History Recap / TheTwilightZoneS5E137Number12LooksJustLikeYou

[[quoteright:344:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/twilight_zone_collin_wilcox_2472.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:344:Foreground: Marilyn, before.]]

[[quoteright:344:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/119385_6175.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:344:Foreground: Marilyn, after.]]

->'''Creator/RodSerling''': "Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future in which science has developed the means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now...in the Twilight Zone."

Air date: January 24, 1964

A woman named Lana Cuberle debates the merits of two images of perfect, beautiful women on a screen, number 8 and number 12. Her daughter, Marilyn, wasn't listening. As it turns out, Lana is trying to help Marilyn decide which pattern for "The Transformation" she will become. Instead, Marilyn was looking wistfully at an old scrapbook of her mother's that shows what Lana looked like before The Transformation. Lana talks about how wonderful everything became once she decided to look just like number 12, but Marilyn has her doubts. Her uncle, who chose number 17 when the time for his own Transformation came around, tries to talk it over with her, but she remembers her father and his individualistic ideals. Uncle Rick is quick to remind her that he was also a number 17.

Eventually, Lana takes her to see Dr. Rex, also a number 17, and he goes through a big speech about how it's okay for Marilyn to be so anxious about The Transformation. How could she stand another minute of living such a horrid, ugly existence? It's perfectly norm-oh wait, she doesn't want it? Well, it is of course totally voluntary. No one will force you to become transformed, they will simply find whatever it is that makes you not want it and snuff that out. Rex sends her to Professor Sig, also a number 17, who continues to assure her the change is not compulsory, but that such "smut" as the nonsense of Shakespeare, Keats and Dostoevsky should not cloud her judgement. Those things were banned a long time ago, along with the physical and emotional ugliness of the past. Why shouldn't Marilyn undergo The Transformation and never again suffer a wrinkle or anything else that isn't curable with a glass of Instant Smile? But Marilyn persists with her delusions of the value in not looking the same as everyone else or being happy all the time, until Sig has a nurse commit her with "a mild sedative."

Lana visits, along with Marilyn's friend Valerie. Marilyn tries to tell them that "They" are lying and that The Transformation isn't something left to choice. The women don't understand; who are "they"? And why is Marilyn so upset about the change when all they want to do is to make her beautiful and happy? Valerie doesn't get why Marilyn is so wrapped up in what her father used to say—he's dead and she's had almost a dozen different fathers. (People have lots of those nowadays.) Marilyn goes into a fit, saying that her father was DrivenToSuicide by The Transformation because of how his identity was taken away and wonders if Valerie can feel anything at all. Valerie insists, of course she can; she feels good, always, because life is pretty, life is fun, she is all and all is one. Marilyn develops a MadnessMantra in response: "You can't understand! You can't understand! You can't understand!"

Later, Marilyn tries to make a run for it, passing yet another number 17 orderly along the way. She stumbles into Dr. Rex, where her fate is sealed. She has "chosen" number 8. Lana and Valerie meet the new Marilyn, who is free of all her doubt and worry. She admires herself in a mirror—life for her is now just as perfect, fun and pretty as it is for Val, as it is for Lana, as it is, presumably, for everybody.

->'''Creator/RodSerling''': "Portrait of a young lady in love...with herself. Improbable? Perhaps. But in an age of plastic surgery, bodybuilding and an infinity of cosmetics, let us hesitate to say impossible. These and other strange blessings may be waiting in the future, which, after all, is the Twilight Zone."

!!Number Trope Looks Just Like You:
* AdaptationNameChange: In the short story "The Beautiful People" by Charles Beaumont, the names of the protagonist, her mother and her psychiatrist are Mary Cuberle, Zena Cuberle and Dr. Hortel respectively. In the television adaptation, their names are Marilyn Cuberle, Lana Cuberle and Dr. Rex.
* AdaptedOut: The television adaptation omits Mr. Willmes, Mary's supervisor at Interplan who fires her when he learns that she does not intend to undergo the Transformation.
* AdultsAreUseless: All but Marilyn's father.
* AntiVillain: In the original story, Marilyn is forced into the Transformation by a court. That aspect is dropped here, which adds to the horror; nobody in this story is malicious in the slightest. They ''genuinely believe'' this is the right thing to do, and they're confused and heartbroken that Marilyn doesn't want to be just like them.
* ApatheticCitizens: The transformation makes people beautiful, but has also stripped them of any individual thought or empathy. Even the concepts of Love become foreign. Marilyn's mother has undergone ''eleven'' different marriages as a result of it.
* BreakTheCutie: Dr. Rex is very proficient at this.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Just as the narration compares the procedure to current ways to "conform" to beauty standards, Marilyn smiles directly at the camera.
* CanonForeigner: The television adaptation features three supporting characters who did not appear in "The Beautiful People": Val, Uncle Rick and Professor Sigmund Friend.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: Everyone is beautiful and forever young and nobody suffers any kind of sadness or fear...but this comes at the cost of lack of individuality, empathy and thought. People don't know how to love and personally connect anymore, creating whirlwind relationships (Maryln's own mother was married and re-married ''eleven'' times). And there is already one case of a suicide as a result of it.
* CulturePolice: The works of Creator/WilliamShakespeare, Creator/JohnKeats, Creator/PercyByssheShelley, Creator/{{Aristotle}}, Creator/{{Socrates}} and Creator/FyodorDostoevsky were all banned many years earlier as their ideas were considered subversive. Professor Sigmund Friend accuses Marilyn of introducing smut to the interview when she mentions that she has read them.
* DeceasedParentsAreTheBest: Marilyn's father died before the plot, but not before he taught her his individualistic ideas and gave her books to read.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: In "The Beautiful People", Mary's father was killed in the Ganymede Incident. In the television adaptation, he committed suicide as he bitterly regretted undergoing the Transformation and his family covered up his death by claiming that he died in the Ganymede Incident.
* DownerEnding: Although it's a HappyEnding from the characters' standpoint. Marilyn is forced into getting the transformation and comes out just like everyone else.
* DrivenToSuicide: Marilyn's father Jack committed suicide five years earlier as he believed that the Transformation had robbed him of his identity.
* FictionalSport: Marilyn mentions electronic baseball and super soccer.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: Rod Serling delivers the ending narration as Marilyn is observing herself in the mirror... and the last shot of the episode is her turning to look at the viewer as the narration ends.
* GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul: The conversion process to make you one of TheBeautifulElite makes you blissfully happy about it in the process. Earlier on in this same episode, the young lady who didn't want to become homogenized to look as good as everybody else was told by her mother to "have a cup of Instant Smile." It was pretty clear that "Instant Smile" was far more than just a brand name for hot chocolate.
* HappinessIsMandatory: Related to GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul; The Transformation alters the minds of patients so that all they feel/understand is happiness. People who haven't had the transformation yet may have a drink called "Instant Smile."
* HollywoodHomely: {{Invoked|Trope}} as part of the larger mentality of this universe. Marilyn isn't a stunning beauty or anything, but by the audience's standards, she's not ''un''attractive either. It's just that, in an age where everyone can be surgically perfected, anyone who doesn't have the surgery is seen as ugly by comparison.
* HopeSpot: Valerie asks to speak in private with Marilyn about her father, seeming to be the one sympathetic person who finally understands her... only for her to callously dismiss her father as being dead and having been a dull person, and also revealing that it's regular for people to get married and divorced several times these days.
* HumansAreMorons: In fairness, it's suggested that people are essentially dumbed down by the Transformation.
* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: The hourglass shape seems to en vogue in the future.
* IndividualityIsIllegal: Once every person comes of age, they are forcibly given plastic surgery and a personality change to make them beautiful and identical to everyone else.
* MeaningfulName:
** Most characters are named after beautiful Hollywood stars: Marilyn (Marilyn Monroe), Lana (Lana Turner), Grace (Grace Kelly), Eva (Eva Marie Saint), Valerie (Valerie Allen), and [[InformedAttractiveness Rex (Rex Harrison)]].
** Two of the women who underwent the Number 12 transformation, as Lana did, are named Jane and Doe. This refers to the fact that the people of this society are all altered to match one of a small number of models, and are therefore essentially anonymous as they lack individuality.
** The second psychiatrist that Marilyn sees is named [[UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Professor Sigmund Friend]].
* MinimalistCast: While there are multiple characters in the episode, there are only four cast members: Creator/CollinWilcox, Suzy Parker, Richard Long and Pam Austin.
* NoPeripheralVision: As Marilyn tries to escape near the end, it only takes her ''going up against a wall'' to remain unseen by a passing nurse. [[JustifiedTrope Then again, the society proved themselves to be rather unintelligent after the surgery.]]
* RayOfHopeEnding: Well, a very sketchy one. If Marilyn's own father had committed suicide despite going through a process that would've basically dumbed him down and made him a smiling idiot because he knew something had been taken from him, then there's a slim chance Marilyn can regain ''some'' sense of her identity despite what was done to her. However, Dr. Rex also claims that "improvements" to the procedure now prevents the "difficulty adjusting to the idea," hinting that even this hope is gone.
* OnlySaneMan: That's what Marilyn comes to realize at some point.
* PlatonicDeclarationOfLove: When Marilyn and Valerie get into an argument about Marilyn's father, Marilyn says that she loved him because he loved her for who she was on the inside.
* SerialSpouse: Marriages are extremely short-lived in this society. Lana has had ten husbands, nine of them in the last five years, while Val's mother has had eleven.
* SurgicalImpersonation: The transformation.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The opening narration gives the date as 2000 "for want of a better estimate."
* UnbuiltTrope: The episode is an absolutely vicious take on the UnnecessaryMakeover trope, as a teenage girl who doesn't fit the conventional definition of beauty is repeatedly encouraged to get a surgical procedure to enhance her appearance and make her like everyone else. She repeatedly refuses and cites the importance of knowledge and character over appearance, only to be kidnapped and forced into it. The episode's ending with her as an exact copy of her friend and having lost any trace of her original personality is chilling. And it was made in 1963. It's less a {{Deconstruction}} and more of a prophecy about the onset of innumerable plastic surgery shows where women are encouraged to cut apart their bodies to be considered acceptable.
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: One of the most chilling aspects of the story is that all the characters, including [[AntiVillain the villains]], have nothing but the best intentions.
* WeWillNotHavePocketsInTheFuture: No one has any with all women besides Marilyn wearing leotards.
----

* MinimalistCast: While there are multiple characters in the episode, there are only four cast members: Collin Wilcox, Suzy Parker, Richard Long and Pam Austin.

** Most characters are named after beautiful Hollywood stars: Marilyn (Marilyn Monroe), Lana (Lana Turner), Grace (Grace Kelly), Eva (Eva Marie Saint), Valerie (Valerie Allen), and Rex (Rex Harrison).

A woman named Lana Cuberle debates the merits of two images of perfect, beautiful women on a screen, number 8 and number 12. Her daughter, Marilyn, wasn't listening. As it turns out, Lana is trying to help Marilyn decide which pattern for "The Transformation" she will become. Instead, Marilyn was looking wistfully at an old scrapbook of her mother's, showing what Lana looked like before The Transformation. Lana talks about how wonderful everything became once she decided to look just like number 12. Marilyn has her doubts. Her uncle, who chose number 17 when the time for his own transformation came around, tries to talk it over with her, but she remembers her father and his individualistic ideals. Uncle Rick is quick to remind her that he was also a number 17.

Lana visits, along with Marilyn's friend Valerie. Marilyn tries to tell them that "They" are lying and that The Transformation isn't something left to choice. The women don't understand, who are They? and why is Marilyn so upset about the change when all they want to do is make her beautiful and happy? Valerie doesn't get why Marilyn is so wrapped up in what her father used to say--he's dead and she's had almost a dozen different fathers. (People have lots of those nowadays.) Marilyn goes into a fit, saying that her father was DrivenToSuicide by The Transformation because of how his identity was taken away and wonders if Valerie can feel anything at all. Valerie insists, of course she can; she feels good, always, because life is pretty, life is fun, she is all and all is one. Marilyn develops a MadnessMantra in response: "You can't understand! You can't understand! You can't understand!"

Later, Marilyn tries to make a run for it, passing yet another number 17 orderly along the way. She stumbles into Dr. Rex, where her fate is sealed. She has "chosen" number 8. Lana and Valerie meet the new Marilyn, who is free of all her doubt and worry. She admires herself in a mirror - life for her is now just as perfect, fun and pretty as it is for Val, as it is for Lana, as it is, presumably, for everybody.

* AntiVillain: In the original story, Marilyn is forced into the Transformation by a court. That aspect is dropped here, which adds to the horror - nobody in this story is malicious in the slightest. They ''genuinely believe'' this is the right thing to do, and they're confused and heartbroken that Marilyn doesn't want to be just like them.
* ApatheticCitizens: The transformation makes people beautiful, but has also stripped them of any individual thought or empathy. Even concepts of Love becomes foreign. Marlyn's mother has undergone ''eleven'' different marriages as a result of it.

* MinimalistCast: While there are multiple characters in the episode, there are only four cast members - Collin Wilcox, Suzy Parker, Richard Long and Pam Austin.

* UnbuiltTrope: The episode is an absolutely vicious take on the UnnecessaryMakeover trope as a teenage girl who doesn't fit the conventional definition of beauty is repeatedly encouraged to get a surgical procedure to enhance her appearance and make her like everyone else. She repeatedly refuses and cites the importance of knowledge and character over appearance only to be kidnapped and forced into it. The episode's ending with her as an exact copy of her friend and having lost any trace of her original personality is chilling. And it was made in 1963. It's less a {{Deconstruction}} and more of a prophecy about the onset of innumerable plastic surgery shows where women are encouraged to cut apart their bodies to be considered acceptable.

* WeWillNotHavePocketsInTheFuture: No one has any with everyone besides Marilyn wearing leotards.

* RayOfHopeEnding: Well, a very sketchy one. If Marilyn's own father had committed suicide despite going through a process that would've basically dumbed him down and made him a smiling idiot because he knew something had been taken from him, then there's a slim chance Marilyn can regain ''some'' sense of her identity despite what was done to her.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Just as the narration compares the procedure to current ways to "conform" to beauty standards, Marilyn looks directly at the camera.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Everyone is beautiful and forever young and nobody suffers any kind of sadness or fear...but this comes at the cost of lack of individuality.

* HopeSpot: If Marilyn's own father had committed suicide despite going through a process that would've basically dumbed him down and made him a smiling idiot because he knew something had been taken from him, then there's a slim chance Marilyn can regain ''some'' sense of her identity despite what was done to her.

* HollywoodHomely:[[invoked]] Actually a plot point: Marilyn isn't exactly a Perfect 10, but by the audience's standards, she's not really unattractive. It's just that, in an age where everyone can be surgically perfected, anyone who doesn't have the surgery is seen as ugly by comparison.

!!Tropes:

* HollywoodHomely:[[invoked]] Actually a plot point: Marilyn's isn't exactly a Perfect 10, but there's nothing wrong with how she looks. It's just that, in an age where everyone can be surgically perfected, her imperfections stand out even more.
* HumansAreMorons: In fairness though it's suggested that people are essentially dumbed down by the Transformation.

** Two of the women who underwent the Number 12 transformation, as Lana did, are named Jane and Doe. This refers to the fact that the people of this society are all beautiful and therefore essentially anonymous as they lack individuality.

** The psychiatrist is named [[UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Professor Sigmund Friend]].

Later, Marilyn tries to make a run for it, passing yet another number 17 orderly along the way. She stumbles into Prof. Sig, where her fate is sealed. She has "chosen" number 8. Lana and Valerie meet the new Marilyn, who is free of all her doubt and worry. She admires herself in a mirror - life for her is now just as perfect, fun and pretty as it is for Val, as it is for Lana, as it is, presumably, for everybody.

* AntiVillain: In the original story, Marilyn is forced into the transformation by a court. That aspect is dropped here, which adds to the horror - nobody in this story is malicious in the slightest. They ''genuinely believe'' this is the right thing to do, and they're confused and heartbroken that Marilyn doesn't want to be just like them.
* BreakTheCutie: Dr. Rex is very proficient in this.

* DrivenToSuicide: Marilyn's father Jack committed suicide as he believed that the Transformation had robbed him of his identity.

* AdaptationNameChange: In the short story by Charles Beaumont, the protagonist and her mother's names are Mary and Zena Cuberle respectively. In the television adaptation, their names are Marilyn and Lana.

->'''Creator/RodSerling''': "Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future in which science has developed the means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now...in The Twilight Zone."

A woman named Lana debates the merits of two images of perfect, beautiful women on a screen, number 8 and number 12. Her daughter, Marilyn, wasn't listening. As it turns out, Lana is trying to help Marilyn decide which pattern for "The Transformation" she will become. Instead, Marilyn was looking wistfully at an old scrapbook of her mother's, showing what Lana looked like before The Transformation. Lana talks about how wonderful everything became once she decided to look just like number 12. Marilyn has her doubts. Her uncle, who chose number 17 when the time for his own transformation came around, tries to talk it over with her, but she remembers her father and his individualistic ideals. Uncle Rick is quick to remind her that he was also a number 17.

->'''Creator/RodSerling''': "Portrait of a young lady in love...with herself. Improbable? Perhaps. But in an age of plastic surgery, bodybuilding and an infinity of cosmetics, let us hesitate to say impossible. These and other strange blessings may be waiting in the future, which, after all, is The Twilight Zone."

* AdaptationalNameChange: In the short story by Charles Beaumont, the protagonist and her mother's names are Mary and Zena Cuberle respectively. In the television adaptation, their names are Marilyn and Lana.

->'''Creator/RodSerling''': "Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year two thousand. At any rate, imagine a time in the future in which science has developed the means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now...in The Twilight Zone."

* CulturePolice: The works of Creator/WilliamShakespeare, Creator/JohnKeats, Creator/PercyByssheShelley, Creator/{{Aristotle}}, Creator/{{Socrates}} and Creator/FyodorDostoevsky were all banned many years earlier as their ideas were considered subservise. Professor Sigmund Friend accuses Marilyn of introducing smut to the interview when she mentions that she has read them.

* MeaningfulName: Two of the women who underwent the Number 12 transformation, as Lana did, are named Jane and Doe. This refers to the fact that the people of this society are all beautiful and therefore essentially anonymous as they lack individuality.

* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]]: That's what Marilyn comes to realize at some point.

* WeWillNotHavePocketsInTheFuture

* CrapSaccharineWorld

* HollywoodHomely: Actually a plot point: Marilyn's isn't exactly a Perfect 10, but there's nothing wrong with how she looks. It's just that, in an age where everyone can be surgically perfected, her imperfections stand out even more.

* SurgicalImpersonation: The transformation
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture