Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E3

Season 3:  Episode 3:  The Shelter

Once again, another episode that I wouldn't necessarily classify as one that invokes The Twilight Zone itself. In fact, it is again more of a tome piece, a 'what would happen if' kind of episode that follows a straight forward line of thinking, and reaches its inevitable conclusion by way of the situation, not anything outside of that, or of any outlying influences, such that was the case in "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street".

It's a simple enough premise. Neighbouring families are having a meal together, when it is announced on the radio that an attack is imminent, and that missiles are in the air and on their way. The families scatter to their homes, while the family whose home was the centrepiece in question prepare themselves to go into their bomb shelter, which the other families have just finished chiding them over for building. Of course, now the other families want to be allowed in to this shelter, which is only big enough for the family who built it. From here, the action grows along with anger and fright as revelations and actions grow from this stand off.

Yes, the story is effective in its telling, and cleverly so. It just isn't what I would consider a Twilight Zone episode in the grader scheme of the series.

Rating:  Bombs are coming.  3.5/5