While some of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" episodes were far-fetched and, at the same time, ridiculous and sometimes even frightening, this particular episode was an anomaly to all of that, and was very touching, and even bordered on the spiritual and/or religious. In this particular episode, a no-good bum of a father (played excellently by Jack Klugman) learns that his son is seriously wounded in Vietnam.(This was filmed in 1963, only shortly after the US was involved in the real southeast Asian war.) Klugman learns of this after he himself is wounded because something goes wrong in a bet he has made with somebody, and that man shoots him. While he is wandering about in a closed amusement park, the surreal takes place. He wanders through and sees his son as a boy of about eight or nine, and his son reminds him, in so many words, that he could have been a better father. After that is over, the father takes into serious account all that his son has said, and believes that his son was right. It is then that the father prays a prayer that, though irreverent-sounding, is very sincere, nonetheless: he prays that if he God would take his wretched self that Klugman is, just let his son live. While I'll not give away the ending. I will say that this is, in many ways, one of my favorite episodes of this series. A very heart-warming story.
Review of In Praise of Pip
