User Reviews

Children of quarreling parents look for help in secret world.

The parents in this family are a couple of glamorous gargoyles. They bicker, fight, yell at the children, and threaten divorce. The unknowing kids think they are causing the problem, which of course they aren't, but which makes their unhappy situation all the more poignant. So they look for escape into a secret world, presided over by a benevolent grandmotherly type, who rather surprisingly looks more like a witch than a fairy godmother. Earl Hamner specialized in these kinds of scripts with the warm family values of hearth and home. This one is no different, although the kids have to cross into the TZ to find them. Nothing special here. What is significant is that this is the last of the entries to appear on network TV. And so the series closes with neither a bang nor a whimper.

Perhaps it's just as well that the series exits on a note of reminiscence for days gone by, of boys with fishing poles and girls with jump rope. For many of us, I'm sure there is something nostalgic about seeing these episodes again after so many years, along with a look back to a time when we were those boys and girls, thrilled to see this great, great series for the first time. Thanks, Rod Serling, Buck Houghton and the many others for all the unforgettable moments. I think you achieved a lot more than you may have thought.

What I like about some episodes of TZ are the surreal escapist appeal that really take you away to a different and peaceful or interesting place. "A stop at Willoughby" was a good example of that. This episode has some of that too, it's not as good as "Willoughby" but it has that intriguing escapist charm in the alternate dimension that the kids swim to from the bottom of their pool when trying to get away from the tension of their bickering parents. I did not like the parents much in this episode, the way they treated their kids, even yelling at them to "pipe down!" when they are only laughing and talking, and splashing a little water around. What kids don't do that? I know that to help make this kind of story effective, there needs to be an overbearing, unpleasant, nasty character, such as Gart's boss in "Willoughby" yelling "push!push!!push!!", or Gart's gold digging wife who was only with him for the money and couldn't care less about his actual feelings. So seeing the kids in this ep coming out the other side of the gateway between worlds into that tranquil and surreal lake by the peaceful looking cottage with Aunt T, it became easy for the viewer to believe that the kids would be happier there. The kids' parents were not nice, reasonable people, especially their mother. She was so spoiled and looked at her kids as nothing but an annoyance. And when they were telling their kids about how they were divorcing, and them getting irritated at their kids for acting upset? What kids wouldn't react upset to something like that? And the mother had the nerve to tell them "show us some consideration!" I did like the sequence of how the scenes of the episode played out, such as the scene where the parents were telling their kids they were divorcing, and then the kids jumping into the pool and disappearing. It was the first scene of the episode. Then the next scene where the kids and parents are all hanging outside the pool, and the viewers are probably thinking how that moment was after when they told the kids about the divorce and then them jumping into the pool and seemingly disappearing. And when they're next sitting by the pool, it appears at that moment that the kids quickly showed up again without any major issues after the parents were screaming about where they disappeared to. There are a couple surprises in the episode about what really happened in which sequence.

The last and hardly the best of the original episodes. Earl Hamner wrote a number of excellent folksy TZ episodes, but this one reeks of formula. I was always troubled by this episode. Do these children really want to spend the rest of their lives with that creepy Aunt T? Is cake every day better than life in the real world? Do the children never want to see their parents again, divorced or otherwise? Did the parents report the children to the authorities as missing? Would they be thrown in jail under suspicion of some unspeakable crime? Why do the children have such thick southern drawls when their parents have no accents at all? June Foray's obvious overdubbing of Mary Badham's voice adds to the creepiness. Shudder.

Mary Badham (Scout from "To Kill a Mockingbird") plays Sport this time, in an Earl Hamner, Jr. teleplay about a brother and sister who are invited to escape their troubled lives by retreating to a magical kiddie-land overseen by a marvelous old woman. Sport is initially wary of this lady and calls her a kidnapper, but there are no twists in this scenario and the lady is just what she seems: a friendly, wholesome Auntie who bakes cakes and sews and gives the kids light chores to keep them active (they better be active if they don't want diabetes!). This episode has a sweetly zonked, dream-like quality (made even more surreal by peculiar overdubbing on Badham during the outdoor scenes--she's given a high, Southern-styled voice by June Foray, Rocky on the "Bullwinkle" cartoons). Still, the lack of an ominous undercurrent makes this a refreshing change for "The Twilight Zone" and it's fun to imagine what the hateful parents will do with each other now that their kids are long gone.

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 am just wondering, has anyone noticed that this particular episode is the only one in the series in which there is a duplication of a scene, which seems to be an error? There is a repetition of the footage. One first sees the scene where the children are told about the impending divorce, and this is repeated, inexplicably, later in the episode. It's hard to believe that an error as egregious as this would pass unnoticed, but I cannot figure it out. If it's intended, what would be the point of showing that particular segment twice? On another note, does the collected set of Twilight Zone have the Owl Creek episode, which I have never been privileged to see?

I can't understand all the negative comments about this show. THis has always been one of my favorite episodes of the series. I think the show had some good issues and does not date even until today. It showed how children of neglectful parents could react and the consequences it could bring.

As for the questions about did the parents call the police and report the kids missing? Perhaps they did, but who cares!!! The real moral is the children were not happy with those mean parents (the mother was an absolute b___h) and they had found a better place and went to live there. And I think Aunty T was a sweet old lady who loved children, not a witch. She looked more like the sweet grandmother to me.

I think Rod's (Serling) comment at the end summed it up greatly: "A brief epilogue for concerned parents: We grown ups know there's no such a place as the gingerbread house of Aunt T or a door at the bottom of a swimming pool that leads to a secret place. But who knows what the world of children of unwanted parents can become. For Jeb and Sport Sherwood their need for love turned fantasy into reality. They found a secret place in the Twilight Zone."

Well the reviews look rather mixed on this, the last episode of The Twilight Zone series. For my part, I think the show ended on a high note, with Rod Serling returning to one of his most cherished themes - the yearning for a carefree youth rid of the pressures of a grown up world which seems to have nothing but problems. In the case of Sport (Mary Badham) and Jeb (Tim Stafford) Sherwood, those pressures include the ugly marriage of their parents that's about to end in divorce. I have to side with the youngsters here; just how many times would you want to hear yourself being referred to by your mother as 'those loudmouth kids'.

I found interesting another viewer's comments about the repeat of the opening scene. This was the only TZ to do it, but any classic Western TV fan will tell you it was a commonplace device, just check out 'Cheyenne' or 'Lawman'. Here the scene wasn't quite repeated in exactly the same way, for example, Whitt (Kim Hector) didn't show up the second time around to entice the Sherwood siblings. In any event, I did find it curious as well.

I guess all kids find solace in a 'secret place'. Mine would have been more easily attainable if it wasn't so far from home. My Dad used to take me small game hunting as a kid, and there was this huge boulder in the woods that seemed to be the perfect spot on which to sit and reflect on the state of one's being. I wonder if Serling had such a place, my suspicion is that he did. My suspicion is that Serling also had a uniquely introspective quality that saw the world through a child's eyes, and questioned why the good times of youth couldn't last forever. Some would refer to a thing called progress, but on that score I have to wonder. For all the advancement in science and technology in the half century since the first Twilight Zone, it takes a lot of Aunt T's to keep the world a sound and safe place for the kids of today.

That's how much I loved this episode. And everyone out there who has given this low ratings, you have to be kidding, this is a great feel good Twilight zone. They also purposefully used the first scene and brought it back to the end on purpose, they were showing it full circle. And the parents lackadaisical behavior just goes to show how awful these parents are. The children take matters into their own hands and just goes to show how it takes a village to raise children. Especially when there is alcohol or drug problems. The wife said to her husband that he just "drinks his dinner anyway ". So they are much better off without their parents, especially given when they couldn't find them initially in the pool, they shared hardly any emotion.