Rod Serling will always go down as televisions greatest writer a man who dared not only to entertain us but to make us think as well exploring serious social isssues right out of the newspaper. Serling was truly a man ahead of his time, I remember reading that a Twilight Zone episode he wrote about racism was so raw and shocking that it was shelved for almost fifty years after its first broadcast. A veteran of World War II who never stopped having nightmares about his service as a paratrooper, Serling wrote many episodes about the horror of war and this is one of them. Sterling Hayden is a modern day Scrooge who doesn't really seem to have it in for Christmas but for being involved in foriegn affairs. He has lost his son in World War II and is a dyed in the wool isolationist which he makes abundantly clean in an argument with his nephew played by Ben Gazzara. However, that night Hayden's character is visited by three spirits who show him the nightmare of war and how it is everyones business to keep the peace. Robert Shaw is a terrifying ghost of the future showing him a nuclear apocolypse and Peter Sellers in a rare dramatic role plays a fanatical leader who preaches the joy of selfishness. This has got to be one of the strangest variations on A Christmas Carol I have ever seen. I don't know whether to admire it or just shake my head.
Review of Carol for Another Christmas
