Time Enough at Last
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television series The Twilight Zone.
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Details
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Cast
- Henry Bemis: Burgess Meredith
- Helen Bemis: Jacqueline DeWitt
- Mr. Carsville: Vaughn Taylor
Synopsis
Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith) is a bookish little man who can never find the time to read. He can't read at home or at work because both his wife and boss think reading is a waste of time. At one point his wife, as a cruel joke, asked Henry to read her poems from a book. He was very pleased that she asked him to do this, however when he opens the book he finds that she has blackened out all the pages.The following day Henry takes his lunch breaks in the vault at the bank where he works. During one of these lunch breaks, nuclear war breaks out, ending mankind. Henry is the only one left. As he wanders through his town he sees devastation everywhere. He even starts to call out for his wife, but doesn't get an answer. Even though he finds enough food to last him for the rest of his life, he loses hope and is about to commit suicide when he finds the public library. All the books he could ever hope for are his for the taking. He finally has all the time in the world to read. He sorts out stacks of books to read by the month. Unfortunately, as he is about to pick up a book, his reading glasses fall off and shatter.
Themes
Compare A Nice Place to Visit, The Man in the Bottle, The Trouble With Templeton, The Last Night of a Jockey, Escape Clause, The Mind and the Matter, and I Dream of Genie.There is a moment of real terror and shock as Bemis' book flips open and his watch crystal breaks, all in the confines of the safe, where he is sealed off from the rest of the world before the explosion is heard.
Reception
In 1960, John Brahm was awarded a Director's Guild award for his work on this episode.In TV Land's presentation of TV Guide's "100 Most Memorable Moments in Television", "Time Enough at Last" was ranked at #25. Of the episode commentator Keith Olbermann remarked, "It is as fine a piece of theatrical bitter irony as has been constructed. Greek playwrights would look at that and go, 'Pretty Good'!"
- "Much of the implacable seriousness of the Twilight Zone is seemingly keyed by the clipped, dour delivery of Serling himself and the interlocutor. He never encourages us to laugh, or even smile, even when the plot twist is at least darkly funny. For example, in 'Time Enough at Last' (November 20, 1959), written by Rod Serling from a short story by Lynn Venable, a frustrated bookworm played by Burgess Meredith hides in a bank vault to finish David Copperfield in privacy. He emerges to find himself the only survivor in a nuclear holocaust, and looks forward to a lifetime of reading books. Unfortunately, his glasses slip off his nose and crash, leaving him forever unable to sample the literary treasures all around him. C'est a rire, n'est-ce pas? Well, not exactly. The H-bomb is still lurking in the background of the bookworm's 'accident.' The point is that the bomb could never have gone off on network television were the plot couched in a more realistic format." ''Andrew Sarris, excerpt from Rod Serling: Viewed from beyond the Twilight Zone'
Behind the scenes
The exterior, long library steps were filmed some months later and used as the steps up into an Eloi public building, in MGM's 1960 film The Time Machine, of the HG Wells novel.Burgess Meredith would later star in "The Obsolete Man"; during the preview spot (e.g. "next week on The Twilight Zone"), Rod Serling referred to the actor by name as "no stranger to the Twilight Zone". This spot and others were used as a transition between episodes during the American SciFi Channel's three-day-long Twilight Zone marathon to celebrate the Fourth of July in 2006.
The name of Meredith's character, Mr. Bemis, bears a striking resemblance to that of the title character from an earlier episode, "Mr. Bevis".
In popular culture
When a poll asked viewers what episode of the series they remembered the most, "Time Enough at Last" was the most frequent response, with "To Serve Man" coming in a distant second. Due to its notoriety, it has been given numerous tips of the hat in popular culture over the years. Iconic of these is Disney's The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Walt Disney World, which has a pair of broken glasses in the lobby.Numerous television programs have spoofed the episode:
- [[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius]]: In "Return of the Nanobots", Hugh thinks that he's the last man on the Earth so he starts piling up pie in stacks for every month only then to have them burned up.
- The Drew Carey Show: In "Y2K You're OK", the title character is left alone in a bomb shelter to look at adult magazines. Unfortunately, he sneezes, causing his glasses to fall off and break. This clip is on the Season 1 DVD set.
- Family Guy: In "Wasted Talent", Peter's last brain cell is a nerdish bookworm who is relieved to be alone with his books, but breaks his glasses.
- Futurama: In "A Head in the Polls", a man's glasses fall off, but he says he can read the large print books. His eyes fall out, but he can read Braille. Finally, his hands fall off. He screams, only to have his tongue fall out. Then his head falls off. Bender, who is watching this on TV in a Twilight Zone spoof called "The Scary Door", comments: "Cursed by his own hubris."
- The Simpsons: In "Strong Arms of the Ma", the mailman is run over by Marge's car. He tells Marge to take her time in getting help and that he has plenty to read. Just as he picks up a copy of "Twilight Zone Magazine" (which has a picture of Meredith on the cover), he discovers his glasses are broken.
External link
References
- Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
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