Twenty Two

A woman has strange dreams every night.

The episode has two big things going for it, an atmosphere charged Van Cleave music score (which sounds more like Leith Stevens?) and Jonathan Harris performing much like he did in the first eight B&W episodes of Lost In Space (1965). The episode has one thing going against it: it was made on video tape instead of film.

I never saw this episode in childhood, so perhaps I missed the terror element, but when seen as an adult, well, I can only say the grim tone of Harris will bring new meaning to the words black comedy....note when he turns to the girl in bed and says - "Room for one more, honey?" - who could forget that?

Great episode!

Barbara Nichols who usually played scatterbrained bimbo types in film and television stretches her talent considerably in a fine episode about a stripper who has checked into a mental sanitarium because of just nervous exhaustion. I guess from the bumps and grinds and the men continually pawing her.

Her agent Fredd Wayne just offers her words of good cheer and her doctor Jonathan Harris offers many reasonable and rational explanations for her nightmare. Still Nichols finds no rest or release and she does leave the sanitarium.

All I will say is that the reason for the recurring nightmare becomes quite clear in the end. Really nicely done by Barbara Nichols, maybe one of her best performances on the big and small screen.

This is the most terrifying Twilight Zone episode that I have ever seen. It gave me terrible nightmares and has made me terrified of ticking clocks ever since I first saw it, at 16 years old. It is the chilling tale of a woman suffering from exhaustion, who has a recurring dream in the hospital of needing a nurse and ending up going down the lift to the morgue, where the nurse pops her head out of the door and says calmly, "Room for one more, honey." Everyone the girl knows brushes off this dream as a symptom of her exhaustion, but it persists and gets stronger. The purpose of this dream comes to light at the end of the episode. It is a horrible realisation. Arlene Martel is wonderful as the frightening morgue nurse: she has this cold, exotic look that chills you to your very bones. It is easy to see why she was chosen for the role of the morgue nurse. The woman who plays the sick girl has the most horrifying scream I've ever heard. It is an episode you will never, ever forget. Trust me.

The constant fear of hospital patient Liz Powell (Barbara Nichols) is what makes this entry compelling. Liz is a night club dancer tormented by a reoccurring experience. Arlene Martel (then Arlene Sax) is the beautiful but dangerous night nurse in her dreams or otherwise? At least Liz can still fortify herself a little with put-downs aimed at her visiting agent. Fate seems to be stalking her and it makes for a pretty scary tale. You never know quite where the perimeters are in TZ, unless of course a repeated line should remind you of having seen this story somewhere before in a famous movie predating this.

The best of the half-dozen Zones that was shot on video. So you will notice this is more like something off a ye olde You Tube than the cinema quality TV that the show can usually boast. Even so, Barbara Nichols truly shines as she shakes and Arlene Martel looks dead beautiful.

It's episodes like "Twenty-Two" that showcase just how brilliant, progressive and influential Rod Serling's idea of "The Twilight Zone" really was! The entire successful horror franchise "Final Destination" (five sequels and counting) might very well be based on or inspired by this simple half-an-hour tale! Admittedly many "Twilight Zone" episodes are light-headed and fantasy-like, but the very best ones are mysterious, disturbing and genuinely unsettling. "Twenty-Two" is one of them, with a plot that is compelling from the very first second and suspense that mounts until the shocking climax. Professional dancer Liz Powell lies in the hospital with a nervous breakdown and wakes up to the same devastating nightmare for six nights in a row already. She's lured to the basement of the hospital, more particularly to the morgue with room number 22, and then suddenly a sexy nurse swings the door open and says: "Room for one more, honey!". Liz' uncaring manager, as well as the sleazy head doctor, don't take her very seriously when she claims it must be more than just a harmless nightmare, yet they cannot explain the accuracy of how Liz describes the basement floor and the morgue's room number. Hardly recovered from her illness, Liz is dismissed and prepares to take a flight to Florida, but the nightmare becomes all too real when she's outside of the hospital and wide awake! Okay, granted, if you've seen a lot of supernatural horror movies and thrillers, the climax of "Twenty-Two" is easy to predict. But still, I imagine that it was quite astonishing and courageous in 1961, and even if you do see everything coming from miles away, it's still a very intense and macabre tale. Thus far, my favorite episode of season two, maybe together with "Eye of the Beholder" and "The Howling Man".