This episode is the one that people usually associate and remember as being the classic representation of the Twilight Zone series. It pulls no punches and delves into territory that network executives were not always comfortable in depicting. Like many Zone episodes, this was a morality play with a lesson to be learned. Ostensibly a debate over society's concept of beauty and ugliness, it also contains a political subtext attacking fascism and racial segregation. Rod Serling was able to bring his point home by adopting a more subtle approach and not specifically mentioning race. It was alluded to, however, when the main character, Janet Tyler(MAXINE STUART) lashes out at the Doctor when she criticizes the presumptive right of the government to segregate those individuals who do not look the way "normal" people look.
The story line involves the above-mentioned character, whom we see lying in a hospital bed, her face completely covered in a thick swath of gauze bandages. We learn that she is horribly deformed and has just undergone her ninth and last medical procedure to try and make her look normal. The society this woman lives in is depicted as some kind of 1984-like Big Brother totalitarian state, where conformity and homogeneity are the rule.
Her circumstances set the stage for a debate between her and her Doctor over how people who are considered "different" are treated by society. She is aware that "the State" as it's referred to herein, has spent a large amount of time, money and resources to try and fix her face so that she can live among "normal-looking" people. The Doctor tells her that this is proof that the State is not unsympathetic to her plight. However, if this final procedure does not bear fruit, she has no hope whatever of joining normal society. She would be relegated to a segregated community, far apart from normal people, where she would live out her existence with others of her own kind.
It is this rule which she finds morally repugnant and unacceptable. She wants to live in society and be a productive, contributing member of it. She wants to belong. She really wants to belong and to be accepted. And she tells the Doctor she will do anything for that to happen. She will even wear a mask so that people would not have to look upon her ugliness.
Now, when this episode first aired, I was watching it with my Dad. And he picked up on something. He picked up on the "red herring" of the episode. He said to me "Have you noticed they're not showing the faces of the Nurses or the Doctor?" And he was right. You did see the medical staff in shadow or conversing together in darkened rooms. And though you could see their profile in the darkness, you couldn't actually see their faces or make out their features. But when in lighted conditions, you would only see a hand or an arm or a shot of the person from the neck down or from the rear. And in the shots where you were expecting to see a staffer's face, such as when they started to turn towards the camera, the camera would pan down and away to show another part of their body. My Dad told me that when they take the bandages off the woman, she's going to be beautiful and the Doctor and Nurses are going to be the ones who are ugly! My Dad was a smart man! But even with that foreknowledge, I wasn't prepared for what Serling was about to show us. Their faces went beyond just being ugly. They were horrifying. Horrifying and frightening. The actress who played Miss Tyler when the bandages came off was DONNA DOUGLAS, in her pre-Elly Mae Clampett days. She, of course, is beautiful. And when she sees the Doctor and the other staff, she flees in terror through the hospital wing- until she literally runs right into EDSON STROLL, a representative of the segregated community where she will now be going to. He, of course, is very handsome and good-looking. He tells her that they have a lovely village with lovely people and that she will soon feel a sense of belonging and of being loved. She asks him why is it that they have to look like this, as they do? He tells her he really doesn't know, but there's an old saying, a very old saying- "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." This ending is so bittersweet, yet uplifting. Because it holds out the possibility of finding happiness no matter who you are or what you look like.
The story line involves the above-mentioned character, whom we see lying in a hospital bed, her face completely covered in a thick swath of gauze bandages. We learn that she is horribly deformed and has just undergone her ninth and last medical procedure to try and make her look normal. The society this woman lives in is depicted as some kind of 1984-like Big Brother totalitarian state, where conformity and homogeneity are the rule.
Her circumstances set the stage for a debate between her and her Doctor over how people who are considered "different" are treated by society. She is aware that "the State" as it's referred to herein, has spent a large amount of time, money and resources to try and fix her face so that she can live among "normal-looking" people. The Doctor tells her that this is proof that the State is not unsympathetic to her plight. However, if this final procedure does not bear fruit, she has no hope whatever of joining normal society. She would be relegated to a segregated community, far apart from normal people, where she would live out her existence with others of her own kind.
It is this rule which she finds morally repugnant and unacceptable. She wants to live in society and be a productive, contributing member of it. She wants to belong. She really wants to belong and to be accepted. And she tells the Doctor she will do anything for that to happen. She will even wear a mask so that people would not have to look upon her ugliness.
Now, when this episode first aired, I was watching it with my Dad. And he picked up on something. He picked up on the "red herring" of the episode. He said to me "Have you noticed they're not showing the faces of the Nurses or the Doctor?" And he was right. You did see the medical staff in shadow or conversing together in darkened rooms. And though you could see their profile in the darkness, you couldn't actually see their faces or make out their features. But when in lighted conditions, you would only see a hand or an arm or a shot of the person from the neck down or from the rear. And in the shots where you were expecting to see a staffer's face, such as when they started to turn towards the camera, the camera would pan down and away to show another part of their body. My Dad told me that when they take the bandages off the woman, she's going to be beautiful and the Doctor and Nurses are going to be the ones who are ugly! My Dad was a smart man! But even with that foreknowledge, I wasn't prepared for what Serling was about to show us. Their faces went beyond just being ugly. They were horrifying. Horrifying and frightening. The actress who played Miss Tyler when the bandages came off was DONNA DOUGLAS, in her pre-Elly Mae Clampett days. She, of course, is beautiful. And when she sees the Doctor and the other staff, she flees in terror through the hospital wing- until she literally runs right into EDSON STROLL, a representative of the segregated community where she will now be going to. He, of course, is very handsome and good-looking. He tells her that they have a lovely village with lovely people and that she will soon feel a sense of belonging and of being loved. She asks him why is it that they have to look like this, as they do? He tells her he really doesn't know, but there's an old saying, a very old saying- "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." This ending is so bittersweet, yet uplifting. Because it holds out the possibility of finding happiness no matter who you are or what you look like.