Spotlight On Rod Serling: A Sharp Sense of Irony.

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Although an Emmy-Award winning scriptwriter prior to the famous anthology TV Series, "The Twilight Zone": 1959-64, I believe Serling's
sense of irony culminated, reaching full fruition during the series,
hence, the typical twist endings.
If any particular point in Serling's life could be said to have
provided the "developmental seed" for his accentuated sense of irony, it would have been his experience
as a young army paratrooper, lost on patrol in the Phillipine Islands
during World War II. Members of the patrol survived by eating fruits,
berries, etc. from the jungle flora. When they were eventually
located, aircraft dropped food-ration crates down to them; ironically
a soldier just behind Serling was hit in the head by a falling box
and killed.
Years later, Serling drew upon this personal experience to script
"The Purple Testament"(19th episode of the 1st season): Event/Time:
WWII, 1945; Place: Phillipine Islands; Plot: A young Army Platoon
Lieutenant William Fitzgerald (William Reynolds) shakenly discovers that he can accurately
predict the near-impending deaths of fellow soldiers by involuntarily seeing a bright
light glowing on their faces, including an incredulous Platoon
superior, Captain Riker (Dick York). At the end of the episode,
Fitzgerald sees the light on his own doomed face and on the face of the
jeep-driver(Warren Oates)who escorts him away - the jeep is blow
up out-of-sight, but within ear-shot by either an artillery shell or land mine.
In Serling's postscript, he quotes Shakespeare's Richard The Third,
in a small excerpt, "He has come to open the purple testament of
bleeding war." Then finishes..."and for Lt. William Fitzgerald, A
Company, First Platoon, the testament is closed. Lt. Fitzgerald has
found the Twilight Zone. - AH

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Topic - Spotlight On Rod Serling: A Sharp Sense of Irony. - AudioHead 10:54:08 11/19/02 (0)

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