Everybody seems so enthusiastic about this episode. So am I, to the extent of the message it transmits, the cautionary tale, the moral it proposes. But going down to the script details, I find the neighbors' behavior insufficiently supported. After all, they start attacking each other on the flimsy basis of a power shortage, a few electrical disturbances and, above all, the sci-fi opera plot described by a teenager in the vaguest of terms. The boy is not even quoting any scientist on that; he just describes the argument for an alien-invasion movie. And the neighbors go on believing this fantasy with no question. In spite of the Norman-Rockwellian appearance of Maple Street, I wouldn't wish to live in such a non-thinking neighborhood.
