The Eye of the Beholder
| "Eye of the Beholder" | |
|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 6 |
| Directed by | Douglas Heyes |
| Written by | Rod Serling |
| Featured music | Bernard Herrmann |
| Production code | 173-3640 |
| Original air date | November 11, 1960 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
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| Episode chronology | |
"Eye of the Beholder" (also titled "The Private World Of Darkness" when initially rebroadcast in the summer of 1962) is episode 42 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on November 11, 1960 on CBS.
Janet Tyler has undergone her eleventh treatment (the maximum number legally allowed) in an attempt to look normal. Tyler is first shown with her head completely bandaged so that her face cannot be seen. Her face is described as a "pitiful twisted lump of flesh" by the nurses and doctor, whose own faces are always in shadows or off-camera. The outcome of the procedure cannot be known until the bandages are removed. Unable to bear the bandages any longer, Tyler pleads with the doctor and eventually convinces him to remove them early. As he prepares, the doctor develops great empathy for Tyler. The nurse verbally expresses concern for the doctor and that she still is uneasy of Tyler's appearance. The doctor becomes displeased and questions why Tyler or anyone must be judged on their outer beauty. The nurse warns him not to speak so as it is considered treason.
The doctor removes the bandages. The procedure has failed, and her face has undergone no change. The camera pulls back to reveal that she is actually attractive (by the contemporary viewer's standards) and the doctor, nurses and other people in the hospital have large, thick brows, sunken eyes, swollen and twisted lips, and wrinkled noses with extremely large nostrils. Distraught by the failure of the procedure, Tyler runs through the hospital as what is considered normal in this alternate society "state" are revealed. Flat-screen televisions throughout the hospital project an image of the State's leader giving a speech calling for greater conformity.
Eventually, a handsome man (again by the contemporary viewer's standards) by the name of Walter Smith is also afflicted with the same "condition" and 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, Smith comforts Tyler, saying that she will find love and belonging in the ghetto and that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"; both then leave as the "normal-looking" hospital staff look on in sorrow.
The episode was written by Rod Serling, who recycled the theme for a later teleplay "The Different Ones" for his later series Night Gallery. This one takes place in a futuristic world where a disfigured hermit teenage boy is sent on a NASA rocket to a planet where the inhabitants are revealed to look like him. During the transfer he meets a handsome (by our own normal standards) alien youth, who is going to Earth due to his own "disfigurement."
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