Thoughts from the Twilight Zone V

As September closed for me, I made my final push to complete the first season of the Twilight Zone. I encountered many familiar episodes and lots of uninspiring material. But a precious few stood out, never encountered before and full of promise. In particular, Nightmare as a Child suggests a novel way to run a Prelude. This week I’ll look the first half of that push.

Season 1: Episodes 21-29

Only focusing on the episodes which sparked new ideas here. A few episodes however deserve a note. "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" seems incredibly topical this election year. I loved “The Big Tall Wish” for its warmth and imagination.

A World of Difference

An actor suffers psychological break in the middle of a scene and becomes convinced he is the character he is portraying. In the end he escapes his strains, his addiction and his reality by physically entering the world of his character.

For me this story mostly sparked the idea of a demon (from Demon: the Descent) creating a fictional persona. A Cover corresponding to someone who never existed but who “exists” in the popular imagination. Surely with the right Patchwork they could make “the most interesting man in the world”, National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid, or even a descendant of Sherlock Holmes. The identity would be really prone to Compromise and burdened with Fame but it might be worth it.

Long Live Walter Jameson

A history professor’s secret is found out by his colleague and soon to be father-in-law: he’s over two thousand years old. He might be unable to change but his past can catch up to him.

I really liked this story of immortality. It fits my vision of humanity. Time doesn’t make a person wiser in my experience, just more set in their ways.

The episode also makes me think of the potential complications for vampires and other immortals: the long lost loves, orphaned family, and abandoned friends who might come to haunt them decades after the immortal has passed them by. What happens when a nephew comes hunting an ever youthful uncle as an old man? Does the journal of an old friend harbor dangerous secrets about a vampire? And what about literal ghosts?

Execution

A subpar story about a Old West thug escaping the hangman’s noose by being pulled into the future. Once there he kills the man who saved him and falls victim to a modern day hoodlum. In a twist his killer is thrust back into the past and meets his victim’s fate.

I see a potentially interesting TimeWatch story seed here. An important or infamous person ends up time swapped with someone else. Alternate history shenanigans ensue. The PCs then have to trace both deviations in time and stop the unlucky time machine inventor from creating the mess.

Nightmare as a Child

A woman encounters a mysterious child who hints at terrible events in her past, events which quickly become incredibly relevant. Of course this invisible child turns out to be her, trying to tell her that her mother’s killer is now closing in on her.

This strikes me as awesome Prelude material for a Chronicles of Darkness or Mage: the Awakening game. The character encounters their child self (perhaps in an Astral journey) and must fill in the gaps in their (character description) memory. Alternatively I could see a TimeWatch game focused on encountering one’s future or past self with similar creepiness and intensity.