The Eye of the Beholder

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Eye of the Beholder
Series = The Twilight Zone


Caption = The beginning of the end credits in the revised version, which is shown on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Season = 2
Episode = 42
Airdate =November 11, 1960
Production = 173-3640
Writer =Rod Serling
Director = Douglas Heyes
Guests =Maxine Stuart : Janet Tyler (under bandages)
Donna Douglas : Janet Tyler (unmasked)
William D. Gordon : Doctor Bernardi
Jennifer Howard : Nurse
Edson Stroll : Walter Smith
Music = Bernard Herrmann
Episode list = List of Twilight Zone episodes
Prev = The Howling Man
Next = Nick of Time

"The Eye of the Beholder" (originally titled "The Private World Of Darkness") is an episode of the American television anthology series "The Twilight Zone".

Opening Narration

ynopsis

Janet Tyler has undergone her eleventh treatment in an attempt to look like everybody else. The details of the treatment are not given, but Tyler is first shown with her head completely bandaged, so her face cannot be seen. She is described as being "not normal" by the nurses and doctor, whose own faces are always in shadows.

The outcome of the procedure cannot be known until the bandages are removed. Tyler pleads with the doctor and eventually convinces him to remove the bandages early. After a climactic buildup, the bandages are removed, revealing to the audience that she is beautiful. However the reaction of the doctor and nurses is disappointment; the operation has failed, her face has undergone "no change - no change at all".

At this point, the doctor, nurses and other people in the hospital, whose faces have never been seen clearly before, are now revealed to be horribly deformed in the audience's perspective, with large brows, curled lips, and misshapen, pig-like noses. Distraught by the failure of the procedure, Tyler runs through the hospital as the terrible faces of everyone she runs into, apparently the norm in this society, are revealed. Large screens throughout the hospital project an image of the State's despotic leader (sounding and making hand motions like Adolf Hitler), calling for greater conformity.

Eventually, a handsome man afflicted with the same "condition" arrives to take the crying, despondent Tyler into exile to a village of her "own kind", where her "ugliness" will not trouble the State. Before the two leave, the man comforts Tyler with the "very, very old saying" that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

Closing Narration

Preview for Next Week's Story

Trivia

*Serling remade this episode for his later series "Night Gallery" in the episode "The Different Ones." This time, it involved a teenage boy who's disfigured and then sent in a spaceship to a planet where the inhabitants look like him.

*Douglas Heyes cast this episode with his back to the performers, in order to pick the actors who had the most sympathetic voices.

*This episode is part of the Cable in the Classroom selection.

*The original title for this episode was "Eye of the Beholder." Stuart Reynolds, a television producer, threatened to sue Serling for the use of the name because he was presently selling an educational film to public schools of the same name. Reruns following the initial telecast featured the title screen "The Private World of Darkness." Because CBS consulted different prints over the years for syndication packages, the closing credits for this episode varies from one title to the other depending on what television station is using which package. In "The Twilight Zone's" original DVD release the syndicate version was marketed as an "alternate version". The reason for the title change from "Eye of the Beholder" to "A Private World of Darkness" recently became public in "The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic" by Martin Grams. The original title was not "A Private World of Darkness" as some reference guides indicate. The Grams book verifies the proper arrangement citing dates of letters exchanged between Buck Houghton, Rod Serling and Stuart Reynolds.

*This episode was re-made for the 2002-2003 revival of the series, with Molly Sims cast as Janet.

References in other media

* This episode was parodied on the April 19th, 1997 episode of "Saturday Night Live" hosted by Pamela Anderson (known as Pamela Lee at the time) where Anderson plays a beautiful woman in a world full of pig creatures who think she's hot (except for a female nurse, portrayed by Molly Shannon, who says that her beauty is considered "ugly" in their world).
* In an episode of "Family Guy", Peter Griffin asks Brian Griffin if he's seen this episode of "The Twilight Zone", which he describes as "the one where the woman wakes up in the hospital and all the doctors are pigs." Brian says he did and Peter remarks that he likes it. Creator Seth MacFarlane is in fact a "Twilight Zone" fan. [http://www.tv.com/seth-macfarlane/person/57171/trivia.html]
* In an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Cordelia makes reference to a situation being akin to, "That Twilight Episode" with all the pig masks".
* In the episode "The Cyber House Rules" of the TV series "Futurama" (Season 3, Episode 11), the female character Leela goes through surgery to have two eyes (instead of one). When they remove the bandages it is done in the same fashion/style as, the "Eye of the Beholder".
* Grace talks about the episode in "Will and Grace"--how she feels like she is the beautiful one and everyone else is a pig person.

ee also

*"The Twilight Zone"
*List of The Twilight Zone episodes
*"The Twilight Zone" Season 2

References

*Zicree, Marc Scott. "The Twilight Zone Companion". Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition).
*DeVoe, Bill. (2008). "Trivia from The Twilight Zone". Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
*Grams, Martin. (2008). "The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic". Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links

*
* [http://www.tv.com/the-twilight-zone/eye-of-the-beholder/episode/12626/summary.html TV.com episode page]
* [http://twilightzoneproject.blogspot.com/2007/07/206-eye-of-beholder.html "Eye of the Beholder"] Review at "The Twilight Zone Project"