This is one of the very best episodes on Season 2. A woman undergoes transformative surgery to change her horribly disfigured face into something of beauty. This episode is everything one should expect from The Twilight Zone: stunning visuals, good acting, a plot twist or two, and a message that goes beyond the story.
First off, the contrast between light and shadow is done beautifully and some of the angles used while viewing our protagonist while on the hospital bed leave the viewer really sympathetic with her heartbreaking plight. Maxine Stuart does a wonderful job of revealing conveying her emotion with her voice and body, obviously no facial emotion can be received by viewers.
I've seen some complaints from other reviews on the obviousness of the plot twist: that, since we are never seen any character's face until the big reveal, that we all know that something must be different with facial construction in this society. While this is indeed true, I think that it is entirely irrelevant to the quality of this episode. This episode isn't about jump squares or trying to catch the audience off guard; this episode is about conveying a message. It's message of viewing the world and its people through the scope of relativity and acceptance is really what we should walk away with. Just because something is different, doesn't make it ugly, it should not be cast aside. I won't go further into detail since the message is fairly obvious. An obvious message yes, but an important one.
First off, the contrast between light and shadow is done beautifully and some of the angles used while viewing our protagonist while on the hospital bed leave the viewer really sympathetic with her heartbreaking plight. Maxine Stuart does a wonderful job of revealing conveying her emotion with her voice and body, obviously no facial emotion can be received by viewers.
I've seen some complaints from other reviews on the obviousness of the plot twist: that, since we are never seen any character's face until the big reveal, that we all know that something must be different with facial construction in this society. While this is indeed true, I think that it is entirely irrelevant to the quality of this episode. This episode isn't about jump squares or trying to catch the audience off guard; this episode is about conveying a message. It's message of viewing the world and its people through the scope of relativity and acceptance is really what we should walk away with. Just because something is different, doesn't make it ugly, it should not be cast aside. I won't go further into detail since the message is fairly obvious. An obvious message yes, but an important one.