have to take their places in order to survive, but the doubles are doing more than just that. What was accomplished by all the brouhaha with the luggage (both hers and his)? What was up with the male double's glee when he's running away at the end? The doubles appear to take delight in tormenting their counterparts, and it's hard to see why. You would *expect* that someone flung into a parallel universe would experience confusion, disorientation, even fear. You would *not* expect their reaction to be "oh, I'm in another universe! Let's go torment my counterpart!"
So I found this episode to be pretty flawed. Decent, but flawed.