Twilight Zone: Third From the Sun

(Spoiler Alert: In a review or a teaser, it’s easy enough to hide the ending. However, it’s tough examining a story and its meaning without discussing the ending. If you want to read Richard Matheson’s story “Third From the Sun” or watch The Twilight Zone episode first, do it. You can watch it at: http://www.veoh.com/collection/CBS-The-Twilight-Zone#watch%3Dv18437885QaDeEpHM

It's on DVD too. Otherwise, if you don’t mind risking a spoiler, read on. I’ll try not to give away the ending, but there will be clues and things that come close.)

Rod Serling adapted this episode’s script from Richard Matheson’s short story of the same name. Matheson already had published short stories and books including I Am Legend and even a filmed screenplay to his credit. Along with others in the Bradbury/Beaumont circle, he was urged to contribute to the fledgling Twilight Zone. He, Beaumont, and Serling became the top three Twilight Zone writers. While Matheson later contributed original screenplays and adapted his own prose stories including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (“There’s a man on the wing!”), Serling adapted this story.

Often fans want adaptations which adhere faithfully to the original. However, Serling altered Matheson’s work, expanding it and adding his own thematic elements to Matheson’s among other changes. The story needed expansion because it was very short, and the episode had to fill a half-hour time slot. Serling didn’t pad the script though. He made the additions count. Matheson’s story provides most of the characters, their problem, their solution, and the twist ending. Serling fleshed things out and added thematic elements mirroring some he used in his own stories. Ranking TZ adaptations of his short stories in order of preference, Matheson placed Serling’s two adaptations last, but adds, “Pure ego at work on these last two, although I certainly appreciate the problem Rod faced in expanding what is essentially a short-short story (“Third from the Sun”) into a full half-hour program; and, as matter of fact, “Disappearing Act” was not really adapted at all, only the smallest aspect of its premise being used.” (Matheson “Introduction” 6)

Even though a member of his circle wrote the original story, this episode could have fueled Bradbury’s frustration with The Twilight Zone. Some of Matheson’s plot elements echo Bradbury’s “The Million-Year Picnic.” If the destinations weren’t different, and Matheson altered his characters a tad, his story could be a prequel to Bradbury’s. Yet, the stories are different giving contrary messages and views. “The Million-Year Picnic” first appeared in Planet Stories’ Summer 1946 issue and later in 1950’s The Martian Chronicles. “Third From the Sun” first appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction’s October 1950 issue.

Serling changed the viewpoint character from the unnamed pilot to the pilot’s neighbor whom Serling names William Sturka. Serling called the pilot Jerry Riden and created a villain, a government agent named Carling. He added a confrontation, some fights, and a chase. Matheson’s characters use a scheduled test flight to cover their escape. Serling’s protagonists try sneaking aboard and escaping with help from a bribed guard and others. Plus, where Matheson’s characters flee a nuclear holocaust which may occur within few years, Serling sets a forty-eight hour deadline. Sturka, after months of planning the escape, learns his government intends a preemptive strike within forty-eight hours. Along with Carling, the deadline increases suspense. Besides his contributions to Serling’s themes, Carling reinforces Matheson’s picture of a world committing suicide. During the Cold War, there really were people like Carling who saw nuclear war as winnable and who gambled on “acceptable” losses. For Carling it’s the possibility of losing “only” 35 million lives instead of 50 million. During the Cold War, leaders with that attitude made nuclear war seem more likely. In “Third from the Sun” they make it imminent. Carling represents authority in Serling’s oft explored theme of authority and conformity against individualism. Carling evokes both the KGB and McCarthyism. His views echo the recent Bush Administration which through its mouth pieces questioned the patriotism of dissenters. “You a defeatist, Sturka? That’s dangerous thinking. You better mind what you say.” (Serling 4) His name also suggests Quisling, the Nazi collaborator. Strangely, Carling voices Sturka’s hopes and dreams with unnerving accuracy. Consider the conclusion of Carling’s unexpected visit.

47. TRACK SHOT WITH THEM
As they leave the living room and go to the foyer. They pause at the front door. Sturka opens the screen door for him. Carling takes a step out and stands there looking up.

CARLING
Pretty night. Clear as a bell. Nothing but stars.
(Pause)
Ever think, Sturka, that those stars may have people on them too? Maybe people like us?

STURKA
(quietly)
That thought’s crossed my mind.

CARLING
(whirls around toward him)
Ever think. . . maybe you’d be happier on one of those than you are here?

STURKA
That thought’s crossed my mind, too.

CARLING
(with a smile)
I have no doubt.

He turns and walks out into the night. Sturka closes the screen door and then slams the regular door behind it. He leans against it, his eyes closed, for a moment in relief. (From Serling 22-23)

Has Carling learned Sturka’s hopes through spying, or is he good at “reading” people? Although, Carling seems cynical and hostile toward such dreams, there’s something that suggests Carling shares or once shared such thoughts himself. In trying to stop Sturka, it’s as if Carling is trying to crush a part of himself. On the other hand, maybe Carling’s a realist when it comes to human nature.

Considering his outburst to his daughter Jody, Sturka misses the contradiction in reaching for a world with “people like us.” Sturka said, “People are afraid because they make themselves afraid. They are afraid because they subvert every great thing that’s ever discovered – every fine idea ever thought, every marvelous invention ever conceived. They subvert it, Jody. They dirty it up. They make it crooked and devious and too late… far too late they ask the question –“Why?” Sitting in their own rubble… in their own tears… they ask the question – why?” (Serling 8) Yet Carling was right. At the conclusion, Sturka sounds hopeful asking Riden about the new world having “people like us.”

Unlike some individualists, Serling doesn’t reject society altogether. He resists the most overbearing, most crushing aspects of conformity. Here Serling shows us authority (personified by Carling) forcing people to do absurd things for the “good” of a society when those things will actually destroy the society. During the Cold War when all-out nuclear war loomed, “Third From the Sun” like The Watchmen carried greater emotional freight. Reading a story about a doomed world is one thing. Watching characters live out your hopes and fears when your world really faces destruction is another. However, with Serling’s additions, the Sturkas and Ridens flee more than a nuclear holocaust. They also flee authoritarianism.

Serling changed the story’s physical and emotional atmosphere. Matheson’s story starts in a cold, chilly bedroom in the early morning. It ends that same morning. Serling’s story is hot, summery, stifling. We meet Sturka at work and follow him home through the afternoon, evening and night. Serling’s script date is July 16, 1959 with revisions on August 4th and 6th. (The first date coincides with the first successful atomic bomb detonation. The last, with the bombing of Hiroshima. Coincidence?) Maybe the weather in Serling’s script just matched his surroundings. However, the physical atmosphere also reflects the different emotional atmospheres in the short story and the script. Matheson’s characters show jitters and sadness about leaving home forever. They pause and reflect, grab a handful of dirt from the home planet. They take a last look after blast off and wave good-bye. In Serling’s story, oppressive heat compliments the oppressive dangers posed by the government and imminent Armageddon closing in on the characters. The fight or flight response rolls full speed ahead. The characters fear capture and not escaping in time. That overwhelms any jitters relating to their “move.” In the end, the protagonists’ narrow escape gives them little time for sentiment.

The episode, broadcast in January 1960 uses some weird camera work. In his essay, “Earthbound,” Tony Albarella quotes director Richard Bare on the reasons for his approach. It created a sense of subtle oddness which prepared viewers for the ending which, although cliché now, surprised viewers in 1960. Fritz Weaver, Edward Andrews, Joe Maross, and the lovely Denise Alexander are memorable in their roles as Sturka, Carling, Jerry Riden, and Jody Sturka. Lori March as Sturka’s wife Eve and Jeanne Evans as Ann Riden also performed well.
The broadcast contains slight differences from the published script. In the broadcast’s opening, Sturka lacks patience for the guard’s questions. In the script, the guard loses patience with Sturka’s chattiness. In the garage sequence when Sturka runs machinery to frustrate eavesdroppers, Sturka doesn’t see Carling look in the window, unlike the script where he spots him. During the scuffle with Carling and then with the guards near the end, the broadcast involves both Sturka and Riden in the action. Plus, in the short story, the characters escape in a rocket. In the broadcast, they use a flying saucer. (The show got to use the ship from the movie Forbidden Planet.)

The broadcast gives another example of the number 22 turning up in The Twilight Zone. There’s the episode “Twenty-Two” where a hospital patient has a reoccurring dream about a hospital room numbered 22. It’s the address of the magician/alchemist in “The Chaser.” Here it’s the number of the gate through which Sturka enters and leaves work.

“Third from the Sun” and Bradbury’s “The Million-Year Picnic” both feature two families using a space ship to escape a nuclear holocaust. Bradbury’s story concerns their arrival on their new world (Mars) while “Third From the Sun” is about their departure from the old world. In “Third” their goal is a world similar to their own in another solar system. “Third From the Sun’s” ending stays mostly the same from short story to script, but it does differ subtly. In Bradbury and Matheson’s stories, the families want their children to marry and regenerate humanity. Serling’s version foreshadows that the new planet already contains, “people like us.” There is no need to restart humanity. Bradbury’s story doesn’t show what the future holds. What matters is that his characters are the Martians now, and they are safe from Earth’s nuclear war. “Third from the Sun” reminds us that “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Matheson shows us how things will be. Serling shows us how things are.

Works Cited

Albarella, Tony “Earthbound” As Timeless as Infinity: The Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling Volume I ed. Tony Albarella, Colorado Springs, Gauntlet Publications, 2004, Pgs. 209-213

Bradbury, Ray “The Million Year Picnic” The Martian Chronicles, New York, Bantam, 1979, Pgs. 172-182

Matheson, Richard “Introduction” The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories ed. Greenberg, Matheson, and Waugh, New York, MJF Books, 1985, Pgs. 3-8
_ _ “Third From the Sun” The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories ed. Greenberg, Matheson, and Waugh, New York, MJF Books, 1985, Pgs. 79-87

Serling, Rod “Third From the Sun” As Timeless as Infinity: The Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling Volume I ed. Tony Albarella, Colorado Springs, Gauntlet Publications, 2004, (The script runs from pgs. 175-208, but I refer to the script’s own page numbers rather than the book’s.)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?GALOCT1950

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?PLANETSUM1946

Where is Everybody? Part II

Spoiler Alert: You might want to read Ray Bradbury’s “The Silent Towns” and watch the Twilight Zone episode “Where is Everybody?” before reading this essay. You can find “The Silent Towns” in Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and “Where is Everybody?” at http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6258110pjyYcDTa?rank=0&order=oldest

At the end of part I, I said I’d compare the Twilight Zone episode “Where is Everybody?” with Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Silent Towns.”

Twilight Zone creator and host Rod Serling admired Bradbury, and, at first, Bradbury supported Serling’s Twilight Zone efforts. Many episodes project a Bradburyesque flavor. Plus, Bradbury helped recruit key Twilight Zone contributors including Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Unfortunately, things soured between Serling and Bradbury. Despite Serling’s enthusiasm about getting Bradbury to contribute, Bradbury only got one script shot. Many think this embarrassed Bradbury. Meanwhile, Bradbury believed Serling plagiarized his work. For example, Bradbury insisted that Serling’s “Walking Distance” plagiarized Bradbury’s “The Black Ferris.” There’s no foundation for that charge though. “The Black Ferris” features carnie criminals turning into children by riding a Ferris wheel backwards. “Walking Distance” follows Martin Sloan, a stressed out advertising executive, who time travels and meets his boyhood self. A carousel figures prominently, but it’s not the cause of Sloan’s time travel. However, Serling’s “Where is Everybody?” bears remarkable resemblance to Bradbury’s “The Silent Towns.”

Bradbury’s story occurs on Mars after Earth colonists evacuate. They leave behind cities and mid-20th century American style small towns. (Bradbury originally set “Towns” in 2005, but some newer editions of The Martian Chronicles add decades to the dates.) Walter Gripp, a solitary prospector living in the mountains, missed the evacuation and now wanders the deserted towns. Physical needs and comforts, including food and shelter, pose no problem. Loneliness proves more difficult. Then a phone rings. Gripp can’t answer it in time, and Bradbury didn’t foresee caller ID. Later Gripp hears other phones ringing, but he never reaches them in time. He hopes the caller is a woman. Gripp believes the mystery caller will call every number on Mars. Gripp starts calling too. He finds a strategy and succeeds. The caller is a woman. They are cut off mid-call, but Gripp rushes to her location, only to find she rushed to his location by a different route. All the while, Gripp daydreams, idealizing this wondrous woman. Then they finally meet . . . and she isn’t what he expected.

Serling’s “Where is Everybody?” occurs on earth. An amnesiac named Mike Ferris finds himself on a road leading to a diner. No one’s there, but all the evidence says people were there a short time before. Next he enters an idyllic small town. He wanders around searching for people. Repeatedly, he finds signs that he's missed someone by moments. He finds burning cigarettes, sinks running with the water still hot. Projectors start in a theater, but, rushing to the projection booth, he finds no one. Ferris finally suffers a breakdown, and we learn that he wasn’t where we thought he was.

Bradbury’s story first appeared in Charm's March 1949 issue and later in 1950's The Martian Chronicles. Serling wrote “Where is Everybody?” in 1958. Additionally, Serling admired Bradbury, was familiar with his work, and the stories contain similarities. In both stories, the protagonists find themselves in deserted towns. They take similar actions and have similar experiences. They help themselves to food in diner settings and treat themselves at soda fountains. Jukebox music plays a role. They take money and give it back. (In “Where?” this happens in the original script and the short story, but not in the televised version.) They both go into movie theaters. Signs of recent human activity appear everywhere. (Well, at least in the beginning of “The Silent Towns” they do. These signs appear through out “Where is Everybody?”) The settings include similar small towns with their main streets and store fronts. Both stories feature ringing phones in key scenes.

At first glance, much of “Where is Everybody?” looks like “The Silent Towns” set on Earth. However both stories end differently, and their themes, morals, and conclusions about companionship contrast sharply. There are other differences. Although both stories rationalize the situation, “Where” has a weirder atmosphere. In fact, the short story version ends with a weird twist not present in earlier versions. You could argue that Ferris is alone in the world where most of his story occurs. (Or maybe you could argue he is both alone and not alone simultaneously). There is someone else on Mars. Ferris has amnesia and things aren’t as they seem. Gripp doesn’t have amnesia and things are exactly as they appear. Other people lived in the Martian towns as recently as a week before “The Silent Towns” began and signs of their presence make sense. Signs that he missed someone torment Ferris. He finds no logical explanation for the missing people. This enhances the weird effect of “Where” in contrast to “Towns.” Although both men initially find loneliness unbearable, Gripp chooses years of solitude while Ferris’s isolation causes his breakdown. Why was Ferris less able to cope? Ferris wasn’t subjected to sensory deprivation, but he faced something closer to sensory deprivation than Gripp did. Cooped up as he was, Ferris began suffering delusions (At least he really had them in the script and televised versions. The short story’s ending calls the delusion conclusion into question.) Once suffering from those delusions, Ferris was tormented like the mythological Tantalus in Hades, who thirsted and hungered with food and water always just beyond his reach. This is a more maddening situation than Gripp faced. Gripp finally made the contact he sought, but even he was on edge when he kept missing phone calls or when he only got recorded messages. Also, Gripp was already used to being alone most of the time, living in the mountains and only coming to town every few weeks.

Serling’s story is about the value of human contact. Bradbury’s is about rejecting someone for not being good looking or charming enough. Early on, Gripp is like an infatuated teenager, eager to answer the phone and speak to the girl on the other end. Then, he’s like a henpecked husband. By the end, he’s like someone who screens their calls to avoid a stalkerish ex. Ferris, on the other hand, cracks due to isolation. Loneliness is an obstacle, a burden. It’s torture. There’s a cruel humor to Bradbury’s story while Serling’s conveys warmth and compassion. Earl Holliman’s performance as Ferris enhances this. Compare Gripp’s treatment of Genevieve with Ferris’s gentlemanly comportment toward a manikin. Gripp has a chance at real companionship, but rejects it when it doesn’t match his fantasy. There’s that old put down that ends with “even if you were the last man on Earth.” Well, Gripp really does reject the last woman in the world. Mankind may not survive the war on Earth. Genevieve (interesting how her name evokes Genesis and Eve) may represent a new Eve, hope for humanity’s survival. So, in a way, Gripp rejects all humanity. In Bradbury's story, Gripp learns to treasure solitude. In Serling’s, Ferris treasures companionship.