13 October 2009

"Help, I'm steppin' into the Twilight Zone"

The Twilight Zone: Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? (Rod Serling's the Twilight Zone) The Twilight Zone: Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? by Rod Serling


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bought this adaptation of my favorite Twilight Zone episode at the 2009 Rod Serling Conference. Written and drawn for YA audiences, the adaptation is almost too faithful.

When I first saw this episode as a YA, I had no idea how gimmicky the twist was. Nor did I realize that Serling committed a major sci-fi writing faux pas when the alien showed how well he could pass himself off as a businessman but didn't know what it meant to be "wet."

I still love the twist, though, not from a plotting perspective, but from a character one. It was a life-lesson: no matter how slick you think you are, there's always someone slicker, so smugness doesn't pay. And despite the slight tweaks in this adaptation, that lesson remains.

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