The Obsolete Man (America if the Obama left gets their way)

YouTube ^ | June 2, 1961 | Rod Serling

[St. Louis Conservative]

One of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes of all-time. The middle part is cut out, but the opening dialogue is timeless.

Here's the link.

[RegulatorCountry]

Obbb-Sooo-Leeete!

[sionnsar]

For those of us without video capability, what does it say?

[RegulatorCountry]

I didn’t watch the video, am hampered with a slow connection. It is one of the more memorable episodes, Burgess Meredith, I believe. Bookish, again, runs afoul of the totalitarian government, and is declared obsolete, sentenced to the death of his choosing on live television. Chooses to have his accuser on tv with him, claims to have his apartment rigged with a bomb, and the great omnipotent judge is revealed as a snivelling coward to the nation, eventually hauled up in front of the futuristic star chamber and obsoleted himself.

[St. Louis Conservative]

In a future totalitarian state, Romney Wordsworth (Meredith) is a man put on trial for the crime of being “obsolete.” Publicly, he’s a carpenter. Secretly, he is a librarian (a profession punishable by death, as the State has eliminated literacy) and believes in God (also punishable by death, as the State has declared that there is no God). He is prosecuted by the chancellor (Weaver), who expresses in front of the assembled court that Wordsworth, in not being an asset to the State, shall be liquidated.

After being convicted of obsolescence, Wordsworth is given a choice as to his method of dying. Drawing a somewhat questioning reaction from the court, he cryptically requests that he be granted a personal assassin to whom he may disclose his preferred method of death. He also requests that his execution be broadcast live via television.

Later, a camera is installed in Wordsworth’s study to broadcast live to the nation, so its citizens may see the condemned in his final hours. He summons the chancellor, who shows up at 11:15 PM. After some discussion, Wordsworth reveals to the unsuspecting chancellor that he has locked the door, and that his chosen method of death is by an explosive hidden in the room and set to go off at midnight. He intends to show the nation how a spiritual man faces death, and proceeds to read the verses of Psalm 23 and the beginning of Psalm 53, among others, from his illegal and thus cherished Bible. He also points out that, as the events are being broadcast live, the State will risk losing face by trying to rescue a high-ranking chancellor. As the time winds down, Wordsworth’s calm acceptance of death stands in sharp contrast with the chancellor’s increasing panic.

Moments before the bomb explodes, the chancellor, in a desperate plea, finally begs the old man to let him go: “In the name of God, let me out!” Wordsworth immediately obliges, but not without repeating the mention of God—which the State had “proven” not to exist.

The chancellor bursts out of the room and down the stairs just as the bomb explodes and kills Wordsworth.

In the final scene, the chancellor, now stripped of his rank and reduced to a criminal, is declared obsolete.

[Paladin2]

A librarian named Wordsworth? How quaint.

[RegulatorCountry]

It was a recurring character played by Burgess Meredith, I believe. There was another, where he was in the basement archives of a huge library, perhaps the Library Of Congress, when nuclear war broke out and destroyed everything, and apparently everyone else. Being such a bookish recluse, thick nerd glasses and all, he began to be rather happy with all the time he’d have for all those books. Then, he stumbled and broke his glasses.

[sionnsar]

Wow! THANK YOU!!

[AzSteven]

It was a recurring character played by Burgess Meredith, I believe. There was another, where he was in the basement archives of a huge library, perhaps the Library Of Congress, when nuclear war broke out and destroyed everything, and apparently everyone else. Being such a bookish recluse, thick nerd glasses and all, he began to be rather happy with all the time he’d have for all those books. Then, he stumbled and broke his glasses

Time Enough at Last. I remember feeling very sorry for Burgess Meredith's character in that one.

[RegulatorCountry]

I wish I had the connection speed to post a pic from the final scene of that, Meredith looking up and the sky, surrounded by stacks of books and utter devastation, tears streaming, asking why. Very dramatic.

[BenLurkin]

“the State has eliminated literacy”

Yes. It has. And it did so by means of the public schools.

[Luke21]

Thank you for an excellent and well written summation. I loved Burgess Meredith.

[nufsed]

I think he was an employee in a store or an accountant in that one. Nobody told stories like the Twilight Zone.

[RegulatorCountry]

The early black and white ones had almost a film noir quality about them. Some were instant classics, extremely well done and thought provoking, but all were entertaining and had a moral to pass on.

Of course, I might be biased, lol, my mother apparently got herself scared silly while watching a Twilight Zone episode, not long before she went into labor with me. Something to do with a woman hitchhiking, and she turned out to be dead? It doesn’t get replayed often, from the one time I saw it myself, I just remember the car the old guy was driving, who kept offering to give her a lift ... Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, big old atomic age chrome barge. That, and they were in a desert.

[nufsed]

Is that the episode where they don’t pick her up and she keeps appearing up the road a bit?

[ETL]

To Serve Man
Writer: Rod Serling, based on the story by Damon Knight
Director: Richard L. Bare

Apparently benign alien emissaries show mankind how to end the misery of war, plague and famine. The Kanamits, nine-foot tall aliens, arrive on Earth with one lofty goal: To Serve Man. They end war, they end famine. They make the military wonder: what's the catch?

CAST: Richard Kiel, Hardie Albright, Robert Tafur, Lloyd Bochner, Lomax Study, Theodore Marcuse, Susan Cummings, Nelson Olmstead.

Watch it, or any other TZ episode, online for free at:
(see season 3, page 1. there are 3 seasons in all, each seasons page has 2 pages of listings)
http://www.cbs.com/classics/the_twilight_zone/
________________________________________________________

[ETL]

photoshop credit to FReeper armymarinemom

Photoshop credit to FReeper Nateman

photoshop credit to FReeper armymarinemom

Photoshop credit to FReeper Nateman

[RegulatorCountry]

I’m recalling it the other way around, the old guy in the car keeps reappearing and she finally realizes she’s dead after a panicky phone call home, from a phone booth; as soon as she finds out, the old guy cruises up again, and says “Going my way?”

[longtermmemmory]

Obama promised change,

he never said what change he will serve up.

[nufsed]

Yes. It’s been a while.