This episode is fine, as most of them were during the show's first decade or so, though the duel between Moriarty and George Grizzard is a little sluggish. The reason it seems slow is that the most thoughtful part of the story shows up at about its middle.
A deaf college student is suspected of killing his deaf girl friend because she was planning on having a cochlear implant, which would have restored her hearing. Did he murder her because he figured, once she could hear, she would have nothing to do with a hearing-challenged suitor? One of the deaf characters shouts about how inferior hearing people are.
The question doesn't last long, doesn't hang in the air exactly, because the hearing-challenged suspects prove to be canards. Yet, it's a good question. If one belongs to a devalued minority group -- deaf people, blind people, African-Americans, Jews -- doesn't one feel a sense of group cohesion, of "us" against "them", or the other way around? How can "they" possibly understand us, since they've never walked in our shoes? It's a temptation difficult to resist, the sense that "they" are an enemy and they all hang together. It doesn't really matter if someone in my group does something weak or even evil. The chief point is to stand together against the assaults of "them." Somewhere in the video archives is a clip of a classroom full of African-American students leaping to their feet and embracing as O. J. Simpson is judged innocent of murder on the television news. And these were all law students at Howard University in Washington.
That's a clear expression of group solidarity and this program suggests that at least some blind people have that same sense of solidarity. Group solidarity is a more powerful motive than most of us -- who don't belong to any obvious minority -- realize. Stouffer's study of "The American Soldier" after World War II identified it as the strongest motivating factor in combat. In other words, people are willing to kill and be killed for it.
This episode, good as it is, would have been more provocative had the girl been killed by a deaf man who saw her as a traitor to the group. Instead, the resolution devolves into simple jealousy and greed.
A deaf college student is suspected of killing his deaf girl friend because she was planning on having a cochlear implant, which would have restored her hearing. Did he murder her because he figured, once she could hear, she would have nothing to do with a hearing-challenged suitor? One of the deaf characters shouts about how inferior hearing people are.
The question doesn't last long, doesn't hang in the air exactly, because the hearing-challenged suspects prove to be canards. Yet, it's a good question. If one belongs to a devalued minority group -- deaf people, blind people, African-Americans, Jews -- doesn't one feel a sense of group cohesion, of "us" against "them", or the other way around? How can "they" possibly understand us, since they've never walked in our shoes? It's a temptation difficult to resist, the sense that "they" are an enemy and they all hang together. It doesn't really matter if someone in my group does something weak or even evil. The chief point is to stand together against the assaults of "them." Somewhere in the video archives is a clip of a classroom full of African-American students leaping to their feet and embracing as O. J. Simpson is judged innocent of murder on the television news. And these were all law students at Howard University in Washington.
That's a clear expression of group solidarity and this program suggests that at least some blind people have that same sense of solidarity. Group solidarity is a more powerful motive than most of us -- who don't belong to any obvious minority -- realize. Stouffer's study of "The American Soldier" after World War II identified it as the strongest motivating factor in combat. In other words, people are willing to kill and be killed for it.
This episode, good as it is, would have been more provocative had the girl been killed by a deaf man who saw her as a traitor to the group. Instead, the resolution devolves into simple jealousy and greed.