The Eye of the Beholder

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This page is about the Twilight Zone episode. For other uses of this title, see Eye of the Beholder.

“The Eye of the Beholder”

The Twilight Zone episode

The beginning of the end credits in the original cut, which is shown on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Episode no.

Season 2
Episode 42

Written by

Rod Serling

Directed by

Douglas Heyes

Guest stars

Maxine Stuart : Janet Tyler (under bandages)
Donna Douglas : Janet Tyler (unmasked)
William D. Gordon : Doctor
Jennifer Howard : Nurse
Edson Stroll : Walter Smith

Featured music

Bernard Herrmann

Production no.

173-3640

Original airdate

November 11, 1960

Episode chronology
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"The Howling Man"	"Nick of Time"

List of Twilight Zone episodes

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

1 Opening narration
2 Synopsis
3 Closing narration
4 Quotes
5 Trivia
6 References in Other Media
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Opening narration

“

Suspended in time and space for a moment, your introduction to Miss Janet Tyler, who lives in a very private world of darkness, a universe whose dimensions are the size, thickness, length of a swath of bandages that cover her face. In a moment we'll go back into this room, and also in a moment we'll look under those bandages, keeping in mind, of course, that we're not to be surprised by what we see, because this isn't just a hospital, and this patient 307 is not just a woman. This happens to be the Twilight Zone, and Miss Janet Tyler, with you, is about to enter it.

”

[edit] Synopsis

Janet Tyler has undergone her eleventh surgery in an attempt to look like everybody else. The details of the surgery 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 operation 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 doctor tells her that her face has undergone "no change - no change at all", but the audience is shown that she is beautiful. Through many theatrical and optical tricks, none of the other characters' faces have been shown clearly until that moment.

The doctor, nurses and other people in the hospital are 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 operation, Tyler runs through the hospital as the terrible faces of the doctors and nurses 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".

[edit] Closing narration

“

Now the questions that come to mind. Where is this place and when is it? What kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm? You want an answer? The answer is, it doesn't make any difference. Because the old saying happens to be true: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence, on this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out amongst the stars. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A lesson to be learned— in The Twilight Zone.

”

[edit] Quotes

“Funny – the very first thing I can remember, is another little child screaming when she looked at me.”
“There are times I think I’ve lived my whole life inside of a cave, and the wind that blows in through the mouth of the cave smells of ether and disinfectant.”
“I want to belong. I want to be like everybody. Please doctor, help me.”
“The state isn’t God! It hasn’t the right to penalize people for an accident of birth.”
The doctor: “What is the dimensional difference between beauty and something repelling? Why? Why aren’t people allowed to be different?”

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

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 "The Private World of Darkness." For reasons unknown, the version of this episode which is in syndication bears the original title rather than the correct title, "Eye of the Beholder." In The Twilight Zone's original DVD release the syndicate version was marketed as an "alternate version".

Maxine Stuart was supposed to dub in the one line Janet says when she comes out of the bandages, but Donna Douglas ended up doing such a good impression of Stuart's voice that the line was left undubbed.

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

[edit] 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. Brian says he did and Peter remarks that he likes it.
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 an episode 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.