I think many of us would love to take this journey, even for a moment.
Loved this episode. This is the one that has hooked me on the series.
It's pretty good. Most of the time they make the suburbia seem at once fake and familiar, though occasionally it becomes completely real, loses its uncanny air, and I'm not sure if I like that. Doesn't help that the first half happens too fast - lots of busy images, because things need to be shown in the limited runtime, so it makes the setting feel a bit too regular, too populated, and it doesn't give the main character's off-putting interactions room or time to breathe, they just get caught up in the congestion, normal pieces of normal activity. He just appears to be wandering around in a setting that we are shown is normal, when we ourselves should be as thrown off as he is by the strangeness of it. The second half and all its angles and claustrophobic frames are very transparently trying to play up the psychological edge, the desperation, of it all, but I think it gives way to some cool and trippy things. The point of it all is driven home through a clumsy monologue, but the message is something I needed to hear at this point in my life, even if it is a platitude you could find on one of those crappy inspirational quote websites. If I revisited this my score wouldn't be as high, but I'm coming off a love affair with "Where Is Everybody?" so the images of strange and fake suburbia really fascinate me, and the payoff hits harder right now than it normally would.
It's funny, there is commentary from Rod Serling himself regarding this episode on the Definitive Edition DVDs. The commentary was from a lecture that he gave at Sherwood Oaks college. From what I heard, he must have soured on "Walking Distance" over time. He didn't have a lot of positive things to say about it. I've heard and read a lot of raves about it, too. But I wouldn't recommend it as a must-see TZ. The character is so underwhelmed when meeting his parents after going back in time. Wouldn't he be more affected? The ending is kind of anti-climactic. The music by Bernard Herrmann is beautiful.
Shout by Gabriel CarvalhoBlockedParent2017-01-17T07:52:18Z— updated 2017-01-20T14:58:59Z
"You've been looking behind you Martin, try looking ahead."
A touching line from a profound episode.
It's amazing the effect the past has on us, the nostalgia it brings. We rarely know how that time will be important, and how it will be missed. Only later we'll perceive the significance of that period, and how we should have enjoyed it at its fullest.
It may be such a potent feeling, we, like Barbara, from the previous episode, decide to go live in the past. Or, like Martin, we tend to only look for happiness and joy in that known place from the past, instead of finding new sources of pleasure in the present.
It was certainly a heartfelt episode.