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taoc79
Reviews
The X Files: Kaddish (1997)
1959 and such
Just to point out that the British left Palestine in 1948, upon Israel's independence, so there were no "terrorist" attacks taking place on them in 1959, by Jacob Weiss or anyone else. History lovers everywhere constantly despair. Otherwise a decent, middle-of-the-road monster of the week, that I probably won't need to watch a second time.
The Twilight Zone: The Encounter (1964)
Fascinating but flawed
I agree with jcravens42 that this episode was far ahead of its time, but with the other reviewers that it was very badly written (comically bad at the end). Perhaps the problem is that this subject was still too fraught for its time to be handled in all its complexity, even by Rod Serling. The elephant in the room is the internment of 140,000 Japanese-Americans, that should have been included in the story, but at the time that was not widely known or talked about. Here's how I would rewrite it in 2012:
Keep the basic scenario, the brilliant way Fenton passive-aggressively goads Arthur about his heritage (Brand and Takei were perfectly cast and did a great job with what they were given). Keep Fenton's alcoholism and broken marriage and war-related guilt, and the fact that some supernatural force is preventing them from leaving the attic until 'something' is resolved.
But during their verbal sparring we learn that Arthur's family were loyal Americans, interned during the war, and that his father killed himself in the camp from shame (this really happened). Fenton keeps goading Arthur into picking up the sword to see how it felt to be one of his brave 'countrymen' (Fenton already mentioned how much the U.S. Marine respected the Japanese soldier) and he repeatedly refuses. But finally Fenton has made him so angry, perhaps by casting aspersions on his father, that Arthur lifts the sword above his head in a murderous rage...and that's when the supernatural aspects of the sword reveal to him what really happened on Okinawa.
That as Fenton had said, his superiors ordered that no prisoners were to be taken. A Japanese officer is lying on the ground, very badly wounded, begging Fenton for help (perhaps just with his eyes). But Fenton, with self-disgust, runs him through with his own sword.
When Arthur lowers the sword and angrily tells Fenton what he has just perceived, Fenton breaks down totally and begs Arthur to kill him. Arthur emotionally deflates and goes to put the sword back in Fenton's trunk, where he sees the rest of Fenton's war memorabilia, which includes some small photos of the Japanese officer and his young family. As he walks from the attic, and Fenton sobs on his knees, collapsed over the table, Arthur puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, and walks out.
The Twilight Zone: The Odyssey of Flight 33 (1961)
A couple of anachronisms
The jetstream flows west to east, but Flight 33 was traveling in the opposite direction.
When the dinosaurs walked the earth the continents had a completely different configuration, so New York would not have been recognizable.
But hey, anything is possible in The Twilight Zone, and it was still a great episode!
I've been working my way through all 156 episodes and of course it's a Who's Who of '50s and '60s actors, both famous and character. It's been fun to put a name to familiar faces and read their bios, IMDb's a great tool.
The sight of John Anderson always takes me back to Psycho.