Rod Serling on Doomsday | Hacker News Reader

Rod Serling on Doomsday

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68 pointsecliptik11 comments

Some haunting episodes of "The Twilight Zone".

I remember seeing the episode "Walking Distance" for the first time as a Freshman just in college. I was away from home, away from all my friends. I was coming to realize, with a kind of horror, that the door behind me, my childhood, had truly shut. I wasn't sure at all that I would like this new adult world.

Gathered in the "commons" room of the dorm, watching that "Twilight Zone" episode, I just sat in the back of the dark room and cried. But his final message, that there are merry-go-rounds in the adult world if you know to look for them stuck with me.

Also blown away when I saw the episode, "The Lonely". If you know the episode, you know how it ends.

"All you're leaving behind Corry, is loneliness."

"I must remember to keep that in mind."

Rod had a notoriously brutal TV writing schedule, but was able to spin a few good yarns.

It seems odd, but old stories like "What You Need" (s1e12), collaborated works "To Serve Man" (s3e25) and "People Are Alike All Over" (s1e25) still seem to describe entering the senior realms of business.

"The Lonely" certainly broke down the notion of compassion within the context of civilization. Like all Rods better work, it answers the question "who am I?" for the fictional character.

Entertaining production for sure, but no one person should have had to carry that kind of workload =3

The Trouble with Templeton will always haunt me for its cinematography, and for its themes of dealing with loss and moving on.

If our loved ones knew how much we suffered in their absence, they'd try to commit the greatest kindness by letting us love them a little less.

That scene when the music stops, and the lights fade out, and you see the reality that was masked from Templeton. Breaks my heart every single time.

"Five Characters in Search of an Exit" was always a favorite episode of mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEpaq332pmI (just a snippet of the intro, with Serling's iconic introduction)

That was a fun one. Not sure there was anything particularly profound or sublime in that one though. :-)

I remember watching Examination Day (later Twilight Zone from the 80s) when I was a kid when my parents were away (I wasn't allowed to watch the twilight zone) and I couldn't sleep well for quite a while after that but could not tell my parents why.

SyFy had a write-up on him for 100th birthday (died age 50 alas). https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/rod-serling-100th-birthday-re...

Went down some a rabbit hole of videos on Rod Sterling a while ago. Amazing man, saw such a change, and kept himself creative & enabled even when the world was denying him and itself, shielding itself from challenging & complex stories.

The best story I have about Rod Serling is that my dad (who went to Cornell) knew him during his time as a teacher at Ithaca College, and ended up briefly dating his daughter! A very amiable person, who you'd never guess had such a chambered mind, at least from all the stories I hear.

Try looking ahead: https://youtu.be/tDtT7CEQcMs.

"Serling spent his entire career trying to reconcile the tendency of man to turn against their fellow man"

Wish someone like Serling could have written "The Purge". Seems like it was good idea, that didn't get executed well.

There are things that I want to shout at people, things that seem so blindingly obvious to me, but at the same time, I know that I probably would never have learned them if someone had shouted them at me. They are things that I had to notice while my mind was able to be quiet and curious.

A hint of what I mean:

Conspiracy theories come from seeking satisfaction and comfort, not ignorance. Debunking will never be enough. If a person tells themselves that they will not be affected by a conspiracy theory or scam, they have made themselves MORE vulnerable. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42454945

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Unsatisfying narratives feel nihilistic, but there might be something important on the other side of that nihilism https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42261315

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'Blame' is a place in our minds where we set down our heaviest burdens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42248548

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Anyway, what I mean to say is that fiction can take us places that shouting at each other never will.

A lot more than conspiracy theories is explained by that. Why people join religions and cults despite obvious huge gaps in their worldview. Why people follow political leaders while being aware of their reputation of lying and/or lacking reputation of being successful at what they claim to do.

Ever since I discovered the concept of emotional neglect I am growing in belief that problem is a lot more pervasive in society than a few therapy patients. Just because most people have no complaints doesn't mean they were not affected.

Our culture has made rational behavior such a huge virtue that seeking good emotions became something that needs to be pointed out as a revelation, even though seeking to feel good is literally the biggest and maybe the only motivation people have. The default assumption when understanding other people is to expect them to prefer what makes sense over what feels good, which is not true.

Metaphorically, if one has a culture that teaches people to believe that body temperature is fundamentally unimportant and mostly random noise, would it really be a surprise that people ignore your attempt to convince them in diagnosis A over B when the only difference between those two were the presence of fever? That will be like convincing to choose A because it's summer, people will just shrug it off.

In your example, when you shout about "seeking satisfaction and comfort" the receiver instantly skips that because "no way that is important enough to be the true reason". Maybe it's not as hopeless, one just needs to focus less on shouting messages and more on ensuring the receiver has enough fundamentals to get them.

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