I'm a fan of the original Twilight Zone, and it is one of the early TV shows that had strong social commentary. Of course, some of the episodes were more heavy-handed than others. I often agree with the message either way.
I just got done watching for the first time, "The Old Man in the Cave". It is a post atomic story about the remaining few hundred humans in the world living in a radioactive waste. It focuses on a small group of individuals who have survived the past 10 years by listening to
The eponymous old man in the cave. A group of raiders who may or may not have been soldiers at one point come to the town and attempt to take it over. The leader of the group explains about the old man in the cave, and the raiders don't believe him.
It turns out that no one has ever seen or spoken to this old man, and the leader of the group is the only one who has any contact with him. The old man has helped the village by telling them what food is edible and what food is radioactive and toxic, as well as where to plant.
When the villagers don't listen to the old man, and plants where he tells them not to, their food comes out mangled and rotten. At the end of the story when the raiders finally help the town get into the cave, it is revealed that the old man is really a computer.
The Raiders and the villagers destroy the computer, and proceed to eat food and drink drinks that the computer has deemed to be toxic. The leader of the town abstains from consuming anything. The next morning, everyone in the town except the leader is dead.
The leader of the town speaks to the dead leader of the raiders, and expresses that mankind not only did this to themselves, but in this case it was their ultimate lack of faith that got them killed. I couldn't disagree with this conclusion more.
The townspeople had clear evidence that the computer was able to tell what things were good and what things were bad, they had clear evidence that the computer knew where to plant and where not to.
They threw away their lives because they didn't listen to all of the evidence that they had stacked up for them over the last 10 years. Because they were hungry, but not starving, surviving but not thriving, they listened to a charismatic stranger,
Instead of listening to the person who has kept them alive for all of those years. Twilight Zone doesn't normally get it wrong, most of the time I agree with Rod Serling's conclusions. This one simply irritated me to no end.
unroll
