John McGiver was a well-regarded character actor in his day (e.g. "Midnight Cowboy") and he was a regular fixture on television for many years. Unfortunately, his role in the last season Twilight Zone entry "Sounds and Silences" doesn't give him much to work with. McGiver plays Roswell Flemington, an obnoxious and extremely loud-mouthed ex-Naval officer who needs to drown everyone else out with as much excessive noise as he can muster. The chief sufferer is his wife (Penny Singleton from the old 1940's Blondie movies) who tries her best to live with him until even she can't take it anymore. Roswell decides to see a psychiatrist (Michael Fox) in the hope that the gentleman can identify his problem and somehow straighten him out. Instead, the psychiatrist takes old Roswell down the wrong road and shows him how to tune everyone else out of his life. At first, Roswell thinks this is the perfect cure for his problem. It's just "mind over matter" he convinces himself. Unfortunately, Roswell's "cure" has some serious ramifications. He ends up tuning everyone and everything out permanently and is forced to live in his own self-inflicted vacuum of total silence.
Nothing special about this episode. "Sounds and Silences" involves a simple and standard Twilight Zone theme (i.e. a bad guy getting what he justly deserves) that has been done far better and with much more originality than in this story. Richard Donner, who went on to a distinguished directorial career in Hollywood, handles his job here with perfunctory skill. McGiver gives it his all playing Flemington, but the character is too mean-spirited and one-dimensional for him to inject any life into. It's good to see Penny Singleton, however. Besides playing Blondie in the 1940's, viewers might also remember her as the voice of Jane Jetson.
Nothing special about this episode. "Sounds and Silences" involves a simple and standard Twilight Zone theme (i.e. a bad guy getting what he justly deserves) that has been done far better and with much more originality than in this story. Richard Donner, who went on to a distinguished directorial career in Hollywood, handles his job here with perfunctory skill. McGiver gives it his all playing Flemington, but the character is too mean-spirited and one-dimensional for him to inject any life into. It's good to see Penny Singleton, however. Besides playing Blondie in the 1940's, viewers might also remember her as the voice of Jane Jetson.