"The Twilight Zone" Number 12 Looks Just Like You (1964)

Director:

Abner Biberman

Writers:

Charles Beaumont (writer) and
John Tomerlin (writer) ...

TV Series:

"The Twilight Zone" (1959)

Original Air Date:

24 January 1964 (Season 5, Episode 17)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

In a future society everyone must undergo an operation at age 19 to become beautiful and conform to society. One young woman desperately wants to hold onto her own identity. |

Plot Keywords:

Young Woman | Physical Appearance | Law | Surgery | Based On Short Story

US TV Schedule:

Sun. Dec. 27	5:30 AM	SYFY	Number Twelve Looks Just Like You	#5.17
Fri. Jan. 1	1:32 AM	SYFY	Number Twelve Looks Just Like You	#5.17

Cast

Collin Wilcox Paxton	...	Marilyn Cuberle (as Collin Wilcox)
Richard Long	...	Uncle Rick / Dr. Rex / Professor Sigmund Friend
Pamela Austin	...	Valerie / Marilyn (as Pam Austin)
Suzy Parker	...	Lana Cuberle / Simmons / Grace / Doe / Jane / #12

Runtime:

25 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company:

Cayuga Productions

Quotes:

Narrator: Portrait of a young lady in love, with herself. Improbable? Perhaps. But in an age of plastic surgery, body building and an infinity of cosmetics, let us hesitate to say impossible. These and other strange blessings may be waiting in the future, which after all, is the Twilight Zone.

just as relevant now as ever

I just saw this episode for the first time since I first saw it back in the 1980s. I remember loving it back then, but now, probably 25 years later, and more than 40 years after it originally aired, I'm completely floored by it. I even teared up. It is probably more relevant now than ever before. Society -- and not "the state", as another commenter said but, rather, our consumer, corporate-profit-driven society -- pressures people, particularly girls, through their friends, media images, products, even their own families, to look and act a certain way. Now, young people don't read Shakespeare and Keats, and it's not because the works have been banned -- they don't read them because society tells them it's incredibly uncool and completely unnecessary. Collin Wilcox gives a subtle, convincing performance of a girl who is certainly, very, very beautiful on the inside. This is the Twilight Zone at its very finest.