The Twilight Zone (1959) s02e06 Episode Script
The Eye of the Beholder
You're traveling through another dimension- a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.
A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.
That's the signpost up ahead.
Your next stop, the twilight zone.
Nurse? Time for your sleeping medicine, honey.
Is it night already? It's 9:30.
Oh.
What about the day? Oh, what about it? Well, was it a beautiful day? Was it warm? Was the sun out? It was kind of warm.
Yes and clouds? Were there clouds in the sky? I suppose there were.
I never was much for staring up at the sky.
No? I used to like to look at the clouds.
If you stare at them long enough, they become things.
You know what i mean? People, ships, anything you want, really.
It's time to take your temperature now.
Oh, please, one more thing, nurse.
Well? When will they take the bandages off? How long, nurse? Until they decide whether or not they can fix your face.
Oh, i guess it's pretty bad, isn't it? I've seen worse.
Well, yes, but it's pretty bad, isn't it? Oh, i know it's pretty bad.
Ever since i can remember- ever since i was a little girl- people have turned away when they looked at me.
Funny the very first thing i can remember is another little child screaming when she looked at me.
I i never really wanted to be beautiful, you know.
I mean, i never wanted to look like a painting.
I never even wanted to be loved, really.
I just wanted people not to scream when they looked at me.
When, nurse? When? When? When will they take the bandages off? Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe the next day.
Now hush.
You've been waiting so long now.
It doesn't really make much difference whether it's two weeks or days now.
Does it? Dr.
Bernardi, evening report on patient 307: No temperature change, resting comfortably.
Thank you, nurse.
I'll be down later.
Ever see her face- 307? Indeed i have.
If it were mine, i'd bury myself in a grave someplace.
Poor thing.
Some people want to live no matter what.
Cigarette? Suspended in time and space for a moment, your introduction to miss janet tyler, who lives in a very private world of darkness, a universe whose dimensions are the size, thickness, length of the swath of bandages that cover her face.
In a moment, we'll go back into this room.
And also, in a moment, we'll look under those bandages, keeping in mind, of course, that we're not to be surprised by what we see because this isn't just a hospital, and this patient 307 is not just a woman.
This happens to be the twilight zone, and miss janet tyler, with you, is about to enter it.
Blood pressure and temperature are normal, doctor.
There's been no change.
All right.
Come back about 11:00, nurse.
Give her the usual sedative then.
All right, doctor.
Well, it's warm this evening, miss tyler.
Yes, i thought it was, but i couldn't be sure.
Well, it's very warm.
Take my word for that.
We'll have those bandages off you very soon.
I expect you're pretty uncomfortable.
Well, i'm used to bandages on my face.
I have no doubt.
It's your ninth visit here.
It is the ninth? The 11th.
You know, sometimes i i think i've lived my whole life inside of a dark cave with walls of gauze, and the wind that blows into the mouth of the cave smells of ether and disinfectant.
Of course there's a there's a kind of a comfort living inside this cave- wonderfully private.
Nobody can ever see you.
It's hopeless, isn't it, doctor? I'll never look any different than now.
Well, that's hard to say.
Up to now, you haven't responded to the shots, the medications- any of the proven techniques.
Frankly, you've stumped us, miss tyler.
Nothing we've done so far has made any difference at all.
However, we're very hopeful for what this last treatment may have accomplished.
There's no telling, of course, till we get the bandages off.
I'm sorry your case is not one that we could have handled with plastic surgery, but your bone structure, flesh type many factors prohibit the surgical approach.
Your 11th visit.
No more after this, doctor.
No more tries.
of experiments.
We're not permitted to do any more after 11.
Now what, doctor? Well, you're kind of jumping the gun, aren't you, miss tyler? You may very well have responded to these last injections.
There's no way of telling till we get the bandages off.
And, if i haven't responded, then what? Well, there are alternatives.
Like? Don't you know? Yes, i know.
You realize, of course, miss tyler, why these rules are in effect.
Each of us is afforded as much opportunity as possible to fit in with society.
In your case, think of the time and the money and the effort expended to make you look look like what, doctor? Normal.
The way you'd like to look.
Doctor doctor may i walk outside? Please, may i? May i just go and and sit in the garden? Just just for a little while.
Just just to feel the air.
Just just to smell the flowers.
Just just to make believe i am normal? If if i sit out there in the darkness, then the whole world is dark, and i'm more a part of it like that, not just one grotesque, ugly woman with a bandage on her face with a special darkness all around.
I want to belong.
I want to be like everybody.
Please, doctor.
Please help me.
There are many others who share your misfortune- people who look much as you do.
Now, one of the alternatives just in the event that this last treatment is not successful, is simply to allow you to move into a special area in which people of your kind have been congregated.
People of my kind? Congregated.
Oh, you mean segregated! You mean imprisoned, don't you, doctor? You're talking about a ghetto, aren't you? A ghetto designed for freaks! Miss tyler! Now, the state is not unsympathetic.
Your presence here in this hospital is proof of that.
It's doing all it can for you.
But you're not being rational, miss tyler.
Now, you know you can't expect to live any kind of a life among normal people.
I could try.
I i could wear a mask or this bandage or i wouldn't bother anybody.
I'd just go my own way.
I'd get a job.
Any job! I who are you people anyway? What is this state? Who makes all these rules and conditions and statutes: The people who are different have to stay away from the people who are normal.
The state isn't god, doctor.
Miss tyler, please, please.
The state is not god! It hasn't the right to penalize somebody for an accident of birth! It hasn't the right to make ugliness a crime! Miss tyler! Miss tyler, stop this immediately.
I feel the night out there.
I feel the air.
I can smell the flowers.
Oh oh, please.
Please, take this off me, please.
Please, take this off me.
Oh, please, take this off me! Take it off me! Help! Somebody, help me! Help! No, no, no.
Let me go.
Please, let me go.
Let me go, please.
Oh, please.
Please, let me go.
Please, please, let me all right, then.
I will take the bandages off.
Get the anesthetist.
Yes, doctor.
You look tired, doctor.
Do i? Well, i hadn't thought about it.
I suppose i am.
You've been under a great deal of tension.
I know how much it means to you- this case in 307.
Well, you try to be impersonal about these things.
You do everything medically possible, everything humanly possible and then, in the end, you cross your fingers and you hope for a miracle.
You know, once in a while, a miracle does happen just often enough to let you know that you're not wrong or foolish to hope for one.
But you're destroying yourself this way.
Forgive me, but you mustn't let yourself get personally involved here.
I know.
You think i haven't told myself that? But you see, nurse, i've i've looked underneath those bandages.
So have i.
It's horrible.
No, i mean deeper than that.
Deeper than that pitiful, twisted lump of flesh- deeper even than that misshapen skeletal mask.
I've seen that woman's real face, nurse- the face of her real self.
It's a good face.
It's a human face.
I understand, but i must confess, it's easier for me to think of her as human when her face is covered up.
But why? Why must we feel that way, nurse? What is the dimensional difference between beauty and something repellant? Is it skin deep? Oh, less than that.
Why, nurse? Why shouldn't people be allowed to be different? Why? Doctor, careful.
What you're talking is treason.
Oh, this case has upset your balance- your sense of values.
Well, i suppose.
Don't be concerned, nurse.
I'll be all right once the bandages are off.
Once iknowone way or the other.
Leader's speaking tonight.
He goes on in just a few minutes.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, our leader.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Tonight, i shall talk to you about glorious conformity.
About the delight and the ultimate pleasure of our unified society.
Now, i have to ask you once again, miss tyler.
And i must insist that you promise you'll remain rational, no tantrums, no temperament, and no violence.
You understand? Now, i'll tell you precisely what i'm going to do.
I'm going to cut the bandages a section at a time, then i'm going to unwrap the bandages very gradually.
The process has to be slow, so that your eyes can become accustomed to the light.
As you know, these injections may have had some effect on your vision.
I understand.
So now, as i unwrap, i want you to keep your eyes open, and i want you to describe to me the various shadings of light as you perceive it.
All right.
Now, if you make any movement, or if you start getting emotional on us, miss tyler, i'm going to have to have the nurses hold you down, and have the anesthetist put you under sedation, you understand.
I promise i won't.
All right, then.
Do you see any light now, miss tyler? Oh, just a little.
It looks gray.
All right, now.
Just be very quiet.
Now, miss tyler? Oh, it it's much brighter.
Good, good.
Look- look up toward the light.
How about now, miss tyler? Oh, yes, it it's very bright.
Good, good.
Now i'm at the last layer of bandages, miss tyler.
Oh i, i can just see you.
I can just distinguish your outline vaguely, but i can just see you.
Good.
All right, miss tyler, i'm going to remove the last of the bandages now.
Would you like a mirror? No.
No, thank you.
No mirror.
All right, then.
I want you to remember this, please.
Miss tyler, are you listening? Yes, i'm listening.
Now, we have done all we could do.
If we've been successful, well and good.
There are no problems.
But if, on the other hand, this final treatment has not achieved the desired result, please remember, miss tyler, that you can still live a long and fruitful life among people of your own kind.
Now, as soon as we discover the results, we'll either release you or doctor? Yes? If i'm still terribly ugly well, is there any other alternative? Could i please be put away? Well, under certain circumstances, miss tyler, the state does provide for the extermination of undesirables.
However, there are many factors to be considered in the decision.
Under the present circumstances, i i doubt very much whether we would be permitted to do anything but transfer you to a communal group of people with your disability.
They'll make me go, then? That would probably be the case.
Now, remain very quiet.
Keep your eyes open.
All right, miss tyler here comes the last of it.
I wish you every good luck.
No change.
No change at all.
I was afraid of this.
Turn on the light.
Needle, please.
Life at the stop that patient! Stop her! We know now that there must be a single purpose, a single norm, a single approach, a single entity of people, a single virtue, a single morality, a single frame of reference, a single philosophy of government.
We must cut out all that is different like a cancerous filth! It is essential, in this society, that we not only have a norm but that we conform to that norm! Differences weaken us! Variations destroy us! this norm is what has ended nations and brought them to their knees! Conformity, we must worship in all interests! Conformity is the key to survival! Miss tyler.
Miss tyler, don't be afraid.
He's he's only a representative from the group you're going to live with.
Oddly enough, you've come right to him.
Now, come on now.
Don't be afraid.
He's not going to hurt you.
He won't hurt you.
Don't be afraid.
It's all right.
It's all right, miss tyler.
Now, this is mr.
Smith.
Mr.
Walter smith.
Mr.
Smith is in charge of the village group in the north.
He'll take you there tonight.
It's the only way now.
Miss tyler, we have a lovely village and wonderful people.
I think you're going to like it where i'm going to take you.
You'll, uh you'll be with your own kind, and in a little while- oh, you'll be amazed how little a while- you'll feel a sense of great belonging.
You'll feel a sense of being loved and you will be loved, miss tyler.
Miss tyler would you get your things now? We can leave anytime.
Mr.
Smith? Yes? Why do we have to look like this? I don't know, miss tyler; i really don't know.
But you know something? It doesn't matter.
There's an old saying a very, very old saying: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
" When we leave here, when we go to the village, try to think of that, miss tyler.
Say it over and over to yourself.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Come on now.
We'll get your things and we'll leave.
Good-bye, miss tyler.
Now the questions that come to mind: Where is this place and when is it? What kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm? You want an answer? It doesn't make any difference because the old saying happens to be true- beautyis in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence, on this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out amongst the stars.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Lesson to be learned in the twilight zone.
Rod serling, the creator oftwlight zone, will tell you about next week's story after this word from our alternate sponsor.
And now, mr.
Serling.
You've probably run across these penny machines that tell your fortune.
You put a penny in and out comes a card.
Only this particular machine, which you'll see next week, is a little bit unique, in that the fortunes that it tells happen to come true.
A most intriguing tale, called "the nick of time," by mr.
Richard matheson.
And you're invited to partake of it.
Thank you and good night.
See the new andy griffith show each week, over most of these stations.
Consult local listings.
A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.
That's the signpost up ahead.
Your next stop, the twilight zone.
Nurse? Time for your sleeping medicine, honey.
Is it night already? It's 9:30.
Oh.
What about the day? Oh, what about it? Well, was it a beautiful day? Was it warm? Was the sun out? It was kind of warm.
Yes and clouds? Were there clouds in the sky? I suppose there were.
I never was much for staring up at the sky.
No? I used to like to look at the clouds.
If you stare at them long enough, they become things.
You know what i mean? People, ships, anything you want, really.
It's time to take your temperature now.
Oh, please, one more thing, nurse.
Well? When will they take the bandages off? How long, nurse? Until they decide whether or not they can fix your face.
Oh, i guess it's pretty bad, isn't it? I've seen worse.
Well, yes, but it's pretty bad, isn't it? Oh, i know it's pretty bad.
Ever since i can remember- ever since i was a little girl- people have turned away when they looked at me.
Funny the very first thing i can remember is another little child screaming when she looked at me.
I i never really wanted to be beautiful, you know.
I mean, i never wanted to look like a painting.
I never even wanted to be loved, really.
I just wanted people not to scream when they looked at me.
When, nurse? When? When? When will they take the bandages off? Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe the next day.
Now hush.
You've been waiting so long now.
It doesn't really make much difference whether it's two weeks or days now.
Does it? Dr.
Bernardi, evening report on patient 307: No temperature change, resting comfortably.
Thank you, nurse.
I'll be down later.
Ever see her face- 307? Indeed i have.
If it were mine, i'd bury myself in a grave someplace.
Poor thing.
Some people want to live no matter what.
Cigarette? Suspended in time and space for a moment, your introduction to miss janet tyler, who lives in a very private world of darkness, a universe whose dimensions are the size, thickness, length of the swath of bandages that cover her face.
In a moment, we'll go back into this room.
And also, in a moment, we'll look under those bandages, keeping in mind, of course, that we're not to be surprised by what we see because this isn't just a hospital, and this patient 307 is not just a woman.
This happens to be the twilight zone, and miss janet tyler, with you, is about to enter it.
Blood pressure and temperature are normal, doctor.
There's been no change.
All right.
Come back about 11:00, nurse.
Give her the usual sedative then.
All right, doctor.
Well, it's warm this evening, miss tyler.
Yes, i thought it was, but i couldn't be sure.
Well, it's very warm.
Take my word for that.
We'll have those bandages off you very soon.
I expect you're pretty uncomfortable.
Well, i'm used to bandages on my face.
I have no doubt.
It's your ninth visit here.
It is the ninth? The 11th.
You know, sometimes i i think i've lived my whole life inside of a dark cave with walls of gauze, and the wind that blows into the mouth of the cave smells of ether and disinfectant.
Of course there's a there's a kind of a comfort living inside this cave- wonderfully private.
Nobody can ever see you.
It's hopeless, isn't it, doctor? I'll never look any different than now.
Well, that's hard to say.
Up to now, you haven't responded to the shots, the medications- any of the proven techniques.
Frankly, you've stumped us, miss tyler.
Nothing we've done so far has made any difference at all.
However, we're very hopeful for what this last treatment may have accomplished.
There's no telling, of course, till we get the bandages off.
I'm sorry your case is not one that we could have handled with plastic surgery, but your bone structure, flesh type many factors prohibit the surgical approach.
Your 11th visit.
No more after this, doctor.
No more tries.
of experiments.
We're not permitted to do any more after 11.
Now what, doctor? Well, you're kind of jumping the gun, aren't you, miss tyler? You may very well have responded to these last injections.
There's no way of telling till we get the bandages off.
And, if i haven't responded, then what? Well, there are alternatives.
Like? Don't you know? Yes, i know.
You realize, of course, miss tyler, why these rules are in effect.
Each of us is afforded as much opportunity as possible to fit in with society.
In your case, think of the time and the money and the effort expended to make you look look like what, doctor? Normal.
The way you'd like to look.
Doctor doctor may i walk outside? Please, may i? May i just go and and sit in the garden? Just just for a little while.
Just just to feel the air.
Just just to smell the flowers.
Just just to make believe i am normal? If if i sit out there in the darkness, then the whole world is dark, and i'm more a part of it like that, not just one grotesque, ugly woman with a bandage on her face with a special darkness all around.
I want to belong.
I want to be like everybody.
Please, doctor.
Please help me.
There are many others who share your misfortune- people who look much as you do.
Now, one of the alternatives just in the event that this last treatment is not successful, is simply to allow you to move into a special area in which people of your kind have been congregated.
People of my kind? Congregated.
Oh, you mean segregated! You mean imprisoned, don't you, doctor? You're talking about a ghetto, aren't you? A ghetto designed for freaks! Miss tyler! Now, the state is not unsympathetic.
Your presence here in this hospital is proof of that.
It's doing all it can for you.
But you're not being rational, miss tyler.
Now, you know you can't expect to live any kind of a life among normal people.
I could try.
I i could wear a mask or this bandage or i wouldn't bother anybody.
I'd just go my own way.
I'd get a job.
Any job! I who are you people anyway? What is this state? Who makes all these rules and conditions and statutes: The people who are different have to stay away from the people who are normal.
The state isn't god, doctor.
Miss tyler, please, please.
The state is not god! It hasn't the right to penalize somebody for an accident of birth! It hasn't the right to make ugliness a crime! Miss tyler! Miss tyler, stop this immediately.
I feel the night out there.
I feel the air.
I can smell the flowers.
Oh oh, please.
Please, take this off me, please.
Please, take this off me.
Oh, please, take this off me! Take it off me! Help! Somebody, help me! Help! No, no, no.
Let me go.
Please, let me go.
Let me go, please.
Oh, please.
Please, let me go.
Please, please, let me all right, then.
I will take the bandages off.
Get the anesthetist.
Yes, doctor.
You look tired, doctor.
Do i? Well, i hadn't thought about it.
I suppose i am.
You've been under a great deal of tension.
I know how much it means to you- this case in 307.
Well, you try to be impersonal about these things.
You do everything medically possible, everything humanly possible and then, in the end, you cross your fingers and you hope for a miracle.
You know, once in a while, a miracle does happen just often enough to let you know that you're not wrong or foolish to hope for one.
But you're destroying yourself this way.
Forgive me, but you mustn't let yourself get personally involved here.
I know.
You think i haven't told myself that? But you see, nurse, i've i've looked underneath those bandages.
So have i.
It's horrible.
No, i mean deeper than that.
Deeper than that pitiful, twisted lump of flesh- deeper even than that misshapen skeletal mask.
I've seen that woman's real face, nurse- the face of her real self.
It's a good face.
It's a human face.
I understand, but i must confess, it's easier for me to think of her as human when her face is covered up.
But why? Why must we feel that way, nurse? What is the dimensional difference between beauty and something repellant? Is it skin deep? Oh, less than that.
Why, nurse? Why shouldn't people be allowed to be different? Why? Doctor, careful.
What you're talking is treason.
Oh, this case has upset your balance- your sense of values.
Well, i suppose.
Don't be concerned, nurse.
I'll be all right once the bandages are off.
Once iknowone way or the other.
Leader's speaking tonight.
He goes on in just a few minutes.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, our leader.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Tonight, i shall talk to you about glorious conformity.
About the delight and the ultimate pleasure of our unified society.
Now, i have to ask you once again, miss tyler.
And i must insist that you promise you'll remain rational, no tantrums, no temperament, and no violence.
You understand? Now, i'll tell you precisely what i'm going to do.
I'm going to cut the bandages a section at a time, then i'm going to unwrap the bandages very gradually.
The process has to be slow, so that your eyes can become accustomed to the light.
As you know, these injections may have had some effect on your vision.
I understand.
So now, as i unwrap, i want you to keep your eyes open, and i want you to describe to me the various shadings of light as you perceive it.
All right.
Now, if you make any movement, or if you start getting emotional on us, miss tyler, i'm going to have to have the nurses hold you down, and have the anesthetist put you under sedation, you understand.
I promise i won't.
All right, then.
Do you see any light now, miss tyler? Oh, just a little.
It looks gray.
All right, now.
Just be very quiet.
Now, miss tyler? Oh, it it's much brighter.
Good, good.
Look- look up toward the light.
How about now, miss tyler? Oh, yes, it it's very bright.
Good, good.
Now i'm at the last layer of bandages, miss tyler.
Oh i, i can just see you.
I can just distinguish your outline vaguely, but i can just see you.
Good.
All right, miss tyler, i'm going to remove the last of the bandages now.
Would you like a mirror? No.
No, thank you.
No mirror.
All right, then.
I want you to remember this, please.
Miss tyler, are you listening? Yes, i'm listening.
Now, we have done all we could do.
If we've been successful, well and good.
There are no problems.
But if, on the other hand, this final treatment has not achieved the desired result, please remember, miss tyler, that you can still live a long and fruitful life among people of your own kind.
Now, as soon as we discover the results, we'll either release you or doctor? Yes? If i'm still terribly ugly well, is there any other alternative? Could i please be put away? Well, under certain circumstances, miss tyler, the state does provide for the extermination of undesirables.
However, there are many factors to be considered in the decision.
Under the present circumstances, i i doubt very much whether we would be permitted to do anything but transfer you to a communal group of people with your disability.
They'll make me go, then? That would probably be the case.
Now, remain very quiet.
Keep your eyes open.
All right, miss tyler here comes the last of it.
I wish you every good luck.
No change.
No change at all.
I was afraid of this.
Turn on the light.
Needle, please.
Life at the stop that patient! Stop her! We know now that there must be a single purpose, a single norm, a single approach, a single entity of people, a single virtue, a single morality, a single frame of reference, a single philosophy of government.
We must cut out all that is different like a cancerous filth! It is essential, in this society, that we not only have a norm but that we conform to that norm! Differences weaken us! Variations destroy us! this norm is what has ended nations and brought them to their knees! Conformity, we must worship in all interests! Conformity is the key to survival! Miss tyler.
Miss tyler, don't be afraid.
He's he's only a representative from the group you're going to live with.
Oddly enough, you've come right to him.
Now, come on now.
Don't be afraid.
He's not going to hurt you.
He won't hurt you.
Don't be afraid.
It's all right.
It's all right, miss tyler.
Now, this is mr.
Smith.
Mr.
Walter smith.
Mr.
Smith is in charge of the village group in the north.
He'll take you there tonight.
It's the only way now.
Miss tyler, we have a lovely village and wonderful people.
I think you're going to like it where i'm going to take you.
You'll, uh you'll be with your own kind, and in a little while- oh, you'll be amazed how little a while- you'll feel a sense of great belonging.
You'll feel a sense of being loved and you will be loved, miss tyler.
Miss tyler would you get your things now? We can leave anytime.
Mr.
Smith? Yes? Why do we have to look like this? I don't know, miss tyler; i really don't know.
But you know something? It doesn't matter.
There's an old saying a very, very old saying: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
" When we leave here, when we go to the village, try to think of that, miss tyler.
Say it over and over to yourself.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Come on now.
We'll get your things and we'll leave.
Good-bye, miss tyler.
Now the questions that come to mind: Where is this place and when is it? What kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm? You want an answer? It doesn't make any difference because the old saying happens to be true- beautyis in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence, on this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out amongst the stars.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Lesson to be learned in the twilight zone.
Rod serling, the creator oftwlight zone, will tell you about next week's story after this word from our alternate sponsor.
And now, mr.
Serling.
You've probably run across these penny machines that tell your fortune.
You put a penny in and out comes a card.
Only this particular machine, which you'll see next week, is a little bit unique, in that the fortunes that it tells happen to come true.
A most intriguing tale, called "the nick of time," by mr.
Richard matheson.
And you're invited to partake of it.
Thank you and good night.
See the new andy griffith show each week, over most of these stations.
Consult local listings.