"There's time enough at last!"
Director: John Brahm
Writer: Rod Serling
Composer: Leith Stevens
Time Enough at Last is easily one of the most famous episodes of The Twilight Zone to date. It's been parodied a million times over and it has enough themes in it to fill a Wikipedia page.
NOTE: It does.
This isn't quite a one-man performance, but Burgess Meredith easily steals the show and carries the episode. Jacqueline deWit, as his wife Helen, also does a solid job of getting the viewer on Henry's side, even though, in her heart, she is advocating that he socialize.
The premise of the episode, if you're really unaware, is that Henry Bemis is more than just a bookworm, he just loves to read. It gets to the point where he'll read voting buttons on people's lapels just to occupy his mind with words. He is viciously addicted to them. And it takes away from his time at work and at home, and everyone is getting sick of it. One day, he goes down into the heavy vault of the bank he works at and decides to spend his lunch reading. Suddenly, a nuclear warhead detonates just overhead. Bemis escapes and finds his home, and possibly the world, a nuclear wasteland. Now he must live out his days all by himself.
The isolationism theme of the episode starts from the moment the episode starts. Henry is all on his own in his beliefs and his hobbies. Nobody supports him and barely anyone wants anything to actually do with him, though he is of little help in that regard. Henry just wants to be off on his own, he wants to just sit around and read all the books he can. The theme of isolation is delicately balanced as something that may be good in doses, but too much of it may drive a person away from all of their loved ones, people that are trying to reach out.
It would have been too easy, then, to make Helen a likable character, but the writing and directing paint her as a stubborn, harsh, mean old woman that's sick of Henry's attitude and is just dragging him around like a poor dog all over the place. She's even gone far enough to scratch out and rip out pages of some of the books he'll read. Now that's pretty messed up, and maybe goes a step too far, but it gets the point across that Henry has been acting this way for quite some time now. It's a rather aggressive way of her telling him that she cares for him and worries about this addiction, but it will also perpetuate his need for more.
Burgess Meredith brings just enough naivety and innocence to Henry to make us see him as just a little old man that wants to read. A very sympathetic character, but, also one that's quite frustrating on further watches. Knowing what happens, knowing what's coming, it's good that he does dodge the bomb, but he also doesn't spend any of the final moments of their lives with his peers, and even if he did, he wouldn't enjoy it at all.
This is what makes the scenes out in the fallout so much more powerful, because it seems that Henry has learned his lesson. He does miss these people and the sights and sounds they provide. He has plenty of food (and radiated water?) but nobody to share it with. Nobody to talk with, nobody to do anything he would normally do with. Just the same few pages of a newspaper to read over and over. That would drive any man, even Mr. Bemis, insane.
Also in this episode is the rare narration in the middle of the episode from on Rod Serling, narrating the desperation and hopelessness of Mr. Bemis's trek. What's great about is that he isn't giving exposition or saying anything the viewer isn't already thinking; rather, it's adding another dimension of doom to it all. This is the narrator popping in to remind the viewer that all will not work out, that things cannot end well for him. This guy knows everything of what's going to happen and he is reminding us "yeah...this is hell."
One of the lesser-talked-about aspects of the episode that is rarely talked about are the backdrops. Obviously Burgess Meredith isn't standing in a massive field of rubble, and it's rather clear that what's behind him is just a painted backdrop, but there is some masterful direction on the part of John Brahm to always keep Meredith blocked in such a way that he dominates the foreground while what's in the distance, which is really just behind him, seems so far off, and so well-detailed, that it's easy to sell it. Maybe that's just some obvious aspect to the episode, but, it's something that really jumped out upon viewings with closer inspection.
There's much more to say, but it must be retained for the sake of spoilers. Time Enough at Last is very famous and for all the good reasons. If you've seen all the parodies but haven't checked out the original source, please do so.
***SPOILER SECTION***
I mean...you know what happens. Everyone knows what happens. Everyone knows the line.
"There was time now...There was...There was all the time I needed. It's not fair. It's not fair!"
It's the ultimate karmic balance. Guy finally gets selfish again so the Twilight Zone slaps him upside the head with a hard dose of reality. Meredith gives an all-star performance and it instantly becomes one of the most lasting images and endings from the Twilight Zone. It is THE quintessential plot twist of the entire series, possibly the first big one that many fans learn about.
It is rather interesting how the episode portrays the library, Bemis's ultimate source of hope and then despair. Initially, it gives the audience a sense of wonder, same as Bemis, that he will finally get what he wants. This is what he's searched for all this time, and he has it.
But at the same time, this is going to immediately perpetuate his addiction to reading. Who is to say that he won't just forgo eating and drinking to read books? There's nobody to remind him to do basic things like that, nobody to keep watch. Not to mention all the nuclear fallout around him that's going to give him a third arm in a few weeks.
As much as this episode is about the duality of isolationism, it's also an exploration of a man who is addicted to something and can't let go of it no matter how innocent he may play it off. But the episode brilliantly makes it seem like this is the thing that saves him. It's because of reading that he survives the bomb, and it's because of reading that he has (momentary) motivation to keep on going in life.
However, the addiction is the very thing that takes his greatest love from him. The brief moment where he has to lean over to pick up the book is such an amazing, brilliant moment:
Bemis will likely break his glasses at some point in the apocalypse, but the fact that he just has to have that book down there, and not any of the other within arms reach, shows how hungry he is to read, how truly enthralled he is with this activity that he's blind to all of the other things he has set up for himself. If he had just looked up from a book for just a second, he could have, indeed, had time enough at last.
Instead his glasses broke and there ain't a Hermione Granger in sight that can fix them!
Well, how's about we move from one iconic character to another? Much like how our dear man Henry Bemis was isolated in single area, so too were the people of Peaksville, Ohio, a small town surrounded by everything, and nothing. A town where the population dwindles, where there are only nice thoughts, where only good things happen...and where the most dangerous monster of all lives. Come join me as we explore young the awe, wonder, and good things that Anthony Fremont is up to in "It's a Good Life." See you then.
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