From the Outskirts

From www.wikipedia.org
Why do so many of 'The Twilight Zone' episodes happen on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone (I'm just going by Mr Serling's introductions). What the hell would it be like in the centre?

I watched an episode earlier entitled 'The Lateness of the Hour'. In terms of direction, dialogue and even acting, this was one of the worst of both seasons. It says a lot for the series then that it prefigures much of the Rachael subplot in 'Bladerunner'. Of course, Dick, the author of the original novel (written in 1966), dealt with the whole question of what it means to be human throughout his entire career (which started in the early 50s). The use of robots to highlight this question features in literature a lot earlier too; consider Hoffmann (and in particular, his 'The Sandman') or even, one could argue, 'Pinocchio' (think of Spielberg and Aldiss' take on the story in 'A.I.'). Still the Twilight Zone episode explicitly deals with a robot, with false memories of childhood, believing itself to be human, but coming to the realisation that it is not.

On a side note, it's funny how the use of an abrasive bit of music to drive home the punchline can put a particular interpretation on the ending.

As another aside, the young star of this episode, Inger Stevens, led a particularly tragic life. She had a nasty habit of having affairs with her costars, the last one with Burt Reynolds. Never happy though, she committed suicide at the age of 35. It then emerged that she had been married to African American actor, Ike Jones, for ten years, but this had been covered up for the sake of her career. The 60s really were a different time.