The 25 Best Twilight Zone Episodes...#15 - "Shadow Play"

"We know that a dream can be real, but whoever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone's feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live instead in the Twilight Zone?" - - Rod Serling

If you were honest with yourself, you'd admit there were times you believed that dreams were more than just flights of imagination that occurred between waking hours. Perhaps, this contemplation transpired after a particularly vivid dream was afterward somehow mirrored step-by-step and word for word in a real life setting. After all, who's to say we're not part of someone else's dream or nightmare...or they are not a product of our own?

Such is the premise of "Shadow Play," number 15 on this "best of" list. To best chronicle and commemorate this television institution, an unscientific poll of 250 people in the New York metropolitan area gave rise to the best 25 Twilight Zone episodes of all time. In order of importance, criteria included writing, performance, and compelling subject matter.

In "Shadow Play," Rod Serling once again turned to one of his Twilight Zone writing regulars, Charles Beaumont, for this beautifully constructed, eerily real, discourse on the blurred line between reality and fantasy. The altered state, recurring "dream" theme is not foreign to Twilight Zone devotees. It is covered effectively in several episodes, such as "Person or Persons Unknown," "Judgment Night," "Twenty-Two," and "A World of Difference," the latter starring the great Howard Duff.

"Shadow Play" stars Dennis Weaver in an acting workshop worthy performance. Once again, Serling places his performers in a stage setting, allowing them to breathe life into the characters, and work unencumbered with the other actors. This technique allows the viewers to feel intimately involved with the story, as if they had front row seats in this theater of the macabre, which emphatically enhances the impact of the writing, performance and thought-provoking story line.

Serling tells us: "Adam Grant, a nondescript kind of man found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Like every other criminal caught in the wheels of justice he's scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isn't prison that scares him, the long, silent nights of waiting, the slow walk to the little room, or even death itself. It's something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear, something worse than any punishment this world has to offer, something found only in the Twilight Zone."

Indeed, Adam Grant experiences the same nightmare each night, and relives the same harrowing march toward the electric chair each time, regardless of his efforts to convince all around him that they are merely characters in this bizarre dream. He is able to predict the next comment to the word, the next event to the minute, and each night the players shift roles...characters conjured by Grant from people that passed through his life, however briefly. One might recall David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," in which the characters populating Naomi Watts' dream are derived from real life associations, but in vastly different roles than the ones she encounters in the film's reverie. Grant is successful in remotely moving one character to doubt, and that advocate influences the district attorney to consider a stay of execution which maddeningly occurs a moment too late. You suspect this dalliance with the truth happens each night as well, adding exponentially to the painful climax and immediate return to the courtroom scene in the beginning. It is here that Grant will be sentenced again for murder, but by a different judge, of course - his cellmate in last night's nightmare.

Weaver, whose brother, Fritz, appeared in multiple Twilight Zone episodes, handles his dilemma brilliantly, displaying the alternating emotions we'd all experience...unbridled frustration, anger, anxiety, panic, and resignation. It is not uncommon for a viewer to connect with a character who is developed during the length of a feature film, but Weaver persuades you to care, cringe, and commiserate with him in a fraction of the time.

Charles Beaumont, who passed away from a mysterious brain illness at the age of 38, penned 22 Twilight Zone episodes, six more than his more famous counterpart, Richard Matheson. "Shadow Play" is one of his best, and most critically acclaimed efforts.