The Twilight Zone (TV Series) What Are Friends For?/Aqua Vita (1986) User Reviews

Beauty is only skin deep

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 12 March 2011]

***SPOILERS*** TV news anchorwoman Christie Copperfield, Mimi Kennedy, who been the top TV newscaster for some ten years is starting to hit hard times. Now 40 and looking her age the stations sales manager,Bob Delegall, has come up with the latest ratings and it doesn't look good for Christie. She's down by ten points in the rating and still dropping.

Knowing that youth is the way to go on TV News Christie is desperate to get a face-over or even face lift but finds from her fellow female newscaster Shauna Allen, Amanda Horan Kennedy, that there's a much better way to look young: Aqua Vita. Aqua Vita is a liquid that Shauna has been drinking for years that has given her, at age 45, a youthful look of someone in their 20's. The only hitch to this fountain of youth that Shauna keeps from Christine is that it accelerates the aging process when, after getting addicted to it, wen it stops being used or drank!

At first things couldn't be better for Christine as she starts her program of drinking Aqua Vita every morning and almost overnight she starts to look at least 15 years younger.With her TV rating going sky high and her boyfriend Marc, Joseph Hacker, feeling that he's back in high school when ever he's with her the hammer suddenly drops on Christine when she finds out from Aqua Vita delivery man, Chris McDonald, that the cost for Aqua Vita is a bit too high of a price to pay once you get addicted to it! Something like $5,000.00 for a months supply of the stuff.

With her face looking like a train wreck when ever she's not drinking Aqua Vita Christine slowly loses all her savings by buying it as well as her job, when she's seen without a scarf wrapped around her head in public, at the TV station is when Marc finally realizes what a mess his girlfriend got herself into! In her trying to reverse the aging process with Aqua Vita which in fact ended up accelerating it!

***SPOILERS*** Marc in seeing that Christine is quickly going under both psychically and mentally as well as financially, by losing her TV news anchor spot, then throws caution to the wind together with Christine's supply of Aqua Vita by drinking the last few drops himself in order to put him into the same condition, rapid aging, that she's in. It' wasn't that bad at all in what Marc did in now having Christine get over her hangup of forever looking young with both her and Marc being able to spend their golden years together as senior citizens, in their early forties, without worrying about getting old before their time!

The Twilight Zone - Aqua Vita

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 30 August 2016]

In "Aqua Vita" Mimi Kennedy is a news anchor newly turned 40 afraid of losing her looks in a "fresh face ratings" climate that pushes out the "old" and welcomes the "new". Talent and intellect fall short when a news company bases everything on numbers and viewership. Joseph Hacker is the successful fashion/commercial photographer that loves her. Fellow anchor, Shauna (Amanda Kennedy), clues Kennedy's Christie in on some very special water…water that causes the drinker to gain youth despite the body's age! The catch? Oh, you know there's always a catch...if the person who starts Aqua Vita stops, even after a day, the aging process actually worsens! Christopher McDonald—the actor who has made a career out of preening assholes—is the Aqua Vita delivery man who also demands payment. Once a customer starts, the Aqua Vita folks request a larger sum of payment. McDonald's devil-may-care grin (staring at us with that wicked smile) will make your skin crawl. What Christie doesn't realize is that boyfriend, Marc (Hacker), loves her for who she is not just for any looks. This tale astutely presents a message about the artificial demand for the next hottest thing instead of the quality of product. While News is the focus, Hollywood is certainly quite a cutthroat and cruel vehicle that drives over the aging woman in favor of the next batch of twenty-year-olds that hop off the bus, looking for their big break. The machine, though, isn't just News or Hollywood: any business that relies on the beauty instead of brains, modeling looks which rakes in profit, there are plenty of talents fallen to the wayside. Comforting finale shows how far Marc will go to prove that he truly cares about Christie, urging her to put away the water and not be a slave to its hold over her because she feels her looks are what matter most. 6/10

"What are Friends for?" really got me. It won me over. Imaginary friend (Lukas Haas, a year after "Witness" and a year before "Lady in White") emerges to befriend lonely Fred Savage ("The Wonder Years"), disappointed and heart-broken that his dad (Tom Skeritt; "Alien") divorced his mom. Father and son are at a summer cabin in the woods, with no families in the area. So Savage was aching for a friend of some sort and appearing like a spirit that comes and goes is Haas to fulfill that desire. Problem is that Haas will play whatever games Savage wants and sometimes fails to realize that dangers could result (a shaky mudfort collapses on Savage nearly suffocating him). Skerritt, to his astonishment, realizes that Haas is the very imaginary friend *he* had as a kid Savage's age! Skerritt needs Haas to leave Savage alone so he'll make *real* friends in the future, understanding there are games that children just can't play. Haas begging Skerritt to play and being denied, I have to admit tugged at me. Skerritt reflecting to Haas about the yo-yo returned and leaving him behind for real friends is rather sad. I looked at it as leaving behind a part of your childhood when the imaginary friend becomes a thing of the past, fading into the distant memory. Ultimately Skerritt realizes that this imaginary friend is far more than some made up childhood creation but an actual being that is part of that forest…will Haas, in child or angelic form, stay away forever when the next kid comes along? What a cast! 7/10

Imaginary Friend/Imaginary Beauty

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 25 April 2017]

One episode is a about an imaginary friend who comes back to see the man who invented him. His own son begins to play with the kid but he has other fish to fry. It takes a realization that reality must eventually be achieved for things to work out for everybody. "Aqua Vita" involves a water that makes a person young, but after it wears off, it has the opposite effect. Like "The Chaser" the first doses are free, but when it becomes a necessity, it is very expensive. It's a touching, though harsh, story.

Horrible casting and absurd characterization ruin a decent premise.

[fedor8 · 21 May 2022]

"Aqua Vita" 2/10:

This episode is horrible on many levels, despite its short length. Very 80s, with bad music and bad hairstyles. But that's just the comparatively minor stuff.

Firstly, it starts with two bland, boring actors mumbling. Just because these "actors" had bad acting coaches who forgot to tell them that lines are meaningless UNLESS THE AUDIENCE HEARS THEM, I have to turn up the volume to "loud" in order to figure out what is going on.

It's just as well if I hadn't. The two have a dumb conversation about aging, at the end of which the guy lies to his GF/wife/whatever how beautiful she is.

"You're just saying that to make me feel better." Yup, he is. Coz she is about as beautiful as... insert jokey analogy.

Then they show her from the profile, and I got confused: "Who's this guy now?!" I wondered. "Oh, it's that actress from the earlier scene..."

Then we get a stupid conversation between TV producers about how she's past her prime to be an anchorwoman. What the hell?... This is a top-notch anchorwoman...? This...?

Right, sure, whatever...

The great big funny irony is that the episode revolves around a youth serum. What this character needed was a plastic surgeon, not a youth fountain. Or a sex-change serum. Or at least a serum that would clearly define her gender. Seriously, no TV station on the planet would hire her to be anything in front of the camera, much less as a news reader.

Yes, a pet-peeve of mine - horrible casting of female roles. These errors in judgment tend to ruin entire movies. Or TZ episodes. Is it too much to ask to have attractive women on TV and in cinema? There are 1000s of beauties vying for roles, yet so often we get these kinds of sub-pat actresses.

Instead of getting angry at her BFF for getting her to use this toxic serum (with its horrible side-effects) the two normally chat, as if nothing had happened. So this news reader is a moron?

Then that idealistic, uber-romantic ending... Yeah, sure, a yuppie photographer doesn't care that his wife had aged several decades. But then again, he never did care that she looked like a man, so why would he mind this...

Water and water

[safenoe · 7/10 · 19 January 2024]

I remember seeing Aqua Vita back in the 1980s, and it's hard to believe this episode debuted nearly 40 years ago, wow, nearly four decades ago. Aqua Vita really stood out and drew upon the fears of aging, which is quite relevant in this contemporary society. Mimi Kennedy plays the lead Christie Copperfield and she should have won an Emmy for her role. Anyway, Aqua Vita raises a lot of food (or water) for thought, and really it's a shame the 1980s reboot of The Twilight Zone didn't run for another season or so because there are so many issues to explore that need to be considered and all init right.

Excellent episode good theme. Beauty is a price, happiness lies inside age and understanding!

[blanbrn · 10/10 · 8 May 2011]

This "TZ" episode from season 2 has to be one of the better ones as it's theme of beauty and growing old is something that is a fact of life. And the fact that it involves a female newscaster is all the more relevant. As you know by watching FOX News or HLN or even your own local news you see it all the time all female anchors and newscasters are beautiful they have the look! It's a fact to be on the news a pretty female face brings super ratings! And this "TZ" episode titled "Aqua Vita" was clearly ahead of it's time as it dealt with the beauty theme in a moral way that taught a lesson.

Christie Copperfield is a California newscaster who's just turned the big 40 and as with the birthday she starts to worry about not only losing her looks, but her job also. As viewers start to see the beauty fade the ratings for the station decline! Only Christie discovers from a co worker a potion a strange special type of water rightfully titled "Aqua Vita". And upon drinking this water it will make you grow younger and get back your looks! As with any product must be a catch that's the price of the water goes thru the roof, and as with most products they don't warn you of the side effects.

It's clear Christie's growing old can't be stopped! It's a fact of life that she and every other beauty queen that's a newscaster must live with when you grow old, you go off the air as is so true with the real networks. Yet not all is lost she learns thru growing old with her love that beauty is at a price, and happiness is found inside not on the outside when one looks at your beauty look. Overall great episode that teaches a good lesson and it's themes are so true, an episode that was a little ahead in it's time of showing the theme of beauty queen female newscasters. Yet most important it shows when beauty goes away one can be happy and content inside with a loved one.

A good cast in a sentimental story

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 1 June 2015]

WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR? is a middling segment of THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE, featuring a decent cast for once mired in a story which strives to go for the deliberately sentimental and heart-warming. Thankfully it's not too twee or vomit-inducing, although it does come close at times.

The storyline involves a mixed-up kid who goes to live with his estranged father in the woods. The kid is played by the likable Fred Savage, who would later go on to future fame in THE WONDER YEARS, and the father is played by the reliable Tom Skerritt. While there, the kid builds a friendship with a friend (Lukas Haas, riding high from the success of WITNESS) who turns out to be imaginary, but there's the expect twist in store. WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR? isn't too bad, with the strong performances - particularly from the child actors - making the material have more of an impact than it would have done otherwise.

AQUA VITA is a typical moral story and an example of the 'careful what you wish for' tale popular in these horror anthologies. In it, an ageing TV anchorwoman discovers a miracle treatment - bottled water which reduces the age and appearance of the person who drinks it. At first all goes well, but there's an expected sting in the tale, along with a sentimental ending. There's not much of interest here, except maybe parallels to the modern Hollywood trend of plastic surgery to turn back the years.

Can relate to remember your childhood when you had an imaginary friend!

[blanbrn · 10/10 · 8 May 2011]

This "TZ" episode from season 2 titled "What Are Friends For"? Is something most can relate to as when they were younger most had a friend that was imaginary. Like this episode and in life it's far out still the thought and this episode provided good sentimental feel. As it proves it's okay for the mind to wonder and mingle with things that don't really exist.

Fred Savage(before his memorable "Wonder Years")is a lonely boy who's from a broken home and upon going away to his father(veteran character actor Tom Skerritt)he finds out new life. In fact this strange little friend that reappears was once the friend of the boy's father as dad also had the same imaginary friend! Overall nothing great an okay episode that's sentimental and most can relate to as they experienced this theme during their own childhood.