The Twilight Zone (TV Series) Four O'Clock (1962) User Reviews

With a stronger ending this could have been first rate.

[darrenpearce111 · 6/10 · 15 January 2014]

The foundations of a good episode are established with this ghastly character Crangle (Theodore Bikel) and his sanctimonious crusade against people leading less than saintly lives. He is a hypocrite, telling his landlady 'I mind my own business'. He does harm by anonymous phone calls and letter writing. Crangle's war on immorality is clearly the creepy, slithering nastiness of an obsessed coward who wont play the game and live his own life.

The story continues well throughout in the middle. Crangle's lack of humanity is further underlined when he receives a visit from Mrs Lucas (Phyllis Love) the wife of doctor he intends to expose for being 'imperfect'. This is a strong scene with Mrs Lucas questioning the crazy crusader and him mentioning communists among the 'evil' he targets. Then things get madder when Crangle hits on an idea- from this point the production suffers from a silly conclusion. A pity because there're still good moments as Crangle cherry picks by underlining only the parts he likes of The Gettysburg Address and displays his paranoia. Perhaps the end doesn't have to be taken literally? There could even be a clue with the parrot? Crangle is undeniably mad after all.

One truly far out, mad-bad character. Yet his type gets elected in democracies from time to time. He is sadly all too human.

At "Four O'Clock" all the evil will be exposed

[chuck-reilly · 7/10 · 3 March 2008]

Theodore Bikel plays Oliver Crangle, an angry prejudiced misanthrope who is obsessed with ridding the world of all its evil. And evil is what Crangle sees everywhere around him (e.g. subversives, communists, racial minorities, immigrants, and the list goes on and on). But Crangle has the power to do something about it. He can change all the evil people of the world into two feet high dwarfs. The script never explains exactly how Crangle can accomplish this tremendous feat and viewers may surmise that his powers are more figurative than literal. He may be just some deranged and disillusioned basket-case; at least that's what one of the local authorities thinks about Crangle after a brief visit to investigate a complaint.

The underlying story here is the "Red Scare" of the 1950's and how it bent a whole generation of Americans out of shape. It was one of Rod Serling's recurring themes in his work and it's put to good use in this entry. Bikel is perfectly cast as Crangle, a man who sees evil everywhere but in himself. As the clock ticks to the inevitable conclusion, his demise is well-deserved if not totally unexpected. As Serling wryly notes at the end, "Crangle has made his bed and now he has to sleep in it." And it all happens at "Four O'Clock."

Oliver Crangle

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 29 October 2014]

Theodore Bikel stars as Oliver Crangle, a most vindictive, unpleasant man with a huge chip on his shoulder, and a strong desire to persecute and punish all those people he deems to be morally suspect or outright evil. He has many filing cabinets full of information of people that he uses to either get them fired, or harass them with phone calls. He one day hits upon the idea of shrinking all the evil people to about 2 Ft. tall at Four O'clock that day, but doesn't reckon on that depraved wish backfiring on himself... Bikel is quite good here, despite playing a deranged man with little back story. Quite thin and obvious really, but this still remains something of a guilty pleasure, with a most appropriate ending.

"May I speak to your manager?"

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 3 September 2019]

Veteran character actor Theodore Bikel gives a strong performance as an obsessed and despicable man who finds it is his duty to report people for things for which he really has no proof, accusing one through an anonymous phone call to their employer of being a communist, a teacher of being immoral and a doctor whose practice he questions. "That man has a leak in his attic a mile wide!" landlady Moyra McGill tells visiting doctor's wife Phyllis Love who goes to see Bikel to confront him about what right he has to judge her husband who remains unseen.

Serling intelligently bashes the Gladys Kravitz's of our world, the "Permit Patty's", the "BBQ Betty's", those who stick their nose into the private lives of people just living their lives, based upon prejudice and assumption of supposed wrong doing. It is very apparent that Bikel is as mad as a hatter, laughing maniacally like Herbert Lom in "The Pink Panther Strikes Again", threatening to turn all of his victims into two feet tall little people. His confession to Linden Chiles of what he is planning reveals another "Twilight Zone" megalomaniac whom the audience wants to see taken down from his very first telephone call. For every finger he points, four point back at him, and the moral lessons of this episode are very strongly dramatized.

He would have enjoyed the cyber age

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 31 January 2019]

Theodore Bikel gives an unforgettable performance as Oliver Crangle, a man obsessed with evil of all kinds. One of those individuals who minds the business of every person he comes in any kind of contact with, whether its personal or he reads about it in the newspaper or see it on television. He sure can't hear much word of mouth gossip the way he lives.

It occured to me watching this again 57 years after it had first been broadcast that Oliver Crangle really would have thrived in the age of the computer. The internet would have given him countless opportunities to see and record evil in his eyes.

In any event he has willed that at 4 O'Clock something nasty is going to happen to the evil people in the world. That last shot with Bikel and his parrot is really something.

I only wish this would happen to the busybodies of the world.

4 O'clock Jump

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 18 June 2014]

***SPILERS*** Totally out of his skull Oliver "Ollie" Cringle played but the ham acting and Hungarian folk singing Theodore "Teddy" Bikel who's trying to rid the world of evil that he sees all over the place. Writing and calling those in authority to rid their agencies, hospitals & schools, of the evil that's infesting them "Ollie" cause a lot of people serious harm in losing their jobs and destroying their reputations in the community. Seeing himself as a crusader against evil makes "Ollie" even more dangerous as he has no thoughts in just how many people's lives he destroys in his holy crusade against evil.

It's while he's contemplating his next move in battling the evil that's threatening the world at large "Ollie" comes up with this bright idea to cause all the evil people in the world to shrink down to two feet tall at precisely 4 O'clock that afternoon. How "Ollie" got this crazy idea and how he can in fact make it happen is never explained but sure enough he's certain that he can pull it off when the time comes. As the clock ticks down to 4 O'clock "Ollie" gets a visitor from the US Government FBI Agent Hall,Linden Childs, who's been assigned to check the guy out after he told it by phone that he has proof that the world is about to come to an end because of the evil that's engulfing it. Seeing that the man is totally nuts FBI Agent Hall makes a quick exit from "Ollie's" apartment advising him to get psychiatric help before it's too late.

***SPOILERS*** Well it turned out that "Ollie" was right about evil and the cure for it by turning all the evil people in the world to the size of two foot tall dolls at the bewitching hour of 4 O'clock. And sure enough "Ollie" is one if not the only one who at 4 O'clock shrinks down to that size! Proving that the only evil of all the evils that he saw the one evil that "Ollie" failed to see was the evil that was inside of him.

Saw it coming from a mile away

[glennsmithk · 7/10 · 24 October 2019]

This episode shines thanks to superb acting by Theodore Bikel. It's failure is in revealing a completely predictable twist early on. It's still a decent offering. It is not Serling's best work by any means, but it's still a solid 6.

One of the best!

[Jordan_Haelend · 8/10 · 23 December 2006]

Rod Serling was very concerned about prejudice and cruelty in society. In this episode, he gives us both in the form of a vicious, obsessed maniac who is out to ruin everyone whom he considers evil; moreover, he has determined that he has the power to mark all evil people so that they will be instantly recognizable, as well as doomed, by said mark. In fact, Oliver Crangle DOES have that ability, and uses it-- only to find out, to his great surprise, who the truly evil is. Not "are," "is." For his Crangle, Serling chose one of the very best actors around, Theodore Bikel. He is excellent here, playing Crangle as a man who is at once cruel, vicious and intolerant of other people's errors, but who nevertheless displays a sense of humor. This is one of my favorite episodes.

One-Note Plot

[dougdoepke · 17 May 2017]

With a hunched-over body, Coke bottle glasses, and a name like "Crangle", you know weirdo is going to follow. And it does, in spades. The half-hour really amounts to a Bikel showcase, as he gets to go through about every loony tune in the weirdo song book. As Crangle, he's out to eradicate the world of evil, that is, evil according to his own expansive definition. His poison is to contact folks "harboring" evil ones and let them know what they're doing. Needless to say, his lunacy is damaging a lot of undeserving victims. Yet he gloats the gloat of the smugly righteous. So what will happen at 4-o'clock when he "wills" the world's evil people to shrink down to midgets. That's the question.

The production's a one room, small cast setup that frankly features Bikel's same lunatic note the whole time. The only real interest is what Serling's got in store when the clock strikes 4. Otherwise, there's little storyline except for the loony emoting. I wish the screenplay provided a bit of Crangle's background. As it is, he and his venom are just sort of dropped in. To me, it's a mediocre entry at best.

(In passing--that's Moyna MacGill, Angela Lansbury's mom, as the aging woman. It's striking, to me, the family resemblance between the two.)

The parrot with Sterling was the best part

[whatch-17931 · 6/10 · 17 January 2021]

Rod's into monologue beside the parrot is hilarious because the bird looks at Rod, then the camera, then Rod, then the camera, etc.

Though, they then cut to a closeup of the bird, which ironically illustrates the problem of weaker episodes like this one. And that would be one note stories that are insanely on the nose that beat you over the head with their moral. Likewise, they cut from the great Rod/parrot scene to a parrot closeup to say See! We've got a bird that acts!

Heavy-handed even for Rod

[caseyabell · 5/10 · 8 July 2020]

As a number of other commenters have noted, Rod Serling was never known for subtlety. This episode scores political points with a baseball bat over the viewer's cranium. The preaching almost makes you want to disagree just for the sake of disagreeing. It would have been fun to get Solzhenitsyn's take on Serling's high-decibel crusade against anti-communists.

Leaving politics aside, Theodore Bikel's performance is hilariously over the top. I'm not sure if he was chewing the scenery as a consciously ironic comment on Serling's loud sermon. Or maybe he was just having so much fun he couldn't stop. Either way, his performance is the only thing that makes the episode worth watching. And it gets all five of the stars I awarded.

The twist ending is telegraphed from the start and can't possibly surprise anybody who doesn't doze off during the episode. Unfortunately, Rod was too busy yelling politics to plot a less predictable conclusion.

"I have a great deal of work to do".

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 7 June 2010]

All the great dictators throughout history have felt the same way. Their reason for being is to expunge the world of whatever doesn't fit their particular point of view, be it evil, religion or an inferior race. They often gain ascendancy on the global stage, only to be thrust back in the face of truth, freedom and liberty. Rod Serling certainly had a lot to say with his stories, sometimes subliminally, and often right out there and in your face. There's no doubt he was confronting communism and the red menace in this installment of The Twilight Zone. The late Fifties and early Sixties were ripe with Commie paranoia, and that theme ran an undercurrent in a number of episodes.

With Oliver Crangle (Theodore Bikel), we have a self absorbed megalomaniac who by his own admission compiles, investigates and judges. Those on the wrong end of his research are railroaded and hounded out of their jobs and positions. I found it rather remarkable that he deemed curiosity and ignorance as damnable traits; the first a stepping stone to success in many fields, the latter a condition that can be remedied by education and experience. Interestingly, Crangle had a bit of both as part of his character.

Don't bother trying to rationalize how Crangle was going to pull off his global sentence on all the subversives of the world. In their approach to arriving at a twist ending, Serling and his writers often disregarded those troublesome details. What's clever is the way the stories brought the viewer along just far enough where you could figure out the ending, and still be surprised by the outcome.

By the way, was it my imagination, or did every time Pete the Parrot chime in, he seemed to be calling Crangle a 'Nut'?

Unpleasant and Predictable

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 28 July 2023]

Oliver Crangle is a wicked man, obsessed to eliminate the evil from the mankind. He investigates several people, and then he tries to ruin their lives, telling to their employers that they are pervert, or communist, or murderer or incompetent. The insane Crangle says that at four o'clock, all the scums in the society will have 60 cm height and will be easily identified by the authorities.

"Four O'Clock" is an unpleasant and predictable episode of "The Twilight Zone". The evil Oliver Crangle is one of the most detestable characters ever, ruining reputations and destroying lives of people he selects and judge. The conclusion is predictable. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Às Quatro Horas" ("At Four O'Clock")

Another Political Episode

[verbusen · 3/10 · 1 February 2017]

The Twilight Zone gets leftist political (again). I would have been OK with this episode if they had kept out the mention of communism, but they had to go there. The show's staff was probably effected by the HUAC (House Un American Committee), which overreached but did expose the communist left entrenched in Hollywood. I mean, that's a given now in 2017 right? Hollywood is OWNED by the left now (and has been probably since when this TZ episode was made). Imagine if the left had not been exposed in the 50's, where America would be today? Maybe we would all be calling ourselves Comrade and waiting in line for years to get a washing machine and eating our ration of government cheese and bread as our daily subsistence along with lots of cheap government booze. The story is lame, we all know he's the one going to shrink, it's not a surprise at all. I guess the writer had a personal grudge against the political right and people like in the John Birch Society. The writer listed on IMDb is Price Day who has only two writing credits listed and is noted as winning a Pulitzer for International coverage, the info online is little but one page says his Pulitzer was for 1949 "Citation: For his series of 12 articles entitled, "Experiment in Freedom: India and Its First Year of Independence."" Whatever. I also read about the leading actor Theodore Bikel and his bio seems to be a match for our present day liberal activists Sean Penn or Susan Sarandon so I guess that explains it all. The episode would have been better if they had left out the politics but hey it's not the only one, there are probably 20 episodes that paint all the political right as fascists and all the liberal left as the saviors. That's just the way the show is sometimes, thankfully not all the time, but then if it was the show wouldn't have aired for 5 years in the late 50's early 60's as no one would have watched. I give it a 3, it's way too left wing political (as well as predictable) for me. I expect very negative voting on my review (Imdb reviews tend to love USSR made films so I think it's readership is pretty left wing) but if it opens a conversation that's fine with me.

Bikel gives a masterclass in madness.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 4 April 2022]

Oliver Crangle (Theodore Bikel) has taken it upon himself to rid the world of evil, a seemingly admirable pursuit, one might think, except that this petulant man's suspect methods involve investigating the innocent, passing judgement on them, and then destroying their lives. Crangle's latest idea for punishing the wicked is to turn them all two-feet tall.

Bikel's performance as the deranged Crangle is a delight, the character's bizarre mannerisms and crazed laughter the result of an obsession that has pushed him into insanity; his declaration that, at four o'clock, all the evil people will become a third of their height is met with understandable incredulity by FBI agent Hall (Linden Chiles). Who in their right mind would believe the ranting of such an obvious madman?

The twist in the tale is that Crangle is true to his word, but being such a nasty piece of work, he winds up being shrunk in size himself. I imagine most people will have guessed that this was going to happen within seconds of Crangle announcing his ingenious plan, making this a rather disappointing way to close an otherwise entertaining episode.

Yeah, too predictable

[ericstevenson · 6/10 · 9 August 2018]

This episode features a guy who wants to shrink all the evil people in the world down to two feet. They never really explain how he does this. He says it's just his will. We don't see anyone shrink except for himself. Yeah, he was evil himself the whole time! Big surprise.

It's at least a pretty original idea. I don't know why it was chosen for 4:00. Oh, I guess why not? I liked his parrot. I knew he'd wear glasses at one point. It's just forgettable. **1/2

Size of Evil

[hellraiser7 · 7/10 · 3 November 2021]

This is another good one and under the radar. There isn't a whole lot I can say about this one as it's a straightforward simple one but that's why it works to me anyway. This episode was sort of acknowledged McCarthyism back in the 50's which was paranoia epidemic out of control that destroyed many lives for reasons that didn't even exist.

The main villain obviously represents that portion of history; we get a glimpse into this character as of course we easily see from the get-go; this person is completely out of his gord. He is on an endless so called one-man self-righteous crusade to destroy everyone he deems evil, mainly from getting people fired or constant harassing phone calls.

One significant moment is when he is reading the "Declaration of Independence" replica document on his wall, and he is deliberately redacting all the big important parts of the document. It really shows the guy doesn't really car about the law or fairness only what he deems fit in his diseased mind. Let alone his own apartment which reflects it as we see just so many filing cabinets of all kinds with records of just about everyone in the city I think; this is a guy that obviously doesn't get out much but also shows how long this guy's been going crazy.

There is also a moment where he is talking to a cop and he then says, "I'm not evil." This is actually true about the mindset of most of the guilty whom despite amoral actions don't see themselves as evil but mainly because they just don't want to, a form of denial from fear of seeing themselves for what they are but also just simply have a terrible egotism to them.

And that egotism is expressed once he proposes his daft plan of shrinking evil to size, how the heck he can make that happen is anyone's guess maybe he has some mutant superpower, but whatever the case it shows the extent of it and what he really is that he's a person that doesn't want to bring justice to the guilty or destroy evil but power over everyone he deems smaller than him.

It comes down to the suspenseful countdown and the results well let's just say it's on the dot for ironic justice.

Rating: 3 stars.

Episode that was predictable, but fun, even in 1962

[drystyx · 7/10 · 24 October 2023]

This episode features Bikel doing an amazing performance as a crazy man who couldn't possibly exist in real life, but is entertaining as a villain on the screen.

He's a McCarthy character who makes McCarthy look like a teddy bear. He has files on people, and calls their employers to get these people fired. He begins by calling them "communists", and proceeds on to calling them "evil people". Where does he get these files? What does he do for a living to pay the rent? Well, even in 1962, this was a poorly written piece that doesn't explain any of this. But McCarthyism was a big topic, and that sold this story.

Bikels madman character has an imaginary plan to turn all "evil people" into midgets at four O Clock. Lol, by magical will from his mind.

Well, no need for a spoiler. This was predictable even in 1962. It would have been predictable in 1962 BC.

The performance by Bikel makes this worthwhile, but the story is very goofy. The character is even goofier. It's a sort of "Frank Burns" character, or "Dr. Smith", someone who doesn't really exist, but whom some people want to believe exist.

Which makes this very ironic. Had this character been written by a right wing fanatic, he would be a ridiculous hippie who helped a Charles Manson type escape prison and would have been the next victim of the Manson character.

In other words, these characters are just contrived bits of convenience. They're characters that nut jobs much like this character would believe do exist. And that is ironic, but don't look for a real person to be like this. That would make you just like this character.

However, it is very watchable. For that, I credit Bikel.

Sinking into oblivion

[sscal · 8/10 · 12 June 2019]

While the writing is heavy-handed and rather preachy, Bikel,s performance is superb insofar as you can watch him - in 20 minutes or so - sink believably into total paranoia. A good example of why one should always question the motives and mental health of a finger-pointer.

Pot calling the kettle black

[nickenchuggets · 5/10 · 22 February 2022]

For every 5 or so good Twilight Zone episodes, there's one that is so bland and mediocre that it makes me wonder how it could have been written by the same Rod Serling that brought us all the classics everyone is familiar with, such as Living Doll. This just might be the episode that I hate the most, because not only is its conclusion predictable, it's not even that satisfying when it does arrive. The episode centers on Oliver Crangle (Theodore Bikel), a nut who spends his life in his room writing about people he deems evil. Using a process that is barely understood (even by him), he plans to shrink every evil person on earth to a height of just 24 inches by 4 o'clock that afternoon. In the meantime, Crangle overreacts to everyone who tells him he has a sad life because he spends all his time hating people who don't even know he exists, but he still thinks he'll be vindicated in the end. By the time 4 o'clock finally comes, Crangle realizes to his horror that he's the one who has shrunk. I get the idea that each TZ episode is meant to have a kind of moral lesson to teach viewers, but this one is so plain to see that I can't believe Serling even let it pass. I guess he's trying to say how Crangle condemned himself by hating people all the time, because hate can't be driven out by more hate. Bikel's performance just didn't do it for me. He's hectic, loud, and obnoxious. Maybe if he was in some other episode he'd be given a better character to portray, but this is the episode we're stuck with for his first (and only) appearance on the show. In short, reading about how amazing this episode is according to the majority of watchers is not going to alter my perception or viewpoint on it. It's extremely predictable, and the ending didn't even feel justified. This is a rare TZ episode that I just simply don't recommend.

Little Man, Little Mind

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 5 December 2008]

Coming out of the witch hunts of the fifties, Serling probably wanted to make a strong statement. Being quite socially conscious, he takes on the hate mongering that led to the McCarthy hearings and the blackballing of some of his fellow writers and peers. This is a simple story. At no time is the principle character seen in anything but a negative light. He puts forth his nutty agenda and is squelched. Of course those who see him become the next targets of his phone warfare. The acting is quite good and we know that there is going to be a comeuppance. The whole business of designating a particular time when all of those who he opposes will shrink to two feet tall, seems a bit far fetched, but it is a satisfying ending to this meaningless person.

My candidate for the absolute WORST TZ episode

[lrrap · 1/10 · 16 February 2020]

Pathetically preachy, pedantic, predictable....so phony and exaggerated that I can barely sit through it.

OK--WE ALL GET IT....Serling wants to teach us a lesson about HATE. But this ridiculously cartoon-y approach is painful and made all the more laughable by Mr. Bikel's caricature of a performance, complete with Curly Howard's big, pop-bottle "Ma-Hah!" glasses. I'm sure everyone involved believed in the "MESSAGE" of the script---bombastic, garish, and screamy as it is....but jeeezz... a little subtlety and restraint from cast, writer and director might have resulted in a far more effective sermon.

Absolutely the worst....and I'm a great enthusiast of the series. LR

Who's the Shrink Around Here?

[rmax304823 · 8/10 · 1 April 2013]

Theodore Bikel gives an enjoyable blubbery performance as a man obsessed with shrinking all the bad people in the world to two feet tall. He collects thousands of names of people who are dangerous; his room is filled with files on everyone. After a revelation he determines to shrink them. Bikel's performance is helped by some of Serling's more bizarre bits of dialog. One of his plans is to turn airplane propellers soft so that they dangle from the engines "like banana skins." Gives you the heebee-jeebies to hear him cackle with glee.

The ironic ending can be fully anticipated by an experienced viewer but that's not what impressed me about the story anyway. Here we have Bikel, pacing around his crowded room, cursing all the malefactors that surround him. And here are some of the words and expressions he uses to describe them: "Commies," "reds," "perverts," "subversives," "wrongdoers," "teachers," "dregs," "leeches," "impure." "The Reds have taken over Washington." "It's a complete world-wide conspiracy." A visitor asks why he's doing this. "Why? Because they're evil. It's very simple." Of course, in a historical sense, this is Serling's preachy reaction to the McCarthyism of ten years earlier, when half the country seemed to be in the grip of some kind of hysteria.

And yet we find that hysteria on the rise again today. If you go to any newsboard on the internet -- not radical blogs but respectable news sources -- the same words and phrases leap out at you from the "readers' comments" sections. "Leeches" has an echo of Ayn Rand. Maybe a few substitutions here and there: Muslims for Reds, because there are no more "Reds" in the old-fashioned sense, so we've shaped ourselves some new enemies. And try substituting "evildoers" for "wrongdoers" and you're talking about presidential addresses. A month before this writing, a newly elected United States Senator in grilling the president's nominee for Secretary of Defense, wondered aloud if he were being paid by North Korea or some jihadist group. (Sure he was. It's a complete world-wide conspiracy.)

This venomous hatred seem always to come from the same wellspring, which I won't bother to name. Periodically we seem prone to these outbreaks of lunacy that I think, eventually, will have to be explained by neurobiologists. They can start with the amygdala.

everything that's wrong about "The Twilight Zone"

[grizzledgeezer · 3/10 · 27 February 2016]

There's a rule of screen writing that goes "Never lecture the audience". Points should be made subtly or indirectly, rather than thrown in the audience's face.

This was something Rod Serling rarely did. Like Mr Crangle, he wanted to expose human failings and the world's evils. But he tells his stories -- almost always -- in the most obvious sorts of ways. It's as if a teenager who thinks heavy-handed irony is the highest form of drama has been given access to a movie studio (in this case, MGM).

Perhaps the wrongest thing about this episode -- as it is with so many others -- is that a magnificent performance (in this case, from Theodore Bikel) is wasted on inferior material. The episode is dead-on, with beautifully written dialog that allows Bikel to show what a fine actor he is, until Crangle announces that, at 4PM, all the evil people will be reduced to a height of 2'. (This is an excellent example of truthiness, in which you believe something to be true, with no justification.) And, of course, that's exactly what happens. To one of them, anyway. *

Considered as intelligent drama, or genuinely clever storytelling, perhaps only a dozen "Twilight Zone" stories are any good. (That's an abysmal statistic for a series with 156 episodes.) Perhaps the best episode is "Eye of the Beholder", which builds up suspense, then abruptly shoves the audience's prejudices down its throat, without lecturing (though Serling's spoken coda needlessly underlines the point).

* I was hoping the parrot would swoop down and rip Crangle to pieces, but S&P would have put the kibosh on that.

The man is insane! I love it!!

[Coventry · 8/10 · 2 March 2021]

"Four O'Clock" is among the lowest ranked TZ-episodes (currently #144 out of 156 episodes), and there are remarkably more negative and downright harsh user-comments to be found about it. I'm probably the ignorant one again, but ... I loved it! What annoys me (personally, that is) about several episodes is that the tone of the stories, and the personalities of the lead characters, are too soft and sentimental. I liked my "Twilight Zone" tales dark & twisted, and my protagonists as evil and despicable as possible. Oliver Crangle, the anti-hero in "Four O'Clock", is pure evil and - moreover - utterly insane! Crangle, with glasses as thick as marmalade jars, fills his days with speaking bad of others and digging up random dirt of random people. Together with his parrot (!), Crangle conspires for something terrible to happen to all the "nasty" people. I honestly don't understand why anyone would dislike this happily deranged episode! Rod Serling's moral lesson is obvious (be nice to each other) but not shoved down our throats, Crangle's monologues are truly genius, Theodore Bickel's performance couldn't be better and the (admittedly foreseeable) climax is the cherry on the cake. Fun tale! Should be top 15 instead of bottom 15...