Mirror Image
- Episode aired Feb 26, 1960
- TV-PG
- 25m
While waiting in a bus station, Millicent Barnes has the strange feeling that her doppelganger is trying to take over her life.While waiting in a bus station, Millicent Barnes has the strange feeling that her doppelganger is trying to take over her life.While waiting in a bus station, Millicent Barnes has the strange feeling that her doppelganger is trying to take over her life.
- Director
- Writer
- Rod Serling(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRod Serling claimed one of his real-life experiences inspired this story.
- GoofsPaul and Millicent's first conversation lasts for almost 3 minutes yet the clock on the wall behind them remains at 2:15.
- Quotes
Narrator: [Opening Narration] Millicent Barnes, age twenty-five, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes, not given to undue anxiety or fears, or, for that matter, even the most temporal flights of fancy. Like most career women, she has a generic classification as a "girl with a head on her shoulders." All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Miss Barnes' shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who, in one minute, will wonder if she's going mad.
- ConnectionsEdited into Twilight-Tober-Zone: Mirror Image (2020)
The episode looks fantastic, with creamy black and white photography and film noir style from director John Brahm. The script shows Rod Serling at his best - no pretentiousness or preaching, just terse, simple and effective writing.
"Mirror Image" is one of those TZ episodes that lend themselves to symbolic and psychological interpretations. Loss of Identity and The Individual Versus Society were key themes of TZ, and what happens to Vera Miles here could be interpreted as an allegory of persecution of the individual by a repressive state. The bus depot certainly has a bleak, totalitarian atmosphere to it. The ticket taker clearly wants to "get rid of" Miles because she questions the goings-on in the depot, and her carting off to the hospital could be read as society's stigmatization of independent thought as mental disease.
But apart from such heavy-duty analysis, "Mirror Image" functions simply as a captivating half-hour thriller, subtly and artistically done.
That last point - the artistry - brings me to the final thing I'd like to say about "Mirror Image." What a time-capsule this piece is, aesthetically speaking. It was first aired in February 1960. Less than a decade later, and Miles and Milner with their trench coats and hats would have seemed like visitors from another planet. Old-fashioned too would have seemed the film noir photography and the Stravinsky-ish musical score (stock music mostly composed by Bernard Herrmann). By the 1970s television shows would be in color and all about "social issues" and "relevance." "Mirror Image" is one of the last artifacts of a bygone era, and that's part of its appeal for us today.
- MichaelMartinDeSapio
- Nov 22, 2015
Details
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1