Is there a small town in America that doesn't have a Maple Street? In my case, it was Maple Avenue, also known during my childhood days as Back Street because of it's location behind Main Street. The village I grew up in during the 1950's didn't resemble the same towns that popped up in the Twilight Zone series that much; those seemed to be too idyllic to be true. Places like Homewood and Willoughby, the kind of towns I'd like to retire to on the other side of adulthood. Perhaps a place free of the small minded prejudice that takes over when rationality ceases to exist.
'The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street' is one of the TZ episodes that gets preferential programming on those ubiquitous cable marathon holidays and weekends, and with good reason. It highlights one of the classic foibles of that species called Man, that is, blame the one you don't understand, and if that doesn't work, blame someone else. And keep on blaming a moving target until there are none left to point a finger at. Blame it on the kid if you have to, if that makes it work. But in the end, it all boils down to the man in the mirror to realize what Rod Serling understood right from the very start - the most dangerous enemy one can find is one's self.
I'd like to get off the seriousness of my approach here for just a minute, long enough to ask - who the heck came up with that shirt for Charlie (Jack Weston)? Now that was scary!
If I had to make one recommendation for the way the story turned out, I would have left out the final segment that showed the two aliens discussing the way they viewed their human guinea pigs. It would have been much more effective to have one come away with a personal meaning that didn't rely on a gimmick like that. A Maple Street simply left in chaos would have challenged the viewer to come to their own conclusion about how things would have worked out, similar to the way the 1951 film, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" did. I think in this case, the twist ending with the aliens wasn't as effective as the twist already implied with the residents of Maple Street killing one of their own.
'The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street' is one of the TZ episodes that gets preferential programming on those ubiquitous cable marathon holidays and weekends, and with good reason. It highlights one of the classic foibles of that species called Man, that is, blame the one you don't understand, and if that doesn't work, blame someone else. And keep on blaming a moving target until there are none left to point a finger at. Blame it on the kid if you have to, if that makes it work. But in the end, it all boils down to the man in the mirror to realize what Rod Serling understood right from the very start - the most dangerous enemy one can find is one's self.
I'd like to get off the seriousness of my approach here for just a minute, long enough to ask - who the heck came up with that shirt for Charlie (Jack Weston)? Now that was scary!
If I had to make one recommendation for the way the story turned out, I would have left out the final segment that showed the two aliens discussing the way they viewed their human guinea pigs. It would have been much more effective to have one come away with a personal meaning that didn't rely on a gimmick like that. A Maple Street simply left in chaos would have challenged the viewer to come to their own conclusion about how things would have worked out, similar to the way the 1951 film, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" did. I think in this case, the twist ending with the aliens wasn't as effective as the twist already implied with the residents of Maple Street killing one of their own.