Eye of the Beholder (2003 The Twilight Zone episode)

"Eye of the Beholder"
The Twilight Zone (2nd revival) episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 39
Directed by	David R. Ellis
Written by	Rod Serling
Production code	140
Original air date	April 30, 2003 (2003-04-30)
Guest actors
Molly Sims as Janet Tyler Reggie Hayes as Doctor Roger R. Cross as The Leader Allison Hossack as Janet's nurse Chris Kramer as Mr. Smith June B. Wilde as Nurse #2 Michael Karl Richards as Orderly

"Eye of the Beholder" is the thirty-ninth episode of the science fiction television series 2002 revival of The Twilight Zone. The episode was first broadcast on April 30, 2003, on UPN. It is a remake of the 1960 episode "The Eye of the Beholder".

Opening narration

You have been introduced to Miss Janet Tyler, who lives in a very private world of darkness. A universe whose dimensions are the size, thickness and length of the bandages that cover her face. In a moment, we'll witness the removal of those bandages and we'll see what's under them. 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, Janet Tyler, patient number 307 is not just a woman, because this happens to be the Twilight Zone.

Plot

A hospital patient by the name of Janet Tyler has just undergone her eleventh treatment in an attempt to look like everybody else. The details of the treatment are not given. 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 either in shadows or off-camera. Janet talks of how she enjoys looking up at the clouds, feeling the sun and the beautiful night. The nurses speak about how horrible she looks.

The outcome of the procedure cannot be known until the bandages are removed. Tyler starts to go berserk with the doctor and eventually convinces him to remove the bandages early. After a climactic buildup, the bandages are removed, revealing to the audience that she is beautiful.

However, the reaction of the doctor and nurses is disappointment; the operation has failed, her face has undergone "no change — no change at all". There are gasps, even sympathetic remarks from the nurses. Janet tries to run, but they restrain her and then turn on the light.

At this point, the doctor, nurses and other people in the hospital, whose faces have never been seen clearly before, are now revealed to be grotesquely deformed in the audience's perspective, faces with thick melted skin like plastic, deep ridges and in the shape of muddled clay. Looking ghoulish and sagging with deep ridges. Distraught by it all, Janet runs through the hospital as the terrible faces of everyone she runs into, the norm in this society, are revealed. Plasma screens throughout the hospital project an image of the state's despotic leader (sounding like the radical leader of a fascist demagogue), demanding "that the ugly must be no longer allowed in our society". He tells us that all "conformity must be worshiped and held sacred." She smashes the big screen with a nearby fire-extinguisher, causing the gel to spill everywhere. But there are many others all around with the leader's fearsome face and voice, still spreading his message of totalitarianist propaganda.

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". The two walk off as the doctors and nurses all look on in sympathy.

Closing narration

Now the questions that come to mind: "Where is this place and when is it?" "What kind of world is this 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 intelligent life. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lesson to be learned in the Twilight Zone.

External links

• "Eye of the Beholder" at TV.com
• "Eye of the Beholder" at IMDb