Robert Duvall plays oddball Charley Parkes, thirty-something, single and still living with his mother; he has no friends, and is fired from his job for not being a team player. For solitude, he visits the local museum where he finds a dolls house, and becomes obsessed with the small figure of Alice, who he believes is alive.
His concerned sister Myra (Barbara Barrie) arranges for Charley to have a blind date with sexpot Harriet (Joan Chambers), but he is uncomfortable in her presence and offends the woman by rejecting her advances. Charley goes to the museum, where he sees Alice about to be attacked by a man, so he intervenes by smashing the glass case; as a result, he is sent for treatment at a mental hospital. When Charley is eventually discharged, he says that he now knows that Alice is not real, but is he fooling everyone?
Like Mute (Episode 5, Season 4), this tale deals with the subject of conformity: Charley is pressurised to be just like everyone else, his peculiarities seen as a problem by those around him. As a result Charley withdraws into a fantasy world, but this being The Twilight Zone, his fantasy becomes reality in the end.
Miniature is one of those 50-minute episodes that I think would have worked better in the shorter format: the story is too drawn out, the viewer given far too much opportunity to figure out how it will finish. I called the ending at about the twenty minute mark, and I wasn't wrong.
His concerned sister Myra (Barbara Barrie) arranges for Charley to have a blind date with sexpot Harriet (Joan Chambers), but he is uncomfortable in her presence and offends the woman by rejecting her advances. Charley goes to the museum, where he sees Alice about to be attacked by a man, so he intervenes by smashing the glass case; as a result, he is sent for treatment at a mental hospital. When Charley is eventually discharged, he says that he now knows that Alice is not real, but is he fooling everyone?
Like Mute (Episode 5, Season 4), this tale deals with the subject of conformity: Charley is pressurised to be just like everyone else, his peculiarities seen as a problem by those around him. As a result Charley withdraws into a fantasy world, but this being The Twilight Zone, his fantasy becomes reality in the end.
Miniature is one of those 50-minute episodes that I think would have worked better in the shorter format: the story is too drawn out, the viewer given far too much opportunity to figure out how it will finish. I called the ending at about the twenty minute mark, and I wasn't wrong.