YMMV / The Twilight Zone (1959) S1E8: "Time Enough at Last"

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The aesop has been taken to be Be Careful What You Wish For, but some viewers interpreted the aesop as being "have an extra pair of prescription eyeglasses in case of Armageddon".
  • According to The Other Wiki, Burgess Meredith felt the ending was about how even the greatest inventions or innovations created to help people, eventually become mundane and taken for granted. Noting that nobody really thinks much about Bemis' poor eyesight or his glasses, until the end when he actually breaks them.
  • If not for the Cruel Twist Ending, the episode could have served as a pro-literature/pro-reading story, as everyone who ridiculed Bemis for his love of reading is gone by the end; and Bemis, the only one who cared about reading, is now the only one who is still alive on the earth.
  • As mentioned in other entries, the punishment that Bemis receives seems disproportionate to his actions. His wife took away his one hobby out of pettiness and he tried to make up for it while at work. Yeah, it's a problem, but it's not all his fault. The moral seems to be that, sometimes, bad things happen to good people.
  • Don't be too greedy with your hobby. If Bemis hadn't tried to grab that last book from out of the rubble, and just started reading the large collection of books he already had, he might not have broken his glasses.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is Beamis an arrogant bibliophile who deserves the scorn of his wife and boss? Or does Beamis behave the way he does because his wife is so shrill?
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Is Beamis autistic? He combines an obsessive hobby with poor social interaction, as shown by his neglect of one of his customers.
• Inferred Holocaust: Aside from being alone and not being able to read, Beamis is stranded in the middle of nowhere with extremely poor vision. Unless he is lucky enough to stumble into some glasses shop, his chances of survival don't look that promising.
  • Given that he dropped a gun nearby, the darkly comedic ending is that he might then have spent the next few hours blindly looking for it so he could end himself. Over the credits, he hear him have a complete mental breakdown as he desparately repeats "it's not fair" over and over again.
• It Was His Sled: The ending has been repeatedly referenced and parodied in popular culture; this episode also remains one of the best known and biggest fan favorites of the original Twilight Zone series.
• Karmic Overkill: One of the most infamous examples. Was Beamis neglecting other aspects of his life in favor of reading? Yes. Does he deserve to end up alone, blind, and helpless in a shattered world? Probably not.
• Signature Scene: The twist ending is perhaps the most famous one in the history of The Twilight Zone.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The episode's Downer Ending implies that Henry Bemis got what was coming to him for being antisocial. But just about everyone who saw it instead thought it was downright Karmic Overkill.
• Values Dissonance: The Downer Ending suggests that Bemis' antisocial behaviour and addiction to reading is a character flaw severe enough to warrant a karmic punishment. But in the modern age where men have strived for pursuits that do not fit the masculine or prescribed stereotypes of men, the intent can come off as overkill and extremely derogatory.
• Values Resonance: Bemis' plight would be similar to a modern day man who is now able to learn or do almost anything due to the Internet. Information at the touch of the finger. But what happens if all electricity went out after an apocalypse? All that accumulated knowledge, gone.
• The Woobie: The main character Henry Bemis is this. He never has any time to do the one thing he loves, has an unhappy married life in addition to an equally unhappy work life, and is left all alone after the hydrogen bomb outside the bank vault goes off. When he finally sees the good in his situation after a moment and learns he has all the time in the world to read all the books he wants (a discovery that gives him a reason to keep on living even), it's snatched right under him the moment his glasses break.

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