let me start of by saying I love TZ I bought the box set last year and fell in love straight away. however there has been one episode that everyone else seem to love that I cant enjoy.
walking distance I tried oh god did I try to get into this but it's just not going to happen. first I don't care about martin he's a sook "oh I have a high paying job in new York my life stinks" boo frigging who, then we are meant to feel bad for him because his mum and dad don't recognise him of course they have no idea who he is. he's a middle aged man who walked back into the past THEY HAVE NEVER MET YOU!! and then the idiot cripples himself on the merry go round and for what so at the end of the episode he could learn not to grow up to fast to hold on to the good times. look I'm sorry but all the praise it's gets it's beyond me this episode taught us something we already knew ENJOY LIFE well thanks for that but walking distance is not a good example IMO
You picked one of the exact same episodes that I would have, and for much the same reason. When Martin meets his parents, it's silly that he expects them to recognize him, and then when they don't he starts acting crazy. I've always rolled my eyes at the scene where Martin is running after his younger self, yelling like a lunatic. Of course young Martin runs away in terror; what did the older him think the kid would do? And what was he going to do if he caught up to him? And what did he think the reaction of all the adults around would be at seeing a crazed adult male chasing down a child? He'd have been lucky not to get locked up in a nuthouse, or even shot.
I understand this was a theme that resonated with Serling, and it's not the only time he would employ it. "Kick the Can" has similarities. Serling clearly felt the weariness that comes of dealing with the rat race of life in our modern world, with adult responsibilities, and was nostalgic for the happy, carefree days of childhood, when one has almost no responsibilities. Serling also used variations on this theme, for example, "A Stop at Willoughby." This time, it's a quiet, peaceful life in a small, idyllic town. But the problems with that episode are similar: characters whose actions are just way over the top, in this case, the tyrannical boss, the nagging secretary, and the shrewish harridan of a wife. I get that with just a half hour to tell the story, there's no time to build characters gradually, and some of their traits are bound to look a little forced in order to get them across, but it still just doesn't appeal to me.
"When Martin meets his parents, it's silly that he expects them to recognize him"
No, it isn't. As an adult I've encountered people who I went to school with, and haven't seen since we were kids, and I had no problem recognizing them. I've also encountered former school teachers of mine who I haven't seen since I was a kid, and they recognized me. A few years ago I was out on the side of my street working on my car and a vehicle stopped in front of me and a guy spoke my name; asked me if I remembered him. He was a former neighbor who I hadn't seen since I was 7 or 8 years old. He's about 10 or 12 years older than me and used to babysit my siblings and me sometimes in the early 1980s. When he moved out of his parents' house in 1982 or 1983, that was the last time I ever saw him.
A parent would have even less than "no problem" recognizing their own child as an adult. The kid looked to be around 10 years old, which is plenty old enough to have distinctive characteristics that will remain into adulthood. It's not as if he were an infant or toddler.
Yes, there would be some initial disbelief because it's a believed-to-be-impossible scenario, but they certainly wouldn't dismiss him as some random crazy stranger, because they would obviously be able to recognize him. Realistically, they would react along the lines of "How is this possible??" rather than "Get out of here, crazy man!"
The problem is that you're seeing two different actors portray the child and adult versions of the character, so it's easy to imagine that the adult version is so different than the child version to the point of being unrecognizable even to his parents. If it were possible to have had the actual 10-year-old Gig Young play the child version of Martin, it would be a different story.
I am confident that if I were catapulted back in time to 1978, when I was nine years old, my parents would never recognize me in a million years. I look nothing like my nine year-old self, and even if I shaved my beard off, they simply would not recognize me. You'll never convince me otherwise. It might be different if I had a strong resemblance to either of my parents, the way Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez both look very much like their father Martin Sheen. Some people inherit one of their parent's features so there's no mistaking it, as the example above. But most of the people I've ever known don't look that much like their parents, and I certainly don't. No, they wouldn't recognize me.
And even if I did have that close a physical resemblance, they might take me for a cousin, or perhaps my dad's illegitimate half-brother he never knew about, but if I claimed to be their son they'd think I was a certifiable lunatic, because that would be the natural reaction to someone claiming something as impossible as time travel.
The reality is that kids get recognized as adults all the time, and by people who didn't know them even remotely as well as parents know their own children (e.g., teachers, neighbors, former classmates); I even gave an example that happened to me quite recently. So you can deny reality all you want, but it doesn't support your assertion that, "When Martin meets his parents, it's silly that he expects them to recognize him."
And another example: a few years ago I saw a girl named Marsha at the grocery store and I recognized her immediately. We were in the same grade in school, and I last saw her in maybe 4th or 5th grade (1984 or 1985). The funny thing is: her arm was in a cast, and when we were kids, it seemed like her arm or leg was always in a cast. We figured it was because she was a tomboy; played a lot of sports and such. Seeing her as an adult with a cast on her arm made me wonder if she has some sort of congenital condition that makes her bones fragile.
I'll give you a counterexample. When I was in high school, I got a crush on a girl 2 years behind me. I never really spoke to her. She was 2 years behind me, already had a boyfriend, I dated other girls off and on, and I was never the smoothest guy with girls anyway, so I never tried. I graduated, never saw her after that, gradually forgot about her -- but not really. Because you see, this girl was truly supermodel gorgeous. That's not just memory: if I look in my old yearbooks... Cindy Crawford had nothing on this chick.
Fast forward to just over 15 years later: I'd gotten out of the army, have a full-time job with my home town police department, and I am looking for a house. One of the houses I am looking at is really nice, but it's located near a naval air station, where fighter jets operate, and it's in the news how noisy this neighborhood is as a result. So after looking at the house, I knock on the doors of about five of the houses in the neighborhood to see how the residents feel about the noise. I pick one house because there are kids playing out front, and that tells me an adult is home. A slightly overweight thirtyish woman answers the door, and when I introduce myself and ask about the noise, she crossly asks me what I really want and I, taken aback at the hostility of the reception (none of the other residents were anything other than polite and friendly), I tell her "whoa, sorry to bother you lady" and I leave. But she looks familiar.
About an hour later, I realized who she was: the girl I'd been so struck by in high school. Just the passage of fifteen odd years, the gain of about thirty pounds, and the surprisingly bitter attitude was all it took to make me not recognize her at all. Now add in a story about time travel.
Moral of the story: 15 years, 30lbs, and a bad attitude, and I did not recognize her.
First, a counter example doesn't change anything, because former kids get recognized as adults all the time, which means it wasn't at all "silly" for Martin to expect his own parents to recognize him as you claimed.
Second, even in your example, you did recognize her. You said she looked familiar when you first saw her, and then about an hour later you realized who she was, i.e., you recognized her. And do you really think her own parents wouldn't have recognized her had they not seen her for those same 15 years?
This is my late best friend Corey at only 3½ years old (far younger than the kid version of Martin, who looked to be around 10 years old), along with him in his late 30s shortly before he was killed:
See the resemblance? The resemblance is obviously very strong, and that's just from a pair of still photographs. In real life there's a lot more to go on than in pictures, such as the structure and other characteristics of facial expressions as they happen, and eyes and the surrounding areas while in motion (women, which all mothers are of course, tend to be especially good at recognizing people by their eyes).
What's actually "silly" is the idea that Martin's own parents would react as though he were a total stranger, without even the slightest hint of recognition of their own son. Him claiming time travel has nothing to do with it. That part, and the whole situation in general would be hard for the parents to process/believe, but the recognition would be there regardless of the surrounding story.
Yeah, I don't think the resemblance in that photo between the child and the man is all that great -- certainly not on the level that would lead a parent of the child, seeing the grown man standing before him, to accept the impossible to believe assertion that the man is the child, while that very child stands before them also.
I recognized the girl from high school because she was already in her late teens when I knew her, and one's appearance doesn't change that much between age 17 and age 32. It does change a lot between pre and post-pubescence. The facial bone structure changes going through puberty. It doesn't after.
It's not silly at all that Martin's parents would act as though he were a total stranger. It's exactly how they would react. Honestly, I'm flabbergasted you're asserting this. You're telling me that ordinary, level-headed people, as they stand in the physical presence their preteen son, would immediately accept the assertion that a grown-ass man, in whom they might notice a family resemblance, is that very same son, and that he was somehow flung backwards in time from the future.
"Yeah, I don't think the resemblance in that photo between the child and the man is all that great -- certainly not on the level that would lead a parent of the child, seeing the grown man standing before him, to accept the impossible to believe assertion that the man is the child, while that very child stands before them also."
First, you're ignoring the fact that it's only two photographs and not real life, and that Corey is only 3½ years old in the left-hand picture, both of which I pointed out. I don't have the slightest doubt in my mind that if Corey had moved away in 5th grade, and then I saw him again in 2014, that I would have recognized him immediately (and of course his parents definitely would too in the same situation). The same goes for anyone else I was friends with as a kid, and even people I wasn't friends with, like Marsha. I was never friends with her; she was in my class in second grade and I don't remember ever having even a single conversation with her.
Second, whether or not they "accept the impossible to believe assertion that the man is their child" is a completely different matter. The fact is, they would have recognized him as their son unless they both had, e.g., dementia, so them showing no signs of recognition at all was completely unbelievable. It doesn't mean they automatically would have accepted that he was their son and time traveled. They could have passed it off as e.g., a hallucination, work of the devil, the common folk theory that everyone has a "twin" somewhere in the world, or whatever.
"I recognized the girl from high school because she was already in her late teens when I knew her, and one's appearance doesn't change that much between age 17 and age 32. It does change a lot between pre and post-pubescence. The facial bone structure changes going through puberty. It doesn't after."
Yes, your example was completely irrelevant, since you recognized her, and she was already biologically an adult when you last saw her anyway.
"It's not silly at all that Martin's parents would act as though he were a total stranger."
Yes, it absolutely is, since that's completely at odds with reality.
That's comically ironic, coming from the guy who is blatantly denying reality. How did I recognize Marsha at the grocery store? How did Thane recognize me when I was working on my car? This sort of thing happens all the time and it's not even considered unusual.
"You're telling me that ordinary, level-headed people, as they stand in the physical presence their preteen son, would immediately accept the assertion that a grown-ass man, in whom they might notice a family resemblance, is that very same son, and that he was somehow flung backwards in time from the future."
No, you're making stuff up; things I never asserted (see above). And they would notice far more than a "family resemblance," they would recognize him as their son, and then try to figure out what that means.
Okay, your argument boils down to: the parents would, of course, accept an incredible assertion of the wildly fantastical: time travel. Why wouldn't they?
You, if you saw someone who had a family resemblance, and who claimed to be your actual son, all grown up, and traveled back through time who's come to meet you, you'd believe that.
And I suppose if your best friend claimed he was Superman you'd believe that too. And your coworker who just got back from a vacation to Scotland totally saw the Loch Ness Monster.
Can you give me your contact information? I've got a great deal on this bridge I'd like to sell you.
"Okay, your argument boils down to: the parents would, of course, accept an incredible assertion of the wildly fantastical: time travel. Why wouldn't they?"
Reading Deficiency Alert (see above)
"You, if you saw someone who had a family resemblance"
We're not talking about a mere "family resemblance." When I, e.g., saw Marsha at the grocery store, I didn't think, "That woman has a family resemblance to Marsha." I immediately recognized her as Marsha.
"and who claimed to be your actual son, all grown up, and traveled back through time who's come to meet you, you'd believe that."
Negated by your false premise. However, if I had a 10-year-old son, and what happened in this TTZ episode happened to me in real life, then I absolutely would recognize him, obviously.
"And I suppose if your best friend claimed he was Superman you'd believe that too. And your coworker who just got back from a vacation to Scotland totally saw the Loch Ness Monster."
Your non sequitur is dismissed, and this explains why you've been denying reality all this time, i.e., you're not the fastest car on the lot (non sequiturs of this type are strictly the product of simpletons; there's absolutely no other source of them).
"Can you give me your contact information? I've got a great deal on this bridge I'd like to sell you."
Your non sequitur is dismissed, and also:
Comical Irony Alert
Again, I asked:
"How did I recognize Marsha at the grocery store?"
Your answer = ?
I also asked:
"How did Thane recognize me when I was working on my car?"