Wordplay
Businessman Bill Lowrey (Robert Klein) finds that his company is switching product lines to medical supplies, forcing him to stay up for whole nights to memorize the names of complex items to sell. Overtime, Bill slowly discovers that everyone around him is starting to use words in very different ways than what they usually mean. This phenomenon escalates to the point where all Bill hears from everyone around him is nonsensical gibberish, which becomes a critical situation when his son becomes ill with a potentially deadly disease.
Tropes
- Ambiguous Situation: It's kept ambiguous as to whether the English language has mysteriously changed for everyone except Bill, or it's Bill himself who is forgetting the meaning of words and we're seeing a Translation Convention from his perspective. Even then, we have no idea of what circumstances led to the change in the first place.
- Curse of Babel: Bill seemingly develops aphasia and gradually loses the ability to communicate with other people. The first indication of his condition is his wife Kathy telling him about a doctor named "Bumper". He comments on his unusual name, but thinks nothing more about it. When his neighbor Mr. Miller refers to his dog as an "encyclopedia", Bill thinks that he's in on a practical joke. However, he becomes agitated when mailroom attendant Robbie asks his advice on where to take his girlfriend Barbie for "dinosaur." Bill then assumes that this is a sort of New Wave slang, until Kathy uses the same word later that day. By the time that he goes to work the next morning, he's unable to understand anyone, while being equally incomprehensible to everyone else. This presents problems when his young son Donnie has to be rushed to the emergency room. After Donnie is successfully treated, Bill vows to learn the new language by heart. He picks up one of his son's ABC books and sees that the new word for dog is "Wednesday." Other new words include "mayonnaise" for "experience," "trumpets" for "tricks," "throw rug" for "anniversary," "stepdad" for "seatbelt", "sunflower" for "Sunday", and "elephant" for "emergency." Bill's own name is changed to "Hinge Thunder".
- Foreshadowing: Donnie's first appearance has Kathy telling Bill that he's got a runny nose and a fever. The episode's climax has the sickness worsening to the point where the kid is rushed to the ER, which is complicated when Bill's aphasia worsens to the point where he can't understand anyone, nor can they understand him.
- Language Barrier: Bill discovers that the English language has apparently changed overnight after he starts hearing the wrong words in other people's speech. The number of these words increases until they're the only things he can hear. The episode ends with him slowly starting to learn the new version of English so he can understand everyone else.
- Lighter and Softer: As Twilight Zone stories go, this one is very light. Bill's condition is distressing and life-changing, especially because he has to try saving his son's life while being unable to communicate. However, his son survives, and he ends the story taking the first steps to adapt to his new reality.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending: Despite Donnie's illness turning into pneumonia, Bill and Kathy manage to get him to the hospital on time, despite Bill's aphasia. That said, the episode not only ends on the peaceful scene of Bill and Kathy having a quiet dinner with the knowledge that Donnie will be okay, but on the note that Bill will learn to adjust to the sudden change his world has taken.
"A question trembles in the silence: why did this remarkable thing happen to this perfectly ordinary man?" (...) "It may not matter why the world shifted so drastically for him. Existence is slippery at the best of times. What does matter is that Bill Lowery isn't ordinary. He's one of us. A man determined to prevail in the world that was, and the world that is, or the world that will be — in the Twilight Zone."
Dreams for Sale
While on a country picnic with her husband and twin daughters, a young woman (Meg Foster) finds things repeating themselves, as well as her husband developing a peculiar stutter. When she learns the truth about why these events are occuring, she learns that reality isn't what it appears to be, and that the alternative may not be as better.
Tropes
- A Glitch in the Matrix: The woman starts the episode having a lovely picnic in the country with her husband Paul and their twin daughters, until she starts to notice unusual things happening. Notably, Paul opens the same bottle of champagne twice, a chicken reappears inside the picnic basket when she takes it out, Paul asking her if she is okay three times in the span of a few seconds, and the fact that he develops an electronic stutter. She then wakes up to find herself connected to a Dreamatron, a fully interactive dream machine which had been running a "Country Picnic" simulation for her. When she reenters the simulation and tells Paul about the "dream" she just had, the Dreamatron short circuits, as if telling the simulation that it was a simulation made the machine malfunction.
- Broken Record: Paul keeps repeating himself as the simulation malfunctions.
- Crapsack World: The future where the short is set is painted as one with the brief screen time it has. Everything is sterilized and revolves around continuous labor, the only reprieve the workers have being the Dreamatrons, which are limited to 10-minute increments. The maintenance worker's throwaway line, where he dubs the woman as "a runaway" as the Dreamatron malfunctions, also hints that the government in power is totalitarian.
- Electronic Speech Impediment: Paul's voice stutters and becomes increasingly warbly as the Dreamatron simulation malfunctions.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: When not on shift, the workers in the future world are connected to Dreamatrons, machines that create fully interactive dreams depicting idyllic or exciting worlds. The options include "Jail Break", "Caribbean Cruise", and in our dreamer's case, "Country Picnic".
- No Name Given: The woman we follow isn't given a name.
- Prefers the Illusion: The woman decides to remain in the "Country Picnic" simulation created by the Dreamatron, where she is happily married to Paul and has two daughters instead of returning to work in a sterile, future world. When she tells Paul about the "dream" she had in the future world, the Dreamatron suffers a fatal error and burns out. As she tells Paul that she wants to stay with him forever, she dies with a smile on her face, her mind seemingly uploaded into the machine.
- Spoiler Title: The title makes it obvious that the woman's idyllic country picnic isn't real.
Chameleon
When NASA space shuttle Discovery returns to Mission Control after its latest flight, the crew discovers that a malfunctioning camera was actually housing a being of pure energy that hitched a ride to Earth. The crew soon learn that the being can absorb people, as well as take on the appearance of those it has absorbed. It can also appear as objects and people from their memories, and tries to bluff the crew into releasing it by shifting into an active nuclear device.
Tropes
- Ambiguous Situation: Did the people who were absorbed by the alien actually agree to stay as a part of the collective (as it said), or did it basically kill them for their knowledge? If the former is true, then did it really shapeshift into Simmons and Heilman, or was it really them who came out and spoke for the collective?
- Energy Being: One of them hitches a ride on Discovery and is unknowingly brought back to Earth. It has the ability to absorb any object or person into itself, and transform itself into either them or anything from their memories. For instance, after absorbing Crew Chief Simmons, it imitates both him and his wife Kate. Later, it absorbs weapons expert Dr. Vaughn Heilman and changes itself into a nuclear bomb in order to coerce the NASA scientists studying it into letting it go.
- For Science!: When asked why it came to Earth aboard Discovery, the energy being, in the appearance of Dr. Heilman, tells him that it was "just curious."
- Karma Houdini: The energy being gets away with absorbing two people and nearly destroying NASA with a nuclear explosion all for its own curiosity.
- Klaatu Barada Nikto: Gerald quotes the line during a discussion about The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) with Simmons.
- Stock Footage: Footage of a NASA shuttle in orbit, astronauts on a spacewalk, and the shuttle returning to Earth, all accompanied by voiceover, is used to represent Discovery in the opening scene.
- Surprisingly Mundane Reason: When asked why they chose to come to Earth and study its people (abducting/absorbing two of them), the titular alien responds with "Just curious."
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The energy being is capable of changing its appearance to any object or person it absorbs, as well as things from their memories.
"Imagine yourself a visitor to many worlds, drifting on the solar wind, a thousand voices singing in your memory. Now imagine you're this man, who can only guess at the wonders he might have known. Wonders that exist for him now, only as a riddle — from The Twilight Zone."
