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The Season to be Wary

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I confess. I'm a Rod Serling Baby. One of my earliest memories is sitting on my father's lap watching "Night Gallery." So it was a nostalgic treat to read the book that gatewayed my first TV show.

Let me step back. Serling is famous for "The Twilight Zone," being the principle teleplaywright, host, and creative controller. And, at times, the creative comptroller. But he also adapted his scripts (and we could talk about his ability to adapt other's stories with profit) for print. There were the three Twilight Zone books, his two "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and "Patterns," and the anthology "Triple W."

So this book has many grandfathers. What made this book distinct was that the three tales were Serling originals. (Well, "Color Scheme" was based on a story from fellow Jew Sammy Davis, jr.).

Another distinction is that we see Serling souring. Many of Serling's TZ tales were optimistic ("Third From The Sun," Passage For Trumpet," "Nick of Time") And when the tales were tragic, the death was heroic. Think of Wordsworth in "The Obsolete Man," or even "Mountain" McClintock. The dying boxer keeps his dignity as he, too, becomes obsolete.

But, somehow, somewhere along the line Serling soured. His optimism fled, and his writing became bitter. Exhibits A, B, and C are these three novellas.

"Escape Rout, Color Scheme, and Eyes have the common element of focusing on the oppressor and the underdog. Strobel the washed up Nazi oppressing Jews, King Connacher the washed up racial stummper oppressing the civil rights movement, and Miss Menlo oppressing everyone--Charlie Hatcher, Petrozella, and Dr. Heatherton.

But there is no redemption in the tales. Take "Color Scheme, a straightforward story with a predictable plot twist. SPOILER. A racial tub-thumper who incites a lynch and arsonist mob turns into a black man. An old device--turn the chauvinist into a woman, or the racist into the minority, which Serling had done earlier with "A Quality of Mercy."

Connacher learns his lesson.

But enter the Serling Twist. The town's black preacher simultaneously turns white. With the reversed roles, we' expect that the black-now-white preacher would extend mercy, and therefore redemption, to Connacher.

Nope. He eggs the lynch-mob on. No redemption, just punishment. And in the process, the now-black preacher looses his faith.

A loose/loose story. There is no quality of mercy that we once got in TZ: the second chance for Joey Crown, Henry Corwin, or the "death with dignity" of Mr. Wordsworth?

And that is the taste we are left with in our mouths. Sour.

And this was a harbinger of some of the problems with Nigh Gallery. The downer finales "Lindemann's Catch," "The Academy," "The Class of '99," "You Can't Get Help Like That Anymore" were foreshadowed with these three tales.

Now, I can't stop a Serling aficionado from buying this book. And it should be bought for the diehard. But don't expect what Lovecraft disparaged as "smirking optimism."

Even so, that is what we miss from Rod the most. The TZ is Purgatory--the good get a second chance, and the bad get what's coming. But, sadly, there is no opportunity for the bad to purge themselves of the bad.

Connacher could have changed after walking in someone else's skin, as Strobel deserved another escape rout, as Ms. Menlo, upon seeing the beauty of the sun, could have had a mental eye transplant and taken Petrozella in as a ward.

Something happened, and something was lost.

I have this and how can you not rate anyting by Rod Serling highly. In fact this is Serling's only published fiction not counting adaptations of Twilight Zone/Night Gallery and his only original fiction, so far as I know. It is a real tragedy that he didn't write and publish more fiction, but comments he made in his last interview lead me to believe he was convinced he could only write scripts and wasn't good enough to write fiction (novels, etc.). Writers tend to be insecure but it's such a shame he went so far as to never write novels or short stories outside of his scriptwriting. Of course we'll always have the Twilight Zone but as far as original fiction is concerned, this book is all we have from him.