The one thing what makes "The Twilight Zone" so brilliant is simultaneously the one cause of my own personal frustration. I'm talking about the diversity and ingenuity of all stories throughout five magnificent seasons. So many TZ episodes have terrific basic premises, and occasionally I'm even confronted with the fact that this series already covered the ideas and topics that I was also hoping to process into screenplays myself. For you see, I am an amateur writer (absolutely nothing fancy) and one of the plots that I started writing down on a piece of paper deals with a gang of Belgian bank robbers freezing themselves immediately after a big heist in the mid-1980's, and awakening again 25 years later only to come to the conclusion that the currency of Belgian Francs has been replaced with Euros. I vaguely heard of Irving's Rip Van Winkle before, but never read it, and I swear never knew about the existence of this episode of "The Twilight Zone".
But, whatever, those things happen. More importantly, and relevantly, is that "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" is a masterful TZ episode in terms of originality, but the further elaboration is rather lacking. Particularly the first 10 minutes are amazingly compelling, with eerie tensions between four macho criminals and the reluctance of one of them to be put to sleep for an entire century. The plan of mastermind Farwell is nevertheless carried out and three men (not four) rise again in - what they believe - is the year 2061 with bars of god for a 1961 value of $1, 000,000.
This is where the scenario goes downhill and becomes very implausible. For starters, the Death Valley location. I can understand they chose a remote resting place for their one-hundred years of sleep, ... but Death Valley? When they awake, they seem surprised that Death Valley is still a godforsaken desert and that the surroundings didn't turn into some sort of futuristic city. Moreover, Death Valley again? This must already be the third or fourth episodes in the series revolving on the inescapability and slim survival changes of this area. Driven by greed, the remaining survivors then take the utmost stupidest decisions, like destroying their truck and walk across the heat with heavy gold in their backpacks. So many potentially great plots could have spawned from this premise, but for some reason the script only centers on the non-survivable trek through Death Valley. You don't need to set your story 100 years in the future for this. Then, finally, I can't fathom why the character of Farwell is the last one standing. Obviously, De Cruz was the vilest man of the foursome, and also the one who was most obsessed with the gold.
But, whatever, those things happen. More importantly, and relevantly, is that "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" is a masterful TZ episode in terms of originality, but the further elaboration is rather lacking. Particularly the first 10 minutes are amazingly compelling, with eerie tensions between four macho criminals and the reluctance of one of them to be put to sleep for an entire century. The plan of mastermind Farwell is nevertheless carried out and three men (not four) rise again in - what they believe - is the year 2061 with bars of god for a 1961 value of $1, 000,000.
This is where the scenario goes downhill and becomes very implausible. For starters, the Death Valley location. I can understand they chose a remote resting place for their one-hundred years of sleep, ... but Death Valley? When they awake, they seem surprised that Death Valley is still a godforsaken desert and that the surroundings didn't turn into some sort of futuristic city. Moreover, Death Valley again? This must already be the third or fourth episodes in the series revolving on the inescapability and slim survival changes of this area. Driven by greed, the remaining survivors then take the utmost stupidest decisions, like destroying their truck and walk across the heat with heavy gold in their backpacks. So many potentially great plots could have spawned from this premise, but for some reason the script only centers on the non-survivable trek through Death Valley. You don't need to set your story 100 years in the future for this. Then, finally, I can't fathom why the character of Farwell is the last one standing. Obviously, De Cruz was the vilest man of the foursome, and also the one who was most obsessed with the gold.