Friday, November 29, 2019

Review of The Twilight Zone, S1, E9, "To Be or Not To Be"

In this episode, "Perchance to Dream," a man barges into a psychiatrist's office, lies down, and dies. That's it! That's everything that happens! At least to the people who are not Edward Hall, the man who dies. He manages to have a minor Jacob's Ladder episode before he dies. Or, more aptly I should say he has "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" moment. The majority of the episode is just the man's last dream before he dies from "a romantic heart." I think that means syphilis.

I would love to say this fits perfectly in the "Rod Serling just made a list of ideas to turn into stories" theory that I mentioned in an earlier review except this is the first episode that wasn't either an original work by Rod Serling or a teleplay by Rod Serling from another person's story. This story was written by Charles Beaumont who is not the actor who played Beaver's dad. That was Hugh! But this story idea is so simple I could see Rod jotting down "dying in your sleep ain't as cool as people seem to think it is" for his list of The Twilight Zone story ideas. Stupid reality not making my theory perfect.

I really enjoyed this episode because there was a sexy lady in it named Maya the Cat Lady. She even does a 1959 striptease which isn't as sexy as a 1960 striptease although they're probably pretty close. I don't think stripteases got really sexy until around 1973. I mean stripteases put to film for mass consumption! Real stripteases in 1959 were probably disgusting and humiliating and ended with loads of semen stained Dacron or wool flannel pants.

Edward Hall, the main character, explains to the psychiatrist what's been happening to him and why he won't let himself fall asleep. Remember though, that explanation is just given in the dream before he dies. We never really know the real reason why he went to see this psychiatrist! Sure, Edward explains it in the dream but why should the audience take dream Edward at his word? If he were speaking the truth about how his dreams continue a linear story from night to night then this dream is an aberration that disproves his theory! His next dream is supposed to be jumping from a roller coaster but instead he jumps from the window of a skyscraper. Anyway, Edward explains that if he goes to sleep, he knows he'll die because the dream story is getting really scary and less sexy than when it started. And since his dreams keep telling the same story, the next chapter was going to be so scary that his "romantic heart" couldn't take the strain. Of course, staying up for four days straight is also putting a strain on his heart so, basically, he's a dead man either way.

Or is he? Did he die in the psychiatrist's office because he strained his heart by staying awake for four days even though he probably would have been fine if he just got some fucking sleep? Who knows?! We don't even really know if he'd been awake for four days straight when he entered the office because that was just information from Dream Edward! Maybe he just had really bad gas pains when we see him stumbling into the office at the beginning of the episode.

I love the conceit of this episode because I've thought about this for decades. People always seem consoled by the idea of peacefully dying in their sleep. But I've always thought, "Have you forgotten about dreams?! I bet the dream you have when you die in your sleep is fucking terrifying!" Apparently Charles Beaumont thought so too!

Fifteen years ago, I worked at a place called Academic Book Center. We had a new employee named Kara Zander whom I was training. She was working out really well (which was the opposite of what usually happened with new hires there) until she suddenly didn't show up for work the day before Thanksgiving. My manager, who was mostly a selfish narcissist, was getting pretty upset (because, remember, most new employees turned out to suck and suddenly it seemed maybe Kara sucked (spoiler: she didn't. She was just dead)). And then, suddenly, my manager was super fucking upset because she found out Kara had died overnight from carbon monoxide poisoning. Mostly she was upset that she was being such a fucking jerk judging Kara and then realized she was judging a poor dead woman who never gave my manager any reason to suspect she wasn't anything but a bright and caring and upbeat and competent employee. Right up until she died and didn't phone in to tell my manager, "Hey! I'm dead! Won't be coming in today!" Fucking Barb. I mean, fucking anonymous Academic Book Center manager!

Being that I've always had this thought in my head about how fucking terrifying dying in your sleep probably actually is, I couldn't get Kara out of my head. People said the comforting things about her death and how she probably drifted off and I held my tongue because nobody wants to hear somebody, at that moment, say, "Can you imagine what it must have been like? As the carbon monoxide filled her system, she probably began dreaming she was drowning, unable to breathe. Gasping and struggling to claw her way back to the surface but sinking ever downward, choking with fear. Until finally, just as she was thinking, 'It's all a dream! It must be a dream! I'll wake up any second now!', she simply winked out of existence." Then, jaws agape and tears frozen on their faces, half of the people I'd just spoken to would wander off to kill themselves while the others simply began their new hobby of cutting.

Since Thanksgiving was yesterday, and I watched this episode a few days before that, I suppose I couldn't help but think of Kara. I quit the job fairly soon after that, partly because the whole incident just made me lose any lasting respect I had of my manager (which wasn't much seeing as how she treated some of her work "friends" so shittily while at work and also because she cried during one of my performance reviews because I wasn't "being her friend" and then denied me a raise. I could have complained to HR but her sister was head of HR so why the fuck would I even bother?!) and partly because I couldn't stop thinking, "I don't want to fucking die at this job." Kara, at least, seemed to have an upbeat and joyous attitude about life (while also comforted by her religion), so she probably wouldn't have minded dying at that job. That sounds like I'm being critical but it's a compliment! I'm saying, "I'm a miserable and cynical beast who can't fucking cope with life or death or work," and Kara was somebody who seemed to look on the bright side of everything. Hell, maybe her dying dream was of her running joyously down a dark tunnel to the light of Jesus and his open arms! Man, maybe I need to suck it up and just force myself to believe in all that religious bullshit!

Kara has a fancy grave with one of her journal entries carved into the back of her gravestone (I know this because I looked her up online and found her grave at FindaGrave.com which isn't morbid at all). The quote is this (and I promise not to make fun of it because she's being earnest and vulnerable and young and religious and I should be so lucky to be any of those things): "Knocking on doors before entering is always a smart thing to do. This is not just for the privacy of the owner of the room, but also for the person who wants to enter. What if someone was creating a surprise for another person and 'hid' in a room to prepare it, and the other one barged in? The surprise and fun would be ruined. God is preparing a room for me up in heaven. The door is shut now, but when it is time for my soul to move, I will knock and discover a glorious surprise beyond description. Lord, thank you for surprises and the fun associated with them. I am faithfully sure that yours will be awesome beyond words...like they always are. Amen."

If there is a fucking God, fuck Him. Did you think he read this entry and chuckled and rubbed his hands together and muttered, "Oh, have I got an awesome beyond words surprise for you, Kara. Do I! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" God's maniacal laugh then rings throughout eternity, both ways, forever. What a prick.

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