Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S05E26: I Am the Night – Colour Me Black

Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S05E26: I Am the Night – Colour Me Black

Here is another of Rod Serling’s thought pieces, where he takes those darkest parts of human nature, rolls them into a story and then throws it back at you and hits you between the eyes with it. You can imagine that these types of episodes caused him all sorts of headaches with the networks back in the early 1960’s, but it didn’t seem to stop him doing them anyway.

Is it a take on prejudice, or is it a take on injustice, or is it something else? It’s probably a touch of everything, but it is up to the viewer to decide. In a small, nondescript town, a man is about to be hanged for the murder of a bigot. The man’s guilt or innocence is still ambiguous, but the hanging goes ahead anyway. However, what has been unusual on this morning is that the sun has not risen, and the town is still dark, despite the time reaching the time of 9.30am. The episode spends most of its time with barbs being traded back and forth between many of the town’s residents, each with their own feelings on the subject of the man to be hanged and whether it is correct or not. The prejudices from all sides, including the convicted man, is apparent. It isn’t until after the deed has been completed that town reverend suggests that the darkness signifies the hatred of those within the town, at which point the light becomes even darker. The radio broadcast to complete the episode suggests that this phenomenon is occurring at other places around the globe.

Serling sets this piece up well, and for the most part it is played out by the actors well. Apparently Serling wrote this in reaction to President Kennedy’s assassination, which is referenced in the radio broadcast as “a street in Dallas”. It again prefaces his own attempts to highlight these kinds of themes in his work, and have them faced by those that watch. It is something he generally did extremely well.

Rating: I wear my sunglasses at night. 4/5