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Over 60 Years Later, This Twilight Zone Episode Remains an Uncomfortable Indictment of Human Nature
Airing a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, "The Shelter" brutally exposed humanity's primal urges.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a better book on The Twilight Zone (airing regularly on SYFY) than Marc Scott Zicree's The Twilight Zone Companion. Chock full of behind-the-scenes trivia, biographical information on creator Rod Serling, synopses for every single episode, and interviews with people who actually worked on the seminal television program, it is an absolute must-have for die-hard fans of the show.
When there isn't much to write about a particular episode, the author offers up his own opinions on the content, which invites friendly debate from the reader. For example, Zicree does not seem to be a big admirer of Season 3's "The Shelter," in which a of group of close suburban families suddenly turn on each other when nuclear war seems imminent. What begins as an average birthday dinner soon devolves into a mad scrabble for survival punctuated by xenophobia, name-calling, selfishness, pitiful begging, and, of course, violence as a desperate pack of neighbors attempt to gain entry into the only fallout shelter on the block.
"Unfortunately, in making his point — which is that everyone is rotten in a crisis — Serling did not pay enough attention to logic and characterization," goes the Companion's argument. "The people are clearly cardboard cutouts being moved around as the story dictates."
The episode's director, Lamont Johnson, goes on to agree with the sentiment, adding: "That was Rod in one of his messianic moods. It was too uptight with its own self-righteousness, I think. I found it an interesting idea. I think the thesis was excellent, but I think its devices and its general style of writing were a little too pompous."
Why "The Shelter" is one of the best original episodes from The Twilight Zone
We, on the other hand, must whole-heartedly disagree. If you ask us, "The Shelter" is a fearless and profoundly uncomfortable portrait of what human beings are really like when the veneer of "civilized" society is suddenly ripped away like a dirty bedsheet. When our basest instincts for survival kick in, everything else our species prides itself on — decency, friendship, and, above all, logic — falls by the wayside.
We'll do anything to keep breathing, even if it means dragging others down with us, as is the case in the episode's feverish climax when the frightened characters irrationally knock down the door of the very shelter they've been seeking access to. It makes no sense because it isn't meant to. That's Serling's entire point: the rational part of the brain shuts off once panic takes hold of the nervous system.
To quote The Mist's David Drayton (Thomas Jane), people can be counted on to remain calm and level-headed, "as long as the machines are working and you can dial 9-1-1. But you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the s--t out of them... No more rules. You'll see how primitive they get."
Or, if you prefer a Men in Black quote, here's an unforgettable nugget of truth from Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals — and you know it."
The sole voice of reason throughout "The Shelter" is the man who built the basement bunker, Dr. Bill Stockton (Larry Gates). Unlike his neighbors, who ridiculed his little pet project, Stockton was brave enough to accept the low — yet not impossible — odds of the Cold War turning hot. He grasped the dark truth and sought to insulate himself and his family from the unspeakable things humans will do to one another.
And while Serling serves up one of his patented twist endings, revealing that the threat of missile-like objects heading toward the East Coast of United States was nothing more than a false alarm, the neighborhood has still been destroyed all the same, forever covered in a proverbial shroud of toxic radiation that will not dissipate, no matter how many apologies and excuses are made.
"The Shelter," which first aired in September of 1961, becomes even more remarkable when you take into account the historical context around which it premiered. As Serling states in his opening narration, what we are about to watch "is not meant to be prophetic" and yet, it proved to be just that a little over a year later when the world found itself on the brink of nuclear annihilation amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis. One could even argue the episode is a wider allegory for the geopolitical standoff between America and the Soviet Union, pointing a finger of accusation at the petty squabbling and rabid mistrust that set two once-great allies clawing at each other's throats.
Classic episodes of The Twilight Zone air regularly on SYFY. Click here for complete scheduling info!
