Twilight Zone 1.6 Escape Clause
The one where David Wayne plays a hypochondriac who literally strikes a deal with the devil. What rating would you give this episode?
share Probably a five. Comedy episodes don't do much for me ("Penny For Your Thoughts" is an exception, though you still have a considerable way to go before you get to that gem). That shot of Walter looking down at the courtyard after his wife plummets to her death is marvelous. The outro by Serling is also a keeper; my favorite line: "Beaten [Walter] by the Devil, by his own boredom --and by the scheme of things in this, The Twilight Zone." Splendid.
I didn't mind this one, though I was wondering if you were going to give out any low scores and I guess this answers that question. I think Groundhog Day covered this material more cleverly later on, where life becomes a Sisyphean, hamster wheel driving bore and you begin to want to die. It's funny and perhaps natural that we want eternal life, humans have always craved this from the earliest tales of The Bible and Gilgamesh to the quest of Ponce de Leon for the Fountain of Youth but it's like that old saying "Be careful what you wish for" because no one usually considers what eternity actually means. In this case the devil was only offering thousands of years but when you think of time in terms of billions, trillions even quadrillions of years it becomes a lot more difficult question to fully comprehend. Imagine playing a basketball game, but not one that lasts 48 minutes, but rather one that never ends and for which no one keeps score.
David Wayne was entertaining, I'd probably rate it higher than you did but I get it if you don't watch The Twilight Zone for comedy.
If you think my score for this one was low wait until you get to "Mr. Bevis" and "The Mighty Casey."
I hate the music cues in this one. Don't tell me to laugh. You could just as easily replace the music cues with a laugh track and there wouldn't be any difference (a later episode, believe it or not, called "Cavender is Coming" actually did have a laugh track when it was initially aired; it's a terrible enough episode as it is without a laugh track to make it even more stomach churning).
Another episode coming up, "Elegy," has music cues like this one too, though I find that one better for some reason. Maybe because it reminds me of Isaac Asimov, someone I adore.
Eternal life will be a theme explored again in "The Twilight Zone," although in a much more serious vein. "Long Live Walter Jameson" and "Queen of the Nile" come to mind.