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You May Already Be Obsolete: The Obsolete Man Part 1

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Uploaded by on Jan 20, 2011

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The Twilight Zone
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 65
Directed by Elliot Silverstein
Written by Rod Serling
Featured music Uncredited stock, almost all of it from Bernard Herrmann's score for a radio adaptation of "Brave New World"[citation needed]
Production code 173-3661
Original air date June 2, 1961
Guest stars

Burgess Meredith: Romney Wordsworth
Fritz Weaver: The Chancellor
Harold Innocent: Man in crowd
(Synopsis source Wikipedia)
In a future totalitarian state, Romney Wordsworth (Meredith) is a man put on trial for the crime of being "obsolete". His occupation as a librarian is a crime punishable by death, as the State has eliminated literacy. He also believes in God, also punishable by death, as the State has declared that there are no Gods. He is prosecuted by the Chancellor (Weaver), who announces in front of the assembled court that Wordsworth, in not being an asset to the State, shall be liquidated.

After being convicted, Wordsworth is allowed to choose his method of execution. He cryptically requests that he be granted a personal assassin to whom he may privately disclose his preferred method of execution. He also requests that his execution be televised. Both requests are granted by the court.

A camera is installed in Wordsworth's study to broadcast his final hours and execution live to the nation. He summons the Chancellor, who shows up at exactly 11:16 p.m. After some discussion, Wordsworth reveals to the unsuspecting Chancellor that he has locked the door, and that his chosen method of execution is by an explosive hidden in the room that is set to go off at midnight. He intends to show the nation how a spiritual man faces death, and proceeds to read Psalm 23 and the beginning of Psalm 53, among others, from his illegal copy of the Bible. He also points out that, as the events are being broadcast live, the State will risk losing its status in the eyes of the people by trying to rescue the Chancellor. As the time draws to a close, Wordsworth's calm acceptance of death stands in sharp contrast with the Chancellor's increasing panic.

Moments before the bomb explodes, the Chancellor, in a desperate plea, finally begs the old man to let him go, "in the name of God." Wordsworth remarks that "in the name of God" he will let him out, and immediately releases the Chancellor.

The Chancellor bursts out of the room and down the stairs just as the bomb explodes and kills Wordsworth.

In the final scene, the Chancellor returns to the courtroom to discover that he has been accused of obsolescence. Immediately convicted, the crowd in the courtroom physically assaults him and carries him off.

In his closing narrative, Rod Serling says the Chancellor was wrong about one thing: any state capable of judging its own citizens obsolete is itself obsolete.

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Uploader Comments (michellehill94)

  • I will defiantly have to check that out thank you:)

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  • what a stupid thing to call someone obsolete, You know what he heard them the first time, I am sorry to have heard it, thanks for sharing anyway, so i can broaden my horizons :)

  • GREAT T/ZONE One of my favs. gotta love the end !

  • Is your self-awareness and consciousness as an individual and all feelings of emotions like love, hate and cognition of morality more you than your physical body? If you believe that body and mind are one in the same then all of these things are merely biological delusions without any real meanings. How does any Atheist give logical credence to falling in love or the evil of someone killing your child from only chemical and biological delusions?

    ~ The soul is real and things as Love is proof!

  • It appears reading all of those books makes a librarian quite witty...

    Search Google images for the ancient chief Librarian for the Library of Alexandria named "Eratosthenes"... check out that noggin!

    Almost like he was a descendant of the nephilim with an oblong head like that... hint hint...

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