Phew, this reeks of rotten and I don't blame Serling at all for dumping it at the very end of the season. A great show, even in the legacy of a phenom such as The Twilight Zone, there are stinkers. "The Bewitchin' Pool" is by far the show's absolute worst. A real groaner with a horrible (I mean embarrassingly putrid) dubbing job for Mary Badham by the recognizable legendary voice of June Foray (Rocky & Bullwinkle this is not) during a key scene that is replayed twice (another bad decision; replaying a rather sadly awful scene twice truly does sink this beyond rescue) regarding a daughter and son who are told by their always-bickering parents (affluence doesn't keep them from taking off the gloves and going bare-knuckle in their verbal disparagements against each other) that a divorce is imminent, with a choice having to made on which one (mother or father) they will live with. So what do the kids do? They dive into their nice backyard pool and wind up at the backwoods abode of Aunt T. Cake is offered as well as harmony and playtime always. I think the idea is a rather swell one many of us, when we are young, fantasize about perhaps: to escape the disappointment of life for something far more comforting and peaceful. However, the execution in this episode is so abysmal (the series was on the outs and everyone knew it, with Serling exhausted at this point from his overwork and the wear and tear of keeping The Twilight Zone afloat), any possible point devoted to the idea is wasted. Badham's link to "To Kill a Mockingbird" does provide this episode with a little bit of intrigue, I guess, but her voice is really only noticeable when among Auntie T and the kids who live with her. Spending time with the parents and their never-ceasing nastiness towards each other (anyone familiar with "Lost in Space" will be stunned to see how narcissistic, ornery, antagonistic, loud, and cruel Dee Hartford is as the mother, but Tod Andrews' father doesn't exactly ingratiate himself to us as he offers plenty of snide remarks towards his wife that are equally as noxious), it is easy to see why the kids would wish to free themselves from that.
I kept asking myself "what happens when Auntie T dies?" Okay, this is a fairy tale where Auntie T is immortal and the kids maybe never grow up, with the whole "happy ever after" tag. I think the episode is just riddled with illogic plot problems, so wrought with them (the kids vanish, so what do the parents do? How did this "ripple in whatever dimension Auntie T lives" exist to begin with? What happens if the kids get tired of Auntie T and need to leave? Even if the parents are pariahs, do the kids totally just forget them altogether?) that nothing good can come from it by the end. I guess the appeal will be the general idea itself: to have an escape to a place that doesn't have parents constantly squabbling and there's tranquility and joy in abundance children desire. Those who wanted this when they were young to avoid the day-in, day-out fights between moms and pops could identify with the children in "The Bewitchin' Pool". Other than that, I see no value to this whatsoever. The acting (Hartford and Andrews, in particular) is so lousy that if this episode had the writing from the great season prior to it, it still would have suffered.
I kept asking myself "what happens when Auntie T dies?" Okay, this is a fairy tale where Auntie T is immortal and the kids maybe never grow up, with the whole "happy ever after" tag. I think the episode is just riddled with illogic plot problems, so wrought with them (the kids vanish, so what do the parents do? How did this "ripple in whatever dimension Auntie T lives" exist to begin with? What happens if the kids get tired of Auntie T and need to leave? Even if the parents are pariahs, do the kids totally just forget them altogether?) that nothing good can come from it by the end. I guess the appeal will be the general idea itself: to have an escape to a place that doesn't have parents constantly squabbling and there's tranquility and joy in abundance children desire. Those who wanted this when they were young to avoid the day-in, day-out fights between moms and pops could identify with the children in "The Bewitchin' Pool". Other than that, I see no value to this whatsoever. The acting (Hartford and Andrews, in particular) is so lousy that if this episode had the writing from the great season prior to it, it still would have suffered.