I watch this show constantly ever since I bought the DVD set a year ago. I was a big fan growing up, watching as a frightened kid and eventually coming to respect everything about the show. In fact I carry the dvds around like a bible of sorts. I even have some residual subconscious notions about the Twilight Zone being a real place, left over from childhood. A kind of other dimension, as Rod's classic introductory monologues indicate.
Anyways, about this particular episode I've noticed a number of interesting things. My thesis amounts to this: Little Girl Lost is essentially a "critical point" within the very fabric of The Twilight Zone, as it connects with other episodes in interesting ways and deals with the subject of "another dimension," the very thing we are told the Zone is. Listed below are some of the ways in which this episode folds over and touches on other points throughout the series, similar to the way the physicist in Little Girl Lost describes the "intersecting points" of other dimensions!
#1: The lost little girl's name in the episode is Tina. She happens to also appear in the later 5th season episode, Living Doll. As I'm sure those reading are aware, the doll in Living Doll's episode is named Talky TINA. The little girl's name there is Christy, incidentally.
#2: The dad's name is Chris. Another connection can be made with Living Doll here; in Living Doll, the estranged stepfather, Eric, tells Christy (our Little Girl) "I'M NOT YOUR DADDY!" As to who is Christy's daddy, this is not discussed. But our CHRIS in Little Girl Lost could very well be CHRISTy's daddy, or at least the names can connote this notion.
#3: Chris can't find his daughter, so what does he do? He calls Bill, his physicist friend, on the telephone. Interestingly enough, the actor playing Chris was in another episode called Long Distance Call. That episode is one of the three TZ episodes that feature Billy Mumy. In Long Distance Call, Billy Mumy's character is named Billy! And, in case you don't know the plot, Billy's dying grandma gives him a toy telephone and tells him he "can always talk to Grandma." Billy does so even after she passes away. At one point Billy nearly drowns and it is Chris who picks up the toy telephone and asks his mother to return his son. Much as the Chris in Little Girl Lost seeks the return of his daughter, 'from beyond.' The reason I bring this up is, as he is on the phone with his physicist friend, he calls him "Billy" !
#4: Bill the physicist is also a repeat cast member, having appeared in only one other episode: And When The Sky Was Opened. 1st season. His character in that was Ed Harrington. The plot goes like this, Col. Clegg Forbes visits his wounded fellow pilot Maj. William Gart in the army hospital. He tells Gart that Col. Ed Harrington has gone missing, and that nobody remembers him having ever existed! Gart doesn't know anyone named Harrington either, he says Forbes must have made him up.. I won't spoil the ending but Bill the physicist played the part of the mysteriously disappearing Ed Harrington early on in the series, which may be what makes him the go-to guy in Little Girl Lost. Although he claims not to be "an expert in these things." The actor's name is Charles Aidman, and he was also the narrator for the 1980s Twilight Zone revival series! THE MORE YOU KNOW
anyway i might have missed something or gotten some of my facts wrong but i was tripping out about all the synchronicities in this episode. One other thing along the lines of #1 is that in Living Doll, Christy's mother is yet another repeat cast member, having appeared as the lovely Mary in A World of His Own. Her character also appears and disappears throughout the episode. The playwright that repeatedly creates and 'uncreates' Mary is Mr. Gregory West, played by Keenan Wynn. At the end of that episode we see that Mr. West has an envelope with Rod Serling's name on it. This particular episode marks Rod's first on screen appearance during an episode, and also his only direct interaction with a cast member. The playwright acknowledges and directly addresses Rod, and then throws his envelope into the fire, causing him to DISAPPEAR! Rod says "Well, that's the, way it goes" and fades away. Also, Keenan Wynn, who played Gregory West the playwright, is the son of Ed Wynn, famed actor who appeared in two other episodes, One For The Angels and Ninety Years Without Slumber, and was also in Rod Serling's first venture into television, Requiem for a Heavyweight, which was a kind of predecessor to the Twilight Zone.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed some of these ideas and maybe you're inspired to try to find other connections and inter-Zone interplay. What I like to do now that I have the dvds and know the show so well is to try and weave a thread from episode to episode, keeping in mind a connecting theme or prop or word or phrase or whatever. THANKS and god bless
Anyways, about this particular episode I've noticed a number of interesting things. My thesis amounts to this: Little Girl Lost is essentially a "critical point" within the very fabric of The Twilight Zone, as it connects with other episodes in interesting ways and deals with the subject of "another dimension," the very thing we are told the Zone is. Listed below are some of the ways in which this episode folds over and touches on other points throughout the series, similar to the way the physicist in Little Girl Lost describes the "intersecting points" of other dimensions!
#1: The lost little girl's name in the episode is Tina. She happens to also appear in the later 5th season episode, Living Doll. As I'm sure those reading are aware, the doll in Living Doll's episode is named Talky TINA. The little girl's name there is Christy, incidentally.
#2: The dad's name is Chris. Another connection can be made with Living Doll here; in Living Doll, the estranged stepfather, Eric, tells Christy (our Little Girl) "I'M NOT YOUR DADDY!" As to who is Christy's daddy, this is not discussed. But our CHRIS in Little Girl Lost could very well be CHRISTy's daddy, or at least the names can connote this notion.
#3: Chris can't find his daughter, so what does he do? He calls Bill, his physicist friend, on the telephone. Interestingly enough, the actor playing Chris was in another episode called Long Distance Call. That episode is one of the three TZ episodes that feature Billy Mumy. In Long Distance Call, Billy Mumy's character is named Billy! And, in case you don't know the plot, Billy's dying grandma gives him a toy telephone and tells him he "can always talk to Grandma." Billy does so even after she passes away. At one point Billy nearly drowns and it is Chris who picks up the toy telephone and asks his mother to return his son. Much as the Chris in Little Girl Lost seeks the return of his daughter, 'from beyond.' The reason I bring this up is, as he is on the phone with his physicist friend, he calls him "Billy" !
#4: Bill the physicist is also a repeat cast member, having appeared in only one other episode: And When The Sky Was Opened. 1st season. His character in that was Ed Harrington. The plot goes like this, Col. Clegg Forbes visits his wounded fellow pilot Maj. William Gart in the army hospital. He tells Gart that Col. Ed Harrington has gone missing, and that nobody remembers him having ever existed! Gart doesn't know anyone named Harrington either, he says Forbes must have made him up.. I won't spoil the ending but Bill the physicist played the part of the mysteriously disappearing Ed Harrington early on in the series, which may be what makes him the go-to guy in Little Girl Lost. Although he claims not to be "an expert in these things." The actor's name is Charles Aidman, and he was also the narrator for the 1980s Twilight Zone revival series! THE MORE YOU KNOW
anyway i might have missed something or gotten some of my facts wrong but i was tripping out about all the synchronicities in this episode. One other thing along the lines of #1 is that in Living Doll, Christy's mother is yet another repeat cast member, having appeared as the lovely Mary in A World of His Own. Her character also appears and disappears throughout the episode. The playwright that repeatedly creates and 'uncreates' Mary is Mr. Gregory West, played by Keenan Wynn. At the end of that episode we see that Mr. West has an envelope with Rod Serling's name on it. This particular episode marks Rod's first on screen appearance during an episode, and also his only direct interaction with a cast member. The playwright acknowledges and directly addresses Rod, and then throws his envelope into the fire, causing him to DISAPPEAR! Rod says "Well, that's the, way it goes" and fades away. Also, Keenan Wynn, who played Gregory West the playwright, is the son of Ed Wynn, famed actor who appeared in two other episodes, One For The Angels and Ninety Years Without Slumber, and was also in Rod Serling's first venture into television, Requiem for a Heavyweight, which was a kind of predecessor to the Twilight Zone.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed some of these ideas and maybe you're inspired to try to find other connections and inter-Zone interplay. What I like to do now that I have the dvds and know the show so well is to try and weave a thread from episode to episode, keeping in mind a connecting theme or prop or word or phrase or whatever. THANKS and god bless