TONIGHT on ME-TV @ 12:35am EST, one of the GREAT episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: âTHE LONELYâ (written by Rod Serling, directed by Jack Smight, originally broadcast November 13, 1959) One of the great American actors of the 20th Century, Jack Warden, is âThe Lonely,â a convict serving his life sentence in solitary on a remote prison planet. In a gesture of compassion by the authorities, heâs given a female robotic companion named âAlicia,â played sensitively by English actress Jean Marsh (later of the early â70s British TV hit Upstairs, Downstairs). Marshâs Alicia is wonderfully âaliveâ in her inherently innocent, naive gentleness, totally opposite from the clichĂ©d, more overtly âroboticâ automatons seen previously in sci-fi films and television series of the 1950âs, which were exclusively male (even though one of the genreâs most famous robotic icons is the mechanical Maria from Fritz Langâs 1927 classic Metropolis, the model for George Lucasâ C-3PO) Warden, at first repulsed by the forced companionship of what he sees as no more than a lifeless machine, soon gets lost in Aliciaâs lifelikeness when she exhibits actual (programmed) emotions, and thus falls in love with her (as we, the audience, does too). But their happiness was not to last, thanks to one of the cruelest twists of any of Serlingâs famed Twilight Zone episodes. In the end, Warden, though returning to earth with his sentence pardoned, is still left alone, bitterly questioning his ownâhumanâidentity, as Serling had foreshadowed at the top of the episode: âWhat is there left that I can believe in? The desert and the wind? The silence? Or myself?â arlenschumer.com/twilight-zone #rodserling #twilightzone #thetwilightzone #jackwarden #jeanmarsh #thelonely #arlenschumer #tv #television #tvhistory #televisionhistory @dgareps @nyadventureclub @richardsyrettstrangeplanet https://www.instagram.com/p/ConVGcavE4Y/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=