The Elevator
Brothers Will and Roger (Stephen Geoffreys and Robert Prescott) arrive at a derelict factory to search for their father, a prominent scientist who was working on developing a new type of superfood to solve world hunger. Arriving at the factory, the brothers look for their father, only to discover the carcasses of giant animals, such as rats, cats, and dogs. They soon come to the revelation that their father's food allowed the animals to grow when they broke in and ate it. They also discover that some of these giant animals are deadlier than others.
Tropes
- Abandoned Warehouse: The derelict factory where the brothers' father used to go to every few months to test his "experiments" is the setting of the episode.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Will and Roger conclude that the giant rats were killed by the giant cat, which was killed by the spider, along with the giant dog.
- Bottle Episode: The entire episode is set in and around the brothers' father's factory.
- Canis Major: Roger and Will find the corpse of a dog that ate their father's superfood and became giant, after which it was killed by the spider.
- Chromosome Casting: The two brothers are the only characters to appear.
- Cobweb Jungle: The spider's silk, said by Will to be composed of pure protein, covers a great deal of the factory.
- Deadly Closing Credits: Once the brothers are captured by the spider, their flashlight falls to the ground, followed by drops of blood.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title isn't just a reference to the elevator that Will and Roger find near the end of the episode, but also to how the spider inhabiting the factory grew and ate everything else, elevating to the top of the food chain.
- Downer Ending: Roger and Will are captured and eaten by the spider.
- Flawed Prototype: The brothers' father's superfood was meant to feed billions of people for very little money. Instead, it causes animals to grow to huge sizes when they eat it.
- Giant Spider: A spider got into the superfood developed by Roger and Will's father and grew giant-sized. It then killed the smaller-but-still-giant cat and dog, and possibly what was left of the giant rats. When Roger and Will call the factory's elevator, the spider grabs them with its pedipalps and eats them.
- Gilligan Cut: As the brothers find the elevator and ask each other if they remember it, we cut to a flashback of them as children, riding the thing to their hearts' content.
- Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: Younger brother Will defends their father's legacy as a scientist, while older brother Roger snarkily calls him a loon.
- Mega Neko: Roger and Will find a dead housecat that grew as big as a tiger after eating their father's superfood, which was also killed by the spider.
- Noodle Incident: Roger reminds Will of when their father gave him a chemistry set for Christmas, then immediately took it back from him and blew up half of the basement.
- Power-Up Food: The superfood the brothers' father was working on allows for massive growth when eaten.
- Riddle for the Ages: If the spider didn't eat the brothers' father, then what the hell did happen to him?
- Rodents of Unusual Size: Roger and Will learn that their father's superfood causes extreme growth when ingested, as they find the bodies of several giant rats around the factory, each bigger than the last.
- Too Dumb to Live: Despite realizing something bigger killed the rats, cat, and dog, the brothers don't think to leave and keep exploring. They also don't recognize the spider silk that is everywhere.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The brothers' father is never found, though it's very likely he was eaten by the spider.
To See the Invisible Man
"It's a world much like our own, yet much unlike it. A twisted mirror of reality, in which a man can find himself cast out, made invisible by public acclamation, belonging no longer to society, but only to the gray reaches — of the Twilight Zone."
Mitchell Chaplain (Cotter Smith), a cold, bitter, distant, unpleasant man in a dystopian future, is arrested for not being emotionally connected with his fellow man and sentenced to a year of "invisibility". He is surgically given a brand on his forehead that enforces everyone around him to ignore and shun him under the threat of being subjected to the same punishment. While Mitchell at first enjoys being able to do whatever he wants and not get called out, the isolation slowly gets to him, as well as the fact that people can abuse his invisibility just as much as he can.
Tropes
- Alone in a Crowd: Mitchell is sentenced to "invisibility" for a year, and thus spends most of the episode with people moving around him as if he wasn't there.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Mitchell's city has enforcement droids flying everywhere in sight to ensure that every citizen is obeying the law and being emotionally open to their fellow man.
- Blind and the Beast: The only person to be kind to Mitchell during his punishment is an old man named Bennett Gershe, who is blind and therefore can't see the implant telling others to ignore him. It's subverted when Gershe is told of Mitchell's status via a waitress, after which he angrily curses Mitchell and leaves him.
- Broken Tears: Mitchell breaks down from the pain of his car-related injury, and the fact that the hospital just turned him away for his invisible status.
- Dystopia: The future city where the episode is set. The government sentences Mitchell to a lengthy mandatory punishment aimed at correcting his morality instead of punishing him for a specific crime, and there are enforcement drones buzzing around everywhere to ensure that all citizens keep ignoring him for fear of facing his punishment. Despite the harsh laws, the society itself actually seems peaceful and prosperous.
- Dystopian Edict: Mitchell's society requires everyone to be friendly and warm to each other at all times. Anyone convicted of being "cold" and dismissive of the people around them must spend an entire year with a brand on their forehead that warns everyone else not to acknowledge their existence in any way, or else they will face the same punishment.
- Gender Flip: Mitchell meets an invisible woman who refuses to talk to him during his own sentence, and later acknowledges her presence once he has completed said sentence. In the short story by Robert Silverberg, the other invisible person was a man.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: The future government strictly enforces happiness and friendship between its citizens. Anyone who is convicted of being "cold", such as Mitchell, is branded on the forehead with a mark that says everyone must ignore them for an entire year.
- Heel–Face Turn: Mitchell's punishment helps him go from a cold-hearted jackass to a caring and sensitive individual. As the ending shows, it unfortunately worked too well.
- Here We Go Again!: When Mitchell spots the invisible woman he saw during his sentence, who begs him to acknowledge her, Mitchell gives her a comforting hug. The security drones immediately confront him, telling him that he's being sentenced to another year of invisibility. The closing narration notes that Mitchell faced his second sentence with pride, however.
- Hope Spot: When he uses his video phone to call the hospital after he's hit by a car, Mitchell is told by the nurse that his files can't be accessed nor can help be sent to him without faceprint identification. Mitchell tries to dodge having his face scanned by saying he's too wounded to look up, but the nurse insists on having him scanned if he wants help. Sure enough, Mitchell is forced to reveal his mark, which prompts the nurse to just hang up.
- Hypocrite: Mitchell's entire society apparently functions on hypocrisy, as being "cold" to everyone and ignoring their feelings is punished by having the offender face mandatory ignorance from everyone around them.
- Invisible Jerkass: Mitchell is punished for his dismissive attitude by being given an implant that ensures everyone must ignore him and act as if he was not there. He initially takes advantage of his status at first, serving himself in a restaurant, stealing booze from a liquor store, and ogling the women in a spa's steam room. He only learns that it's a punishment at all because he soon starts going crazy from having nobody to talk to. Everybody keeps ignoring him even when he gets hit by a car and needs medical attention, as the hospital can only assist someone in need by scanning their faceprint.
- Irony: Mitchell is sentenced to a year of invisibility for the crime of "coldness", yet he and others are forced to be "cold" towards other invisibles. In the end, he defies this and comforts an invisible woman who he had attempted to interact with while under punishment.
- In addition, Mitchell's punishment for his "crime" gives him the opportunity to commit actual crimes, since nobody can pay any attention to him.
- It's All About Me: Mitchell manages to chat with a blind old man named Bennett for a while before, before the old man is told that the stranger talking to him is "invisible". When alerted to this, Bennett mutters "Damn you!" and storms off.
- Karma Houdini: The two punks who run Mitchell over aren't punished for doing so, nor is anyone else who deliberately harms him or other invisibles.
- Mitchell himself spends the first few months of his sentence stealing food and drink and peeping in a women's locker room, which he presumably faces no punishment for.
- A Lesson Learned Too Well: Noted in the closing narration. Mitchell is sentenced to a year of "invisibility" for the crime of "coldness", because he is not emotionally open with his family or co-workers. Mitchell initially relishes the opportunity to do anything he wants with no repercussions, as everyone must ignore him or face the same punishment themselves. However, the incredible loneliness eventually gets to him, and he longs for human interaction. Six months into his sentence, he begs a similarly invisible woman to talk to him, but she refuses, not wanting her own sentence extended. Four months after his punishment has ended, the same woman approaches Mitchell and pleads with him to acknowledge her existence and ease her suffering. While Mitchell is initially reluctant, he gives the woman a hug and assures her that he can see her, and that he cares about her. Enforcement drones promptly swarm him and warn him that he's going to be punished with another year of invisibility.
- Mark of Shame: Mitchell is punished for his "coldness" by having a mark affixed to his forehead, which forces everyone else to shun him or face the same punishment.
- Mecha-Mooks: Floating security robots continuously monitor the citizens, keeping a close eye on Mitchell and the other invisibles to ensure that no one interacts with them.
- Named by the Adaptation: The names of the man sentenced to invisibility and the blind man who briefly talks to him are Mitchell Chaplin and Bennett Gershe, respectively. Their names are not given in the short story.
- Police Brutality: The cops(?) who bring Mitchell in for his punishment routinely hit and smack the guy to have him cooperate. They become much friendlier when his sentence his over.
- Punished for Sympathy: A paradoxical example. Mitchell is punished for "coldness" by becoming invisible, bearing a mark on his forehead so no one is allowed to acknowledge him. Eventually, he serves out his sentence and is allowed to re-enter society, but when he sees a woman facing the same punishment, he now has too much compassion and empathy to ignore her and gives her a hug, which leads to him getting another sentence of invisibility.
- Silent Treatment: Mitchell is convicted of the crime of "coldness" towards others and is sentenced to a year of "invisibility". He is forced to wear an implant on his forehead that alerts people that they are to ignore him and pretend not to see him no matter what. If they engage with him in any way, they themselves risk one year of invisibility. Invisibles who speak to each other also are not exempt from their own restrictions, having another year added to their sentences.
- Surveillance Drone: Floating security drones are constantly used to watch for people breaking laws, especially invisibles.
- Tempting Fate: At his sentencing, Mitchell thinks that a year of invisibility won't bother him at all. He's sorely mistaken as time goes by.
- Took a Level in Kindness:
- Mitchell receives a lot of compassion, empathy, and humility thanks to his sentence.
- The officers who implanted his mark also become a lot nicer to him when they remove it, offering to take him out for a drink, albeit menacingly.
- Unperson: Mitchell is sentenced to a year of being publicly ignored as a punishment for "coldness". The authorities affix a mark to his forehead so everyone else will know to shun him.
- Video Phone: Mitchell calls the hospital over a video phone in order to receive treatment after being hit by a car. The nurse informs him that he can only make an appointment via having his face scanned, and simply hangs up when she sees the implant on his forehead.
- World of Jerkass: The government has mandated that happiness and compassion are strictly enforced. Those who are found to be cold and dismissive are sentenced to "invisibility", which means that they can screw around with people all they want since they can't be acknowledged under the law. It also goes the other way, with people able to harm invisibles knowing they can't do anything about it.
"A small footnote found in the court records of some parallel world. The name of Mitchell, who served his sentence of invisibility and learned his lesson well. Too well. This time, however, he will wear his invisibility like a shield of glory. A shield forged in the very heart — of the Twilight Zone."
Tooth and Consequences
Dr. Myron Mandel (David Birney) is a dentist who suffers from chronic and suicidal depression, being continuously reminded that his line of work renders him as pathetic and worthless in everyone else's eyes, especially Lydia Bixby (Teresa Ganzel), the woman whom he longs for. When he botches an attempt to hang himself, Myron is rescued by a man identifying as the Tooth Fairy (Kenneth Mars), who decides to grant the hopeless dentist a wish. Myron uses his wish to have his dream girl fall in never-ending love for him, and to have him be the most popular man in his town. Myron soon discovers, however, that rampant popularity isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Tropes
- Alliterative Name: Myron Mandel.
- All Myths Are True: Myron learns that the Tooth Fairy is real, as he appears in his office to save his life, and then grants his wish to be respected and loved by his patients.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Tooth Fairy succeeds in ruining the lives of at least seven dentists and getting them to quit their jobs so people will lose their teeth faster, and he will probably do the same thing to other dentists until there are none left.
- Beard of Evil: The Tooth Fairy, who later screws Myron over, has a noticeable beard.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Myron is a severely depressed dentist who hates his job, largely because of the less-than-favorable reputation dentists are known to bear, wishing that Lydia would fall madly in love with him and his other patients will respect him and look forward to their appointments. The Tooth Fairy saves him from a suicide attempt and grants his wish, but Myron can no longer have a moment's peace, as his patients hound him at every turn and Lydia's love for him is suffocating. Myron is ultimately forced to leave town and hop a freight train to escape the admiration. He soon discovers that his boxcar is filled with hobos who used to be dentists themselves, all of whom suffered the exact same fate via the Tooth Fairy.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Tooth Fairy saves Myron from a nasty fall and tells Myron he’s come to grant him a wish because he helps desperate dentists in need. He grants Myron's wish for Lydia's love and his patients' respect. When the admiration becomes suffocating, Myron is forced to leave his life behind and hop a freight train to escape. He learns that all the hobos sharing his boxcar used to be dentists themselves, the Tooth Fairy having played the same ruse on them. It's there that the audience learns that the Tooth Fairy was using Myron and all the other dentists for his own means, getting them out of the way so he can keep collecting peoples' teeth. It's even worse because the Tooth Fairy met Myron saving his life from a failed suicide.
- Bottle Episode: The bulk of the episode is set in Myron's office/waiting room.
- Breather Episode: The first episode played things for horror, while the second played them for drama. This one plays things for dark comedy, letting things end on a somewhat humorous note.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor Myron is one unlucky man. At first, all his patients hate him, he can’t get a date to save his life, and he becomes so miserable that he tries to commit suicide. After the Tooth Fairy grants his wish to make Lydia fall in love with him and make people like him, the episode immediately skips to the near future, where he’s once again miserable due to Lydia and his patients smothering him, forcing him to quit his job, leave town, and become a hobo.
- Downer Ending: Myron gets his wish granted, but the constant adoration of everyone around him forces him to abandon everything and ditch town to become a hobo. It's played for laughs since his boxcar is filled with hobos who were once dentists themselves, as the Tooth Fairy played the same ruse with them.
- Driven to Suicide: Myron is severely depressed about his job and its reputation, which he frequently mentions to Dr. Pinkham, his therapist in the office next door. He meets the Tooth Fairy when he attempts to hang himself from the light fixture in his office, who rescues him.
- Dumb Blonde: Lydia Bixby, Myron's crush. When he tells her point blank that he's going to kill himself and morosely tells her to have a nice day, her only reaction is to wish him a nice day back in a cheery voice, not at all concerned about his intentions.
- Evil All Along: The Tooth Fairy grants Myron's wish, but gets him to leave town when his newfound popularity is too much to bear. The hobos in the freight train he escapes in tell him that they were all dentists, too, before the Tooth Fairy granted their wishes and got them out of the way so he can have more business.
- Evil Is Petty: The Tooth Fairy visits dentists and grants them wishes which backfire horribly enough to force them to become homeless bums, all so he can collect more teeth from kids.
- Get Out!: Myron throws all his patients out when he's in the midst of a manic-depressive episode.
- Hated by All: Myron is this before he makes his wish. Absolutely nobody likes or respects him even a little bit.
- Hobos: After Myron escapes his obsessive patients by hopping a freight train, he meets six hobos who were all former dentists, each of them having had a similar run-in with the Tooth Fairy.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: After the Tooth Fairy grants Myron’s wish for his patients to love him and be eager for an appointment with him, people act like getting an appointment with him would be the most amazing experience in the world. One man says that getting a root canal from Myron would be a day to tell his grandchildren about.
- Interrupted Suicide: In a lapse of severe depression, Myron is about to hang himself from the light fixture in his office, when Lydia enters looking for her lost hairbrush. Feeling that he has nothing to lose, Myron asks Lydia on a date, but she turns him down. After she leaves, Myron tries to hang himself again, but the light fixture breaks, resulting in him falling and landing in the arms of the Tooth Fairy.
- Jackass Genie: Myron wishes for the Tooth Fairy to make his crush, Lydia, love him back, and for his patients to like and respect him. The Tooth Fairy grants his wish, but Lydia's love is overwhelming and Myron’s patients won't leave him alone. He ends up hopping a freight train to get away from it all, where he meets other dentists who have gone through the same thing. Apparently, the Tooth Fairy is running a con by ruining the lives of dentists everywhere, because he wants more and more people to lose their teeth.
- Karma Houdini: The Tooth Fairy gets no punishment for ruining the lives of Myron and several other dentists.
- Laughing Gas: Myron routinely huffs the stuff to stop himself from hyperventilating. He still demeans himself while he's laughing, though.
- Lighter and Softer: This episode is a Black Comedy that features a suicidal dentist having a run in with the Tooth Fairy and wishing to be loved and respected, only to get really fed up with all of his newfound attention.
- Loser Protagonist: Myron feels that he is a complete failure, unworthy of love and respect, because of his occupation as a dentist. When the Tooth Fairy saves his life from a bungled suicide and offers to grant him a wish, he wishes that the love of his life will return his affection and his patients will like him and treat him with a great deal of respect. He soon grows tired of the nonstop admiration and ends up hopping a freight train to get away from it all. He meets six homeless men on the train who all turn out to have been dentists themselves, the Tooth Fairy having played the same ruse with them to ruin dentists everywhere so he'll have more business. If their wishes were all the same as Myron's, it can be safe to assume that every dentist on Earth is just as pathetic as him.
- Loved by All: Myron becomes this after the Tooth Fairy grants his wish. Lydia falls madly in love with him, and people treat him like a celebrity and flock to his office to get an appointment with him.
- No Sympathy: No one gives a single shred of sympathy to Myron and his very-real depression, with his therapist telling him to suck it up and stop hyperventilating, his receptionist quitting when he deems himself a failure, and one of his patients pitying the Eskimos he claims that he's going to do missionary work with. Lydia even tells him to have a nice day as he prepares to kill himself, though that's mainly because she's too dim to know any better.
- Offscreen Teleportation: This is how the Tooth Fairy arrives in Myron’s office, and later his waiting room. Subverted with his exits, where he simply walks away.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: In his manic depressive state of mind, Myron fires his receptionist (who quit a second beforehand) and throws out all his patients. Once he calms down, he bemoans the fact that this scenario has just happened again.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: It's a play on Truth or Consequences, obviously.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Tooth Fairy wears a red suit and black jacket, hinting that he's Evil All Along and aches to get rid of dentists so he can keep leaving kids quarters for their baby teeth.
- The Shrink: Dr. Pinkham, who has absolutely no sympathy for Myron's dilemma, whether he's suicidally depressed with his life or overwhelmed by his newfound success.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Myron's receptionist quits and storms out when she gets fed up with his constant self-loathing.
- Tooth Fairy: He appears as a bearded young-to-middle-aged man in a red and black suit who magically appears in Myron's office after his failed suicide, and offers to give him anything he wants. Myron wishes to be liked and respected by his patients, and for Lydia to fall madly in love with him. The constant adulation soon proves to be too much for Myron, and he leaves town by sneaking on a freight train. He meets six homeless men who all turn out to be former dentists, each of them having had their own run-ins with the Tooth Fairy. Learning that he was just another pawn in the Fairy's scheme to rid the world of dentists so he'll have more business, Myron relents to his fate and shares a can of beans one of the bums had been eating with a dental mirror.
- World of Jerkass: Dentists have it excruciatingly rough in this world, with Myron himself treated with disdain and a total lack of sympathy for his chronic depression and suicidal desires. The Tooth Fairy himself even gets him and several other dentists run out of business so he'll be free to keep leaving quarters under kids' pillows.
"Women, it is said, rarely go out with men who say "Now spit." A good example: Dr. Myron Mandel, who put a tooth under his pillow and wished for love, but probably — should've settled for a quarter."
