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by devonkim 3517 days ago
It got the dichotomy right - the solution for horrible things like PTSD also turned out to be justifying continuation of a horrific crime in its own right. The balance of how technology is amoral and how we use it as a society and for what agendas is illustrated in one of the better ways in this specific episode. The problem I had with the episode is similar to my complaint with all of season 3 - unnecessarily slow pacing and repetition. I'm not seeing the artistic reasons for repeating the same tired gestures in, say, the first episode unless they're more sentimental kind of episodes like San Junipero.

The morality lessons that the Twilight Zone oftentimes preached are manifested more as debates in Black Mirror with season 3, which I think is a lot tougher to write successfully. What is a bit of a letdown is that the debates are mostly contemporary (PTSD wasn't even a term when the Twilight Zone was airing) and will date this specific episode heavily. Meanwhile, most of what I watched in the Twilight Zone is still very relevant from even a thought experiment perspective.

I think I developed a lot more critical thinking watching Twilight Zone episodes as a child than anything I had to read in school.
1 comments
XorNot 3517 days ago
Um, how would PTSD "date" an episode? The clinical term may be recent but it's not going to go away and it didn't just start - see reports of shellshock from WW1.
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devonkim 3517 days ago
PTSD being such a big and publicized topic is the difference today than from past wars. The topic of ethnic cleansing actually happening wasn't even a thought until years following WW2. The politics of war were pervasive in media much more than the conditions and microscopic effects upon those that are on the frontlines (all those war movies didn't exactly paint as grim of a picture as it was though thanks to pro-war sentiment by US leadership for decades).
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lostlogin 3517 days ago
>The topic of ethnic cleansing actually happening wasn't even a thought until after WW2.

"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians."

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