This is, in my ever-so-humble opinion, one of the weakest episodes of the entire series. The idea isn't bad, but the execution fails.
The main problem is with the protagonist. He's just an idiot. Which really makes very little sense, since he had to have been some kind of genius to invent the time machine. But his ideas of what to *do* with the machine are feeble.
Imagine that you are given a time machine with which you may go back in time and attempt to alter history for the better. Where would you go? What would you do? Take a minute to consider that rather intriguing question, and then consider what our hero, Paul, does with it:
1) Go back to Hiroshima in 1945, and try to warn the military authorities about the impending doom of the city due to the bomb.
Huh??? Two rather gaping problems with this:
a) Why would you expect that *anybody* is going to believe you one tiny whit? Especially as an American! But even if you could somehow go as a native Japanese, nobody is going to order the evacuation of a large city just because one person spouts stories of a great bomb the likes of which no one has ever seen! It's preposterous.
b) Even if you succeed, so what? You might manage to save a few thousand people from death. So what? It's still a drop in the bucket compared to the millions who died in that war. Or other wars. Or other catastrophes throughout human history. How will the world be different 50 years later if you do manage to save a few thousand people at Hiroshima?
2) Go back to Germany in 1939 and kill Hitler.
A more worthy idea. If you kill Hitler, maybe you can prevent the entire horror of WWII, including the atom bomb drop. Except 1939 is just foolishness. By 1939 it's already vastly too late. By that point, the Nazi's are firmly in power, and Hitler is just one man. Kill Hitler in '39 and all that happens is some other Nazi takes his place. The war likely still happens, the holocaust still definitely happens, the German people still have to live under the black boot of Nazism. This is hardly a win. Indeed, it could ultimately be *cataclysmic*; what if whoever replaces Hitler isn't as much of a military idiot? It can be convincingly argued that Germany lost that war because of major blunders by Hitler. He was brilliant as a politician but *awful* as a military leader. What if his replacement has a flair for war? Or just enough sense to stay out of the way and let the military leaders conduct the war? The chilling possibility is that the axis could *win* the war.
No, the time to kill Hitler was much, much earlier, before the Nazi movement gained any traction. Prior to the period when Hitler's own charisma was a key facet in *causing* it to gain traction. Kill Hitler *then*, and maybe history never hears of the Nazis. What's more, it would be *vastly* safer and easier to kill him then, when he was nobody. Heck, kill him as a child!
3) Go back and warn the Lusitania, so that it doesn't get sunk.
Same two problem here as with 1) above: why would you possibly think anyone would listen to you, and what good would it do? Prevent the U.S. from entering WWI? What makes you so sure that *that* would make the world a better place? Are you so sure that things wouldn't be worse if Germany won WWI?
So what did *you* come up with for your list? I promise you mine wouldn't include the Lusitania or Hiroshima. Maybe I'd try to stop communism from taking over in Russia-- that would solve *most* of the problems of the 20th century (including Nazism, which gained traction in Germany largely because people were so scared of the communists). My point is, this brilliant scientist seems to have put very little actual thought into history and how best to alter it. I'm afraid Serling didn't either.
Well, I've rambled on too long; I haven't even left myself time to complain about how Paul is possibly able to control his time traveling once he's gone back in time. How *does* he manage to get back to the present, after he had already decided he was staying forever?
The main problem is with the protagonist. He's just an idiot. Which really makes very little sense, since he had to have been some kind of genius to invent the time machine. But his ideas of what to *do* with the machine are feeble.
Imagine that you are given a time machine with which you may go back in time and attempt to alter history for the better. Where would you go? What would you do? Take a minute to consider that rather intriguing question, and then consider what our hero, Paul, does with it:
1) Go back to Hiroshima in 1945, and try to warn the military authorities about the impending doom of the city due to the bomb.
Huh??? Two rather gaping problems with this:
a) Why would you expect that *anybody* is going to believe you one tiny whit? Especially as an American! But even if you could somehow go as a native Japanese, nobody is going to order the evacuation of a large city just because one person spouts stories of a great bomb the likes of which no one has ever seen! It's preposterous.
b) Even if you succeed, so what? You might manage to save a few thousand people from death. So what? It's still a drop in the bucket compared to the millions who died in that war. Or other wars. Or other catastrophes throughout human history. How will the world be different 50 years later if you do manage to save a few thousand people at Hiroshima?
2) Go back to Germany in 1939 and kill Hitler.
A more worthy idea. If you kill Hitler, maybe you can prevent the entire horror of WWII, including the atom bomb drop. Except 1939 is just foolishness. By 1939 it's already vastly too late. By that point, the Nazi's are firmly in power, and Hitler is just one man. Kill Hitler in '39 and all that happens is some other Nazi takes his place. The war likely still happens, the holocaust still definitely happens, the German people still have to live under the black boot of Nazism. This is hardly a win. Indeed, it could ultimately be *cataclysmic*; what if whoever replaces Hitler isn't as much of a military idiot? It can be convincingly argued that Germany lost that war because of major blunders by Hitler. He was brilliant as a politician but *awful* as a military leader. What if his replacement has a flair for war? Or just enough sense to stay out of the way and let the military leaders conduct the war? The chilling possibility is that the axis could *win* the war.
No, the time to kill Hitler was much, much earlier, before the Nazi movement gained any traction. Prior to the period when Hitler's own charisma was a key facet in *causing* it to gain traction. Kill Hitler *then*, and maybe history never hears of the Nazis. What's more, it would be *vastly* safer and easier to kill him then, when he was nobody. Heck, kill him as a child!
3) Go back and warn the Lusitania, so that it doesn't get sunk.
Same two problem here as with 1) above: why would you possibly think anyone would listen to you, and what good would it do? Prevent the U.S. from entering WWI? What makes you so sure that *that* would make the world a better place? Are you so sure that things wouldn't be worse if Germany won WWI?
So what did *you* come up with for your list? I promise you mine wouldn't include the Lusitania or Hiroshima. Maybe I'd try to stop communism from taking over in Russia-- that would solve *most* of the problems of the 20th century (including Nazism, which gained traction in Germany largely because people were so scared of the communists). My point is, this brilliant scientist seems to have put very little actual thought into history and how best to alter it. I'm afraid Serling didn't either.
Well, I've rambled on too long; I haven't even left myself time to complain about how Paul is possibly able to control his time traveling once he's gone back in time. How *does* he manage to get back to the present, after he had already decided he was staying forever?