Twilight Zone Episode 17 - The Fever

"Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Gibbs, three days and two nights, all expenses paid, at a Las Vegas hotel, won by virtue of Mrs. Gibbs' knack with a phrase. But unbeknownst to either Mr. or Mrs. Gibbs is the fact that there's a prize in their package neither expected nor bargained for. In just a moment, one of them will succumb to an illness worse than any virus can produce, a most inoperative, deadly, life-shattering affliction known as 'The Fever'."


This episode is a perfect representation of the two extremes of The Twilight Show. The realm of complete ridiculum, and a genuine problem.

A quick synopsis. An extremely uptight and elitist man (from what I picked up at least) takes his wife on a vacation of her choosing. She chooses to go to some casino, he says its a bad idea and just bitches for a while as his wife gambles lightly and has a good time. Suddenly a slightly drunk man comes up behind the main character and tries to get him to gamble. Franklin (the main character) attempts to tell him its evil and a waste of money, etc. But the man gives him a dollar of his own so that Franklin can just try it. He hesitantly agrees to try it and uses a slot machine. It pays out and gives him like ten bucks for his dollar. He takes his wife to his room proclaiming he's responsible and not about to waste of his money on these rigged machines like the rest of the fools here. As he attempts to sleep he hears the coins on his dresser call out his name. He eventually falls for it and grabs them to go gamble some more.His wife awakens and asks what he's doing. He pulls a Grinch and says the money is tainted and that he is going to go plug it back into the machine to be rid of it. The next shot is several hours later, he has yet to win and has been writing checks nonstop. His wife tries to get him to stop which causes him to explode at her telling her he's about to win, that this devilish machine has to let him win soon.

He ends up wasting all of his money, and doesn't win again. On his last dollar the machine malfunctions and doesn't give him his dollar back or allow him to pull the lever. He freaks out and attacks the machine. Back in his room he attempts to sleep, but hasn't been able to for twenty four hours. His wife is worried and suddenly he hears his name being called again. He opens his door and the machine is walking towards it. He slams it shuts and turns around and looks in the mirror. The machine opens up the door and he panics. His wife asks what's wrong and he turns around and the machine isn't there. He continues to see this machine and loses touch with reality more and more before he finally falls out of a window (which is actually a fairly common death in this series thus far) and plummets to his death. Police are at the scene and proclaim him dead. Everyone leaves the scene and they leave the body there. The machine walks up to him and spits out his last dollar and it stops right outside the reach of his hand. End narration begins.




Gambling addiction is a real problem, and in the episode various side characters bring up that they've seen people get addicted, but not like him. He explodes at his wife, sweats profusely and goes so far as to claim the machine isn't even a machine, its an entity in and of itself. The episode exaggerates his addiction so fucking far. I know that it's the Twilight Zone and fucked up shit happens all the time, but really a slot machine following you around? I got the whole hearing his name and being beckoned to gamble more, and even seeing the machine following him because of his addiction, but the end hints at the fact that the machine is really there due to the fact that the dollar is by him at the end of the episode.

The episode sums up everything I love about this show. It tackles a serious issue in a darkly humorous way. Just seeing how far a man who's so set in his "correct" ways can fall is interesting and while the end shot is pretty bullshit ridiculous I think its important to get the overall message across. I like this show overall, no episode has been too horrible, but only a handful have really wowed me. This was one them strangely enough. If you can find this episode you should give it a watch, it is only like twenty eight minutes long.

"Mr. Franklin Gibbs, visitor to Las Vegas, who lost his money, his reason, and finally, his life, to an inanimate metal machine variously described as a one-armed bandit, a slot machine, or in Mr. Franklin Gibbs' words, 'a monster with a will all its own'. For our purposes, we'll stick with the latter definition, because we're in the Twilight Zone."