Here’s one for you: an Army major, a clown, a homeless man, a ballerina, and a Scottish bagpiper are in a round room with a high, metal wall. No, it’s not a joke – it’s The Twilight Zone. Actually, it’s Christmas in The Twilight Zone, ringing in the holiday as only Rod Serling‘s trippy anthology series can. The Season 3 episode, “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” has all the markings of the series – a surreal premise in a standalone story, one that explores an existentialist nightmare – but its ending is arguably the series’ most unique, a twist that redefines what a happy holiday ending can be.
In Hell and Hopeless in ‘The Twilight Zone’s “Five Characters in Search of an Exit”
An unnamed U.S. Army major (William Windon) awakens in a large metal cylinder, with no idea how he got there, or even why, and there’s no discernible way out. There are, however, four more people in the cylinder with him: a homeless man (Kelton Garwood), a ballerina (Susan Harrison), a bagpiper (Clark Allen), and a clown (Murray Matheson). They, too, don’t know the how or why of their situation, and none, including the major, can recall their lives prior to appearing in the cylinder. Time has, for all intents and purposes, no meaning; they simply exist in the cylinder with no purpose, no idea how long they’ve been there, or how long they will continue to be. Strangely, they feel no hunger, thirst, or fatigue, adding to the mystery.
There is the occasional clanging heard from outside the container, a deafening sound that literally knocks them to their knees, but is the only clue that someone, or something, must know they’re in there. They’ve all ruminated on their circumstances, with no clear consensus. Maybe they’re on another planet, or in a spaceship going to another planet. They could just be insane, or trapped in an illusion. They could be dead and in purgatory, or, just maybe, they don’t really exist at all, but are rather figures in someone else’s dream. The major, however, is more definitive in his assessment: they’re in Hell.
From ‘Futurama’ to ‘Always Sunny’: 10 TV Holiday Specials That Broke the Traditional Formula
These shows broke from tradition and made some very weird Christmas specials.
But the major, as the newest addition, is not quite so willing to give up, and proposes they form a tower of people, each person on the other’s shoulders. Unfortunately, they’re an agonizing few inches away from the top, and another clanging sends them tumbling to the ground. The major inspires them to try again, promising that no one leaves the cylinder unless they all do. To that end, he fashions a grappling hook out of loose bits of clothing and his sword, and they try again. After a few tosses, the major’s plan works, and he’s able to scale to the top of the cylinder. Only he tumbles to the powdery ground outside, knocked unconscious. The clown suggests that maybe the major was right after all, and they are in Hell.
“Five Characters in Search of an Exit” Gives the Holiday Happy Ending a ‘Twilight Zone’ Twist
The scene cuts to a little girl, bending down to pick up a doll from the snow, one in the dress of an army major. She approaches a woman ringing a bell, looking for Christmas toy donations for the orphanage. She tells the girl to return the doll to the barrel with the other dolls: a bagpiper, a homeless man, a clown, and a ballerina, all with painted faces and glass eyes, unmoving. The five characters were toys all along, and the ballerina doll’s eyes fill with tears as her hand moves slightly to hold that of the major’s.
It’s a strange ending, even for The Twilight Zone, and that’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t end on a happy note, typical of Christmas episodes, except that it does. The only difference between “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” and its holiday-themed kin is that it simply doesn’t show a happy ending. The tears in the ballerina’s eyes are real because there is, as far as she or the other four knows, no hope. As the homeless man posited, they are in a purgatory of sorts, a holding place with their fates unknown, and that’s where we leave them.
But The Twilight Zone trusts that the viewer is smart enough to take it from where they leave the characters’ story. They are mere hours away from finding and fulfilling their purpose, bringing joy to children on Christmas morning, and there is no nobler purpose than that for a toy. We, the viewers, don’t need to see it to believe it will happen. After all, isn’t hope and belief what Christmas is about anyway? And, for the record, despite the striking similarities, apparently “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” had no impact on the creation of Toy Story, so this group of Buzz Lightyears is purely circumstantial. To The Twilight Zone, and beyond!
- Release Date
-
1959 – 1964
- Directors
-
John Brahm, Buzz Kulik, Douglas Heyes, Lamont Johnson, Richard L. Bare, James Sheldon, Richard Donner, Don Medford, Montgomery Pittman, Abner Biberman, Alan Crosland, Jr., Alvin Ganzer, Elliot Silverstein, Jack Smight, Joseph M. Newman, Ted Post, William Claxton, Jus Addiss, Mitchell Leisen, Perry Lafferty, Robert Florey, Robert Parrish, Ron Winston, Stuart Rosenberg
- Writers
-
Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Earl Hamner, Jr., George Clayton Johnson, Jerry Sohl, Henry Slesar, Martin Goldsmith, Anthony Wilson, Bernard C. Schoenfeld, Bill Idelson, E. Jack Neuman, Jerome Bixby, Jerry McNeely, John Collier, John Furia, Jr., John Tomerlin, Lucille Fletcher, Ray Bradbury, Reginald Rose, Sam Rolfe, Adele T. Strassfield
