Chips, wouldn’t we?) And yet, in the more sober world of The Twilight Zone, this is little more than a ruse, a façade for the true meaning of the story, lying just under the surface. (All that’s missing is a love interest, but then we’d be talking about Goodbye, Mr. Read in this way, “The Changing of the Guard” certainly could be seen as Christmas fodder for today, seeing as how so many contemporary seasonal programs substitute sentiment for any real gravitas. He is the best kind of hero (taking the word in its loosest definition) – an unassuming one, totally unaware of his impact, increasing his heroism in much the same way as a woman unaware of her natural beauty becomes even more beautiful, in a way that can’t be faked. There’s a temptation to play a story such as this as a sentimental tear-jerker, something that would fit in perfectly on The Hallmark Channel, and I’m sure there are many who’ve indeed shed a tear or two during the episode’s undeniably emotional close, in which Fowler realizes just how much he’s mattered to his students over the years. Deeply moved, Fowler accepts his retirement, content that his life is fuller for having enriched the lives of the boys. The boys each tell him that he inspired them to become better men. Before he can commit suicide, however, he is called back to his classroom by a phantom bell, where he is visited by ghosts of several boys who were his students, all of whom are dead, some of whom died heroically. Deeply depressed, he prepares to kill himself on the night of Christmas Eve next to a statue of the famous educator Horace Mann. Looking through his old yearbooks and reminiscing about his former students, he becomes convinced that all of his lessons have been in vain and that he has accomplished nothing with his life. Professor Ellis Fowler is an elderly English literature teacher at a boys' prep school in Vermont, who is forced into retirement after teaching for more than 50 years at the school. In fact, the underlying themes of the episode have a great deal to do with Christmas, particularly from the existential and spiritual sides.Ī description of the episode is straightforward enough, so much so that the single-paragraph summary from the always-reliable Wikipedia will suffice: But that, as I say, is simply from a first glance. It wasn’t even aired during the Christmas season, but on June 1, and its author, Rod Serling, was a secular Jew. The episode only tangentially touches on the season, being set on Christmas Eve for no special reason other than its significance as the end of a school term. At first glance “The Changing of the Guard,” the final episode from The Twilight Zone’s third season, would appear an odd choice to include in a Christmas blogathon.
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