The Eye of the Beholder

This article is about the original Twilight Zone episode. For the revival series episode, see Eye of the Beholder (2003 The Twilight Zone episode). For other uses, see Eye of the Beholder (disambiguation).

"Eye of the Beholder"
The Twilight Zone episode
Donna Douglas and Edson Stroll in The Eye of the Beholder.
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 6
Directed by	Douglas Heyes
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Bernard Herrmann
Production code	173-3640
Original air date	November 11, 1960
Guest stars
Maxine Stuart: Janet Tyler (under bandages) Donna Douglas: Janet Tyler (unmasked) William D. Gordon: Doctor Bernardi Jennifer Howard: Nurse Edson Stroll: Walter Smith
Episode chronology
← Previous "The Howling Man" Next → "Nick of Time"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

"Eye of the Beholder" (also titled "The Private World Of Darkness" when initially rebroadcast in the summer of 1962) is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Plot

Janet Tyler has undergone her eleventh treatment (the maximum number legally allowed) in an attempt to look like everybody else. The details of the treatment are not given, but Tyler is first shown with her head completely bandaged, so her face cannot be seen. She is described as being "not normal" by the nurses and doctor, whose own faces are always in shadows or off-camera.

The outcome of the procedure cannot be known until the bandages are removed. Tyler pleads with the doctor and eventually convinces him to remove the bandages early. After a climactic buildup, the bandages are removed, revealing to the audience that she is beautiful. However, the reaction of the doctor and nurses is disappointment; the operation has failed, her face has undergone "no change — no change at all".

At this point, the doctor, nurses and other people in the hospital, whose faces have never been seen clearly before, are now revealed to be horribly deformed by our perspective, with large and thick brows, sunken eyes, swollen and twisted lips, and misshapen, pig-like snouts. Distraught by the failure of the procedure, Tyler runs through the hospital as the disfigured faces of everyone she runs into, the norm in this society, are revealed. Large screens throughout the hospital project an image of the State's despotic leader giving a speech calling for greater conformity.

Eventually, a handsome man (by our standards) afflicted with the same "condition" arrives to take the crying, despondent Tyler into exile to a village of her "own kind", where her "ugliness" will not trouble the State. Before the two leave, the man comforts Tyler with the very, very old saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

Production

The episode was written by Rod Serling, who recycled the theme for a later teleplay "The Different Ones" for his later series Night Gallery. This one takes place in a futuristic world where a disfigured hermit teenage boy who is sent on a NASA rocket to a planet where the inhabitants look like him.

It was directed by Douglas Heyes. His primary concern, when he was casting the show, was to pick actors with sympathetic voices: to achieve this he cast the episode with his back to the performers.

The original title for this episode was "Eye of the Beholder." Stuart Reynolds, a television producer, threatened to sue Serling for the use of the name because at the time he was selling an educational film of the same name to public schools. Reruns following the initial broadcast featured the title screen "The Private World of Darkness." Because CBS consulted different prints over the years for syndication packages, the closing credits for this episode varies from one title to the other depending on what television station is using which package. In The Twilight Zone's original DVD release the syndicated version was marketed as an "alternate version". According to The Twilight Zone Companion this was one of the hardest episodes technically to put on film.

Legacy

This episode was re-made for the 2002-2003 revival of the series using Serling's original script, with Molly Sims cast as Janet and Reggie Hayes as the doctor. The make-up was changed to make the faces look more melted, ghoulish and decayed with deep ridges. A few scenes of dialogue were omitted. The projection screens were changed to plasma screens and the leader's monologue was slightly embellished.

This episode, much like other Twilight Zone episodes such as "Time Enough at Last" and "It's a Good Life", has been referenced and parodied on other television shows. A Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Pamela Anderson (credited as "Pamela Lee") features Anderson as the patient, though in a comic twist she and all the male doctors conclude that she is now "hot". The suspenseful bandage removal sequence has been parodied on three Fox TV animated sitcoms: The Simpsons ("Pygmoelian" and "Gone Maggie Gone"), Family Guy ("He's Too Sexy for His Fat", "Meet the Quagmires"), and Futurama ("The Cyber House Rules"). It was also used in the TV sitcom 3rd Rock From The Sun.

An episode of SpongeBob SquarePants called "The Two Faces of Squidward" is based upon this episode.

The opening of the program was sampled and used in Dillinja's 1998 track "Hard Noise".

This episode is also sampled in the 2010 song "Southern Comfort" by Envy on the Coast.

See also

• List of The Twilight Zone episodes
• Weird Science #21 Sep/Oct 1953, "The Ugly One"

References

• Zicree, Marc Scott. The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition).
• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links

• "The Eye of the Beholder" at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com episode page
• Eye of the Beholder Review at "The Twilight Zone Project"