The Old Man in the Cave

Last night I was watching a couple of episodes of The Twilight Zone from 1963. The first one I saw was called "Living Doll" and it was a genuinely scary story about a girl who comes home with a talking doll called Talky Tina. However, her father is not happy with the doll, especially when it starts to threaten him. It's interesting how a TV show made in 1963 with no gore or violence managed to be ten times scarier than any of the Child's Play films, which had a very similar theme to this episode. The doll actually does look and sound like a genuine child's doll (even when it's chirping out such lines as "Hi! I'm Talky Tina! And I'm going to kill you!") Also the fact that it is so subtle, that's what makes it scary. After that I saw an episode called "The Old Man in the Cave" which is set ten years after a cataclysmic nuclear war in which a small community of survivors are ruled over by the unseen Old Man who never leaves his cave and sends note as to what food they can eat and which they can't. Then a group of soldiers (headed by a young James Coburn) arrive and immediately take command of the survivors by force. The soldiers decide to take the Old Man out of the cave, only to have a shock when they discover the Old Man's true identity. It was a really good episode and shows just how kind of daring The Twilight Zone was for it's time. Back in 1963, it would probably have been impossible to show a nuclear war or it;s aftermath in a more realistic show, but part of the reason Rod Serling created the series was so that he could put in his explorations of social issues through the network censors under the guise of it being fantasy.

I'm still listening to The Lord of the Rings on cassette tape at night. It's a full cast dramatisation of the full three volume story, starring Ian Holm as Frodo. It's very faithful to the books although even at a running time of thirteen hours it's still cut.

I was in work at about quarter past eight in the morning and it was another really quiet and kind of dull day. I left at around half past five, so I made a lot of time, which was good.

I always really envy people who can just say whatever comes to mind, and genuinely don't seem to care what other people think about them. I always really wish that I was like that.