Five No's
“That’s the question we asked ourselves.
A question with no answer Major.
We’re nameless things with no memory.
No knowledge of what went before.
No understanding of what is now.
The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episode 14
Directed by Lamont Johnson, Written by Rod Serling, adapted from the story “The Depository” by Marvin Petal Wiki Page-> Five Characters in Search of an Exit
This is one of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes, and I came across it referenced in a YouTube autoplay-moment of this video. It’s far more related to the theater of the Absurd, and related plays, No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre and Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. I’m not the biggest fan of Sartre, and though I’ve read No Exit, won’t weigh in on it here. I haven’t read Six Characters, so I’ll also save that for another time. That said, I really liked this episode, you can find it on Hulu or Amazon if you haven’t seen it. I also chose it because the number in the title matched the day. I also buy wine based on label, it’s fun sometimes, try it.
It opens with the standard Twilight Zone narration, explaining the situation, five individuals find themselves trapped in a cylinder. No explanation, no cause, nothing. It feels very much like situations found in other works, like Kafka’s Trial, where things are happening without explanation or inputs from the other characters. We’re certainly waiting for the twist, since it’s Twilight Zone, but speckled throughout the scene are the questions about existence and life, including some really great ones from the clown and hobo. I chose the one above because I found it most representative of the absurdist situation:
No answers
No memory
No knowledge of before
No understanding of now
No knowledge of what will be
It is also a nice five points for the fifth day of the year, in a story about five characters. Essentially it is the human condition in a nutshell, or in this case cylinder. I’m not sure I like the “comforting” thoughts at the end, but it’s an otherwise excellent watch.
