In some episodes of the Twilight Zone, creator/writer Rod Serling would expound on the destructiveness of machines, modern science and progress because of their accumulative damage to human dignity. In "A Thing About Machines," he takes the complete opposite approach to the subject. Richard Haydn stars as Bartlett Finchley, a fellow who can't adjust to all the electronic gadgets at his disposal and turns them into objects of spite. The simple answer for him would be get rid of his television, radio etc. But then we wouldn't have much of a story. As it is, there isn't much here to begin with anyway. Naturally, the machines begin to have a life of their own and start to rebel against their abusive owner. Even his trusty secretary (played by Barbara Stuart) can't handle Finchley's psychotic behavior and decides to root for the machines. Soon, Finchley is on the run as his appliances gain the upper hand and send him scurrying into oblivion.
There's a moral to the story here somewhere, but it's mostly obscured by a wholesale lack of enthusiasm from the cast and a lackluster script. Haydn was a fine actor in his day and he does what he can playing the despicable Finchley, but his heart doesn't seem to be in it. Veteran Twilight Zone regular Barney Phillips has a few notable scenes as a TV repairman who isn't enamored with Finchley the Customer. Their interplay in the opening sequence is the only witty dialog to be found in the episode. I guess Serling wanted his viewers to believe that inanimate objects have feelings too. But only in the Twilight Zone.
There's a moral to the story here somewhere, but it's mostly obscured by a wholesale lack of enthusiasm from the cast and a lackluster script. Haydn was a fine actor in his day and he does what he can playing the despicable Finchley, but his heart doesn't seem to be in it. Veteran Twilight Zone regular Barney Phillips has a few notable scenes as a TV repairman who isn't enamored with Finchley the Customer. Their interplay in the opening sequence is the only witty dialog to be found in the episode. I guess Serling wanted his viewers to believe that inanimate objects have feelings too. But only in the Twilight Zone.