Miniature (The Twilight Zone)

"Miniature"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 110
Directed by	Walter Grauman
Written by	Charles Beaumont
Featured music	Fred Steiner
Production code	4862
Original air date	February 21, 1963
Guest actors
Robert Duvall: Charley Parkes Pert Kelton: Mrs. Parkes Barbara Barrie: Myra William Windom: Dr. Wallman John McLiam: Museum Guard Barney Phillips: Diemel Claire Griswold: The Doll (Alice) Lennie Weinrib: Buddy Joan Chambers: Harriet Chet Stratton: Museum Guide Nina Roman: The Maid Richard Angarola: The Suitor Sally Kellerman: Office Worker

"Miniature" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Mr. Serling's Opening Narration

“

To the average person, a museum is a place of knowledge, a place of beauty and truth and wonder. Some people come to study, others to contemplate, others to look for the sheer joy of looking. Charley Parkes has his own reasons. He comes to the museum to get away from the world. It isn't really the sixty-cent cafeteria meal that has drawn him here every day, it's the fact that here in these strange, cool halls he can be alone for a little while, really and truly alone. Anyway, that's how it was before he got lost and wandered into the Twilight Zone.

”

Plot

Charley Parkes thinks he sees a figure in a museum dollhouse that comes alive. Charley returns to the museum numerous times and gazes into the dollhouse. He keeps coming back and sees the doll in the house become animated (portrayed by a human actress).

Charley falls in love with the figure, a woman who is in an abusive relationship with a male figure in the dollhouse. There is also a female housekeeper in the dollhouse. Charley is committed to a psychiatric hospital because of his belief that the figures in the dollhouse are alive. He eventually is "rehabilitated", after some resistance, by pretending to be disabused of the delusion, and is returned to the care of his mother.

On the evening of his return home, his mother, sister, brother-in-law and a friend of his sister (who is interested in dating him) plan to celebrate his release with him, but discover that he has escaped from the house. They contact the psychiatrist who treated Charley in the hospital and surmise that he has returned to the museum and the dollhouse.

The family members, psychiatrist and museum guards search the museum but find nothing. Except for one guard, who glances into the dollhouse and sees Charley, now a miniature figure, finally together with his love in the dollhouse, sharing a stereoscope. Smiling, the guard decides to never reveal what he has witnessed.

Mr. Serling's Closing Narration

“

They never found Charley Parkes, because the guard didn't tell them what he saw in the glass case. He knew what they'd say, and he knew they'd be right, too, because seeing is not always believing, especially if what you see happens to be an odd corner of the Twilight Zone.

”

Re-airing

Because of a lawsuit, this episode was not included in the syndication package for The Twilight Zone. It was finally re-aired in 1984 as part of The Twilight Zone Silver Anniversary Special. For this showing, the dollhouse scenes were colorized in an early public demonstration of the process.^[1] .^[2]^[3]^[4]

Critical Reception

This episode's reputation derives primarily from Robert Duvall's performance. It has been described as an "absolute tour-de-force" (IMDb.com); "a tour-de-force of underplaying" (Amazon.com); and "great acting" (TV.com). See the External Links below.^[5]

References

↑ Holden, Stephen (October 19, 1984). "Silver Anniversary for 'The Twilight Zone'". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on January 1, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2013.
↑ DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
↑ Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0
↑ Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition). ISBN 1-879505-09-6
↑
- DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0

External links

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"