As the episode title suggests, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but so it seems is the content of the story. Viewed critically, this little parable moves well beyond notions of physical beauty, and plumbs the depths of racism, bigotry and narrow mindedness in a setting that's frighteningly reminiscent of dictatorship and government propaganda to obtain conformity to the state. Patient 307 (Donna Douglas) is more a prisoner than a patient, and her crime has more to do with challenging the status quo and refusing to live with others like her in a segregated community created just for that purpose. She's a threat to the established order personified by a porcine leader delivering a televised address, reminding his citizens that glorious conformity is the best feature of a unified society. It's interesting to reflect on one's own reaction to the story's punch line when seeing it for the first time. You have a good idea that the woman under wraps is probably going to look fairly normal (in human terms), so you're left wondering how the show will portray the 'beauty' side of the equation. Instead of a hideously disfigured population of 'ugly' folks, you have a race of swine people whose version of Miss America might resemble Miss Piggy. It's a classic Twilight Zone treatment in the way the episode turns accepted conventions on their head, so well in fact, that once you see it, you'll always remember it for the reaction you had the first time around.
Review of Eye of the Beholder
