At times Rod Serling liked to take his stories into the not too distant future. One such was the fourth season episode, 'On Thursday We Leave For Home'. The setting for this one is 1974, only about a decade after it's original air date, and not too futuristic when you come right down to it. I'm wondering if Serling thought pro boxing would actually be banned at some point because of it's violent nature. How wrong he would have been. Even though the sport has lost it's luster over the past few decades, brutality in the ring has only escalated with the advent of extreme fighting and it's derivatives.
The best thing about this episode is Lee Marvin, but the story is somewhat of a letdown. I know it's supposed to pay tribute to Man's indomitable fighting spirit, but the execution was a failure. The set up had two technologically mismatched robot fighters about to square off when Battling Maxo popped a spring and lost his left arm. Steel Kelly (Marvin) as a substitute just wasn't going to work. The denouement uninterestingly offered Machine's victory over Man, with no twist, no hook, and no moral to the story. With nothing to learn here but the obvious, the story failed to deliver the way most Twilight Zones usually did.
The best thing about this episode is Lee Marvin, but the story is somewhat of a letdown. I know it's supposed to pay tribute to Man's indomitable fighting spirit, but the execution was a failure. The set up had two technologically mismatched robot fighters about to square off when Battling Maxo popped a spring and lost his left arm. Steel Kelly (Marvin) as a substitute just wasn't going to work. The denouement uninterestingly offered Machine's victory over Man, with no twist, no hook, and no moral to the story. With nothing to learn here but the obvious, the story failed to deliver the way most Twilight Zones usually did.