By Blanchette Goldwell

With the recent announcement of CBS reviving the Twilight Zone series, it’s time to have a serious conversation that people seem eager to ignore.

I’m talking about The Twilight Zone series’ historical tendency to depict dimensions beyond our own space and time with an image of uncompromising bleakness, hopelessness, and other culturally discriminant attitudes.

We need to be more respectful of the ways and customs of the fifth dimension. Though we may not understand it, its strange and unfamiliar ways, we need to realize that uncomfortable situations are necessary for personal growth and understanding.

Even if the fifth dimension “lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge…” these extremes are ultimately cultural-centric, and “the middle ground between light and shadow” has as much right to existence as our own plane of reality.

I can’t say why Rod Serling was obsessed with depicting the fifth dimension in such a negative light, but he’s done incredible damage in shaping the public’s collective conscience against these “land’s of shadow and substance.”

In the episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, the now iconic monster on the wing is depicted as an agent of fear and chaos.

What do we really know about this beast on the wing?

We never once consider that it may be just as frightened as protagonist Bob Wilson, considering it’s stuck in freezing, low oxygen conditions, several miles above ground. I attest that any rational person stuck in the same position would have also begun dismantling parts of the wing, trying to find some way to communicate with the authorities inside.

The point is, we don’t know the real intent of this creature, but it’s dangerous to jump to – “it wants to destroy us all”-  conclusions.

 

We only get the perspective of upper class, white business man, Bob Wilson, played by William Shatner. He assumes, given his socio-economic status, that everyone need automatically believe what he says, no matter how outlandish his words.

He eventually displays a gross amount of privilege when he states he’ll check himself into an asylum if no tampering on the wing is found, as if that were an action any person or creature, in this or other worlds, has the choice of making.

 

In another episode of The Twilight Zone titled “Person or Person’s Unknown” , the main character, David Gurney, wakes up one day to realize that nobody knows who he is. This is a perfect example of a character turning a valuable learning experience into a selfish personal attack on the social construct of his worth and reputation. Despite all evidence to the contrary, David never once accepts the possibility that he isn’t who he thinks he is.

 

He can’t imagine a life in which he hasn’t fulfilled his expected social function of marrying a beautiful wife and working at a bank. He’d rather repeatedly break the law and catch people up in his fantasy, than face the reality that he is a mere common man.

Of course the show is written in a manner skewed toward empathy for David Gurney, portraying as malicious the inter-dimensional force that brought David into this situation. Seemingly, the entire point of The Twilight Zone was to cast aspersions on this inter-dimensional force.

The  new Twilight Zone reboot, announced by CBS, would do well to learn from the past shows’ mistakes. Here’s some changes it can make to ensure a thoughtful and critical viewing experience:

• Show both points of view: Why was the doll in “The Living Doll”, so filled with anger and malicious intent? Without making any attempt to humanize the Talking Tina Doll with some kind of history and conscience, we become marionettes to our own fears. The Twilight Zone doesn’t have to be a strange and terrifying place.

 

• Don’t end the episode immediately after the twist: In the fifth dimension, the apparent situation may dramatically transform and everything we thought we knew becomes undone. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and it is highly manipulative of the show to end on that sudden dramatic note.  It’s highly dishonest not to show more, when the emotional element has died down, and the forces at play can reveal themselves and their nature more fully to us.

• Adopt a more humorous tone: While finding ourselves in the depths of a twilight zone should be treated seriously, there’s no reason it can’t be depicted here in a lighter and more frivolous manner. The shows one-note depiction of mystery led by traditional suspense and horror elements, hammers down a hard-to-change generalization in the public’s mind – that the twilight zone is nothing more than a twisted nightmare experience. Our own dimension isn’t perfect, so let’s not be quick to demean others.

Ultimately, we must adopt a new cultural imperative to approach these alternate dimensions with a calm heart and an open mind. Whether these other zones materialize in the form of an otherworldly creature, an odd set of surreal coincidences, or some kind of nightmarish wrongful accusation, we can always find the room for emotional compromise.

The new Twilight Zone reboot needs to lead the way in altering these perceptions, and make this and all other worlds, a better place to inhabit.

Blanchette Goldwell is an entertainment blogger with a sharp eye for relevant social issues. Thoughtful, smart, and unyielding in her views, she is currently working on a book focusing on our culturally negative attitude toward sink holes.