User Reviews

For those curious, this episode is based in theme upon Pirandello's play, "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and Jean-Paul Sartre's play, "No Exit" (as indicated most obviously by its title), but, of course, with a Sterling twist.

Five very different individuals find themselves in a round room with no idea who they are other than the indication of their attire. A bell intermittently rings (perhaps also a Hemmingway allusion?), increasing the agony of their incarceration. The newcomer to the group, a Major, is determined to escape, while the others are resigned to their fate.

Unlike Pirandello, these characters don't even have a story. They have nothing other than the experience of the room in their consciousness, and no one to author their nonexistent story, so their position is even more hopeless than the characters in Pirandello's piece. Unlike both Pirandello and Sartre, there is no relationship involved between the characters and therefore no real conflict between them, though the theme of personal responsibility versus apathy is prominent in this story.

Though this diverges significantly from the storyline of the authors alluded to in the title, themes of Sartre and Pirandello (and many other authors of the twentieth century) come through with absolute clarity. This is very obviously a piece which addresses post-modernist perspective in the context of the Cold War era. There is also an emphasis upon issues of personal insignificance.

This is easily one of the best episodes I've seen, and still exceptionally relevant to current experience (as are Sartre and Pirandello). Exactly what makes a good piece of writing into a classic.

The plot synopsis sounds as if it might be the beginning of a joke, but instead it's the start of one of the most gripping and intensely claustrophobic tales of the third season of "The Twilight Zone". Before I even pressed play, the episode was already a contender for a price, namely the installment with the coolest title of Rod Serling's phenomenal TV-show (though on par with "The Four of us are Dying" and "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"), but it's much more. It's one of those entries that fully clarify why "The Twilight Zone" is currently ranked #20 in the greatest TV-series of all times (here on IMDb). Suspense and mystery from start to finish, intriguing characters, passionate performances and ditto direction, an open invitation to the viewer to guess for the denouement and a sardonic twist at the end.

Cube (1997) is based on this spectacular episode & it's vastly intelligent; abundantly benevolent and nightmarishly perfect!

"Five Characters In Search of An Exit" clearly has to be one of the more clever and better "Twilight Zone" episodes ever made because of it's abstract ideas and thoughtful plan where the characters have to search to discover identity and it ends as a surprise. You have a military major, a female dancer, bag pipe player, a clown, and hobo who all awake together in the bottom of a wall and none know how they got there and they don't know who they are. So the episode starts out with very interesting drama and suspense from the very beginning making it so soul searching for the viewers interest to want to know the characters true identity and backgrounds. Plus the episode even adds more intrigue for the fact it places different types of characters with different views and lifestyles all with one goal in common to escape and find identity, and peace that's very compelling for the viewer. Only in the end I don't want to spoil for those who haven't seen a surprise fall happens! Proving that many times you might want to stay where you are away in your little sheltered world and be away from the masses of other people's world as you will see the characters are loved in a different way by people in a much different form. Really great and cleverly done a real shock twist surprise that makes the viewer see the unexpected and cruel fate that happens sometimes when you search and seek.

While researching Susan Harrison (The Ballerina) in reference to a Bonanza Episode, I was reminded of this gem.

This episode is the inspiration for Dylan's "All Along the Watch Tower" (Hendrix's cover is probably as well know and is one of his best) which is one of HIS best.

Thus this episode is responsible for several 'bests' - not bad for approximately 22 minutes of television.

But this is "The Twilight Zone". Further comment of the series is unnecessary.

'5 Characters' is typical Serling. Intense, dramatic, barreling toward an end that is as inevitable in hindsight as it is surprising the first time you see it.

This episode is spoiled in one sentence and is too good to spoil for any who have not seen it.

But you will feel ambushed. And you will never listen to Hendrix with the same ears again.

This one will either delight you or drive you crazy, or quite possibly both. William Windom plays the Major with no memory of who he is (the actor was brilliant in the Serling scripted 'They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar' in 'Night Gallery') and searching for his identity. He is confined in the austere setting of four high walls and the first person he meets to converse with is a Clown with a flower in his hat and a similar identity crisis. The Ballerina is played by Susan Harrison (from 'The Sweet Smell of Success') with a serene and dreamy quality.

The fun is to escape the 21st century for a while to enjoy the mysterious appeal of this puzzling TZ entry. You might be groaning a little at the end - but wasn't it fun to guess along with the characters?

Five Characters In Search of an Exit is what you get if you combine Toy Story with Cube. An army Major wakes to find himself in a deep cylindrical metal room with no recollection of how he got there or any memory of who he is. He soon discovers that he is not alone: also as puzzled as he is are a clown, a ballet dancer, a Scotsman, and a hobo.

The novelty of this story is its puzzle: can the viewer piece together the clues and guess how the characters got to be in their unusual situation? The clown, the dancer and the hobo offer up quite a few Twilight Zone-style hypotheses of their own (they're all dead, it's a dream etc.), but none of them guess the truth: they are all dolls in a metal container, having been donated to a charity. It's a daft ending to a highly over-rated episode which might have worked a tad better had they not all been such obvious doll stereotypes. I reckon most people will figure it out long before the end.

Five people - an Army Major, a ballet dancer, a clown, a hobo and a bagpiper - find themselves locked in an unknown place. They don't know their names or how they got there. They are determined to escape.

Very clever episode of The Twilight Zone. Set up very well - the mystery, the intrigue, the lack of characters' backstories or even names. Plot develops well and the conclusion is both unpredictable and wonderfully sentimental.

Excellent episode.

William Windom(The Major), Murray Matheson(The Clown), Susan Harrison(The Ballerina), Kelton Garwood(The Tramp), and Clark Allen(The Bagpipe Player) play the five title characters, who find themselves prisoners in a vast cylindrical object with no way out but straight up, and no idea how they got there, or indeed who they are. The Major becomes the driving force in their effort to escape by forming a human ladder, and manages to get over the top with an unexpected outcome... Well remembered episode is really an existentialist play that still holds up marvelously today, with what must have been a stunning surprise ending that still packs a punch...if it hasn't been spoiled beforehand of course!

A character suddenly awakens, a stranger in a strange place they do not know or recognize or understand. They find they are accompanied in this strange place by other strangers, just as confused and baffled about where they are, why, and how they got there. None of the strangers themselves knows anything more about themselves as they do the others. They know they what they "are"... at least in terms that they might be a major, a clown, a ballerina... but no more than that. They don't know what they were before and have no recollection of a "before", all the know is what came after their awakening, and that they awakened or indeed came into being as they are. They can observe their surroundings, but nothing beyond what they can see within the structure they inhabit.

There is no way out they can discern. They use their senses and available tools to explore their world as they can, to understand it, to maybe even look for a way out. But there's no sense of what "out" would even mean, yet they feel as compelled to find one as they do to seek answers and find some kind of meaning to this existence in which they find themselves. They have limited means at their disposal, but they devise various ways to try and get to the one place where it seems the might find answers: up. They attempt to climb up and scale the walls, to try and get a glimpse of what lies "out there" in the "beyond". As if the view outward, or downward from above for that matter, might some how give them some kind of perspective, if not answers. There are clues... observable phenomena that seem to be exogenous in nature, but no sense at all as to what they are or what causes them, let alone how they fit. They are as much mysteries in themselves as pieces to a solvable puzzle. To escape this world itself may not bring enlightenment or revelation, but doom. Yet, still they feel compelled to search.

Does this sound familiar? If it sounds like an allegory, it's because it is one and most closely resembles a certain one having to do with a cave. The concrete aspects of this plot are not what matter, so much as the metaphors they represent. We all emerge into this world as something from nothing, with no discernible past that can be known to us except as exposition from those older and wiser who can provide some sense of contextualizion to our lives. Still, they themselves have no authority from which to speak, except for what they themselves observe and whatever knowledge, reliable or not, was passed down to them. We can see shadows of a beyond, but our attempts to search and find answers seems to only ever bring us from one horizon to another, even greater one, with even more plentiful and profound questions. It's an infinite regression of ever-expanding unknowns.

The episode's story will eventually provide a reveal that gives a neat and concrete answer... but it's not a serious one and so there's no point to even spoiling it, because I don't think it's even relevant WHAT the reveal would be. Whether the characters turn out to be here or there or in this or that situation for this or that reason, they are all equally trite and absurd. Because there can be no answer that doesn't produce further questions and the metaphor breaks down. For me, this episode works only if you see that and look past any need for concrete "explanations" as symbolic of the human condition and humanity's endless quest to try and understand itself and its predicament. You know, fish in a bowl, ants on the ears of an elephant. Few episodes exude such a sense of deeply resonant mystery and sense of existential angst. The characters themselves, they did not emerge gradually in this case, they did so suddenly, and so have all the questions a baby would have upon being born, if only babies could form their cognitive chaos into distinct queries. Instead, we are at least afforded a lifetime of slow, iterative growth in order to adapt and accommodate ourselves to our lives, and to normalize our realities. That is, until those quiet moments of reflection, when we start to peer through the edifice of defining tentpoles we surround ourselves with that give us a sense of certainty and purpose and place. There's a thin line between the unbridled wonder of the universe and the darkness of the abyss and this episode carries that tension, that sense that it's not enough to just sit around, we *must* know, but that knowing might also be a revelation that existence is as meaningless and empty as the nothingness from which it stems.

The specific characters here are also interesting. The major is the one most unsettled. He's the newest addition, for this restlessness and need for certainty and control and action... these traits seem intrinsic and not just situational or transient. The Clown is the most entertaining character... who sees fit to take his lot with equal doses of cynicism, apathy, and amusement. The ballerina is the gentle soul of the bunch... falling back to emotion for comfort and meaning and taking a more sentimental view of things. The other characters are less fleshed out and memorable and don't have quite the same symbolism engrained in them, but we only have a 20 or so minutes in which to tell this story, so I can look past that. The end is a bit anticlimactic, as you could love it or hate it depending on how literally you take it.

Definitely one of my favorite episodes and one of the most memorable, but not so much for the twist or any irony as much as the sense of mystery and the characters, in particular the performance of the clown is one of the better ones in the series. The joy here is in the journey and its implications, and possibly the notion that maybe it's all just as absurd as anything else. Perhaps this is why the clown character is so central, as a juxtaposition to the Major. We can be driven to action and to find answers, but we must be prepared for those answers to be no real answers at all, and certainly not satisfying ones.

This episode beautifully showcases the bizarre magic of The Twilight Zone. The title describes its story very well and straightforwardly; 5 random different people find themselves in a room or enclosure of some kind, with no doors or windows. None of them know where exactly they are or why they're there, so they try to figure out how to escape.

One of the aspects I especially liked about 'Five Characters in Search of an Exit' is that it could very easily be done as a stage play. It is very acting-driven and does not rely on visual effects. It also features great performances from each of the 5 main players.

I will not spoil the plot twist, but this story has a reputation for belting viewers with a complete shocker. The first time I watched this episode, it seemed to come out of nowhere. Absolutely worth a watch!

This Twilight Zone story begins with a somewhat disheveled William Windom in the uniform and rank of an army major finding himself in a cylindrical type room with no apparent entrance or exit save a hole where the roof should be. He finds he's not alone though, there's quite a motley crew in there with him. Susan Harrison a ballerina, Murray Matheson a clown, Kelton Garwood a tramp, and Clark Allen a bagpiper.

The others seem curiously resigned to this prison they find themselves in. But Windom being a military man knows his duty is to escape. He devises a way, but when one of them reaches the top and sees what's out there beyond this room, it's quite the shock.

It will be one for the viewer as well. We might very well be ourselves what these characters are in a much larger scale.

Five characters who have nothing in common and don't know who they are or why they are trapped in a high cylinder with no roof and no doors or windows. A scary, claustrophobic situation that ends up warming the heart at the end. Terrific.