Five Characters in Search of an Exit

The plot synopsis sounds as if it might be the beginning of a joke, but instead it's the start of one of the most gripping and intensely claustrophobic tales of the third season of "The Twilight Zone". Before I even pressed play, the episode was already a contender for a price, namely the installment with the coolest title of Rod Serling's phenomenal TV-show (though on par with "The Four of us are Dying" and "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"), but it's much more. It's one of those entries that fully clarify why "The Twilight Zone" is currently ranked #20 in the greatest TV-series of all times (here on IMDb). Suspense and mystery from start to finish, intriguing characters, passionate performances and ditto direction, an open invitation to the viewer to guess for the denouement and a sardonic twist at the end.

A character suddenly awakens, a stranger in a strange place they do not know or recognize or understand. They find they are accompanied in this strange place by other strangers, just as confused and baffled about where they are, why, and how they got there. None of the strangers themselves knows anything more about themselves as they do the others. They know they what they "are"... at least in terms that they might be a major, a clown, a ballerina... but no more than that. They don't know what they were before and have no recollection of a "before", all the know is what came after their awakening, and that they awakened or indeed came into being as they are. They can observe their surroundings, but nothing beyond what they can see within the structure they inhabit.

There is no way out they can discern. They use their senses and available tools to explore their world as they can, to understand it, to maybe even look for a way out. But there's no sense of what "out" would even mean, yet they feel as compelled to find one as they do to seek answers and find some kind of meaning to this existence in which they find themselves. They have limited means at their disposal, but they devise various ways to try and get to the one place where it seems the might find answers: up. They attempt to climb up and scale the walls, to try and get a glimpse of what lies "out there" in the "beyond". As if the view outward, or downward from above for that matter, might some how give them some kind of perspective, if not answers. There are clues... observable phenomena that seem to be exogenous in nature, but no sense at all as to what they are or what causes them, let alone how they fit. They are as much mysteries in themselves as pieces to a solvable puzzle. To escape this world itself may not bring enlightenment or revelation, but doom. Yet, still they feel compelled to search.

Does this sound familiar? If it sounds like an allegory, it's because it is one and most closely resembles a certain one having to do with a cave. The concrete aspects of this plot are not what matter, so much as the metaphors they represent. We all emerge into this world as something from nothing, with no discernible past that can be known to us except as exposition from those older and wiser who can provide some sense of contextualizion to our lives. Still, they themselves have no authority from which to speak, except for what they themselves observe and whatever knowledge, reliable or not, was passed down to them. We can see shadows of a beyond, but our attempts to search and find answers seems to only ever bring us from one horizon to another, even greater one, with even more plentiful and profound questions. It's an infinite regression of ever-expanding unknowns.

The episode's story will eventually provide a reveal that gives a neat and concrete answer... but it's not a serious one and so there's no point to even spoiling it, because I don't think it's even relevant WHAT the reveal would be. Whether the characters turn out to be here or there or in this or that situation for this or that reason, they are all equally trite and absurd. Because there can be no answer that doesn't produce further questions and the metaphor breaks down. For me, this episode works only if you see that and look past any need for concrete "explanations" as symbolic of the human condition and humanity's endless quest to try and understand itself and its predicament. You know, fish in a bowl, ants on the ears of an elephant. Few episodes exude such a sense of deeply resonant mystery and sense of existential angst. The characters themselves, they did not emerge gradually in this case, they did so suddenly, and so have all the questions a baby would have upon being born, if only babies could form their cognitive chaos into distinct queries. Instead, we are at least afforded a lifetime of slow, iterative growth in order to adapt and accommodate ourselves to our lives, and to normalize our realities. That is, until those quiet moments of reflection, when we start to peer through the edifice of defining tentpoles we surround ourselves with that give us a sense of certainty and purpose and place. There's a thin line between the unbridled wonder of the universe and the darkness of the abyss and this episode carries that tension, that sense that it's not enough to just sit around, we *must* know, but that knowing might also be a revelation that existence is as meaningless and empty as the nothingness from which it stems.

The specific characters here are also interesting. The major is the one most unsettled. He's the newest addition, for this restlessness and need for certainty and control and action... these traits seem intrinsic and not just situational or transient. The Clown is the most entertaining character... who sees fit to take his lot with equal doses of cynicism, apathy, and amusement. The ballerina is the gentle soul of the bunch... falling back to emotion for comfort and meaning and taking a more sentimental view of things. The other characters are less fleshed out and memorable and don't have quite the same symbolism engrained in them, but we only have a 20 or so minutes in which to tell this story, so I can look past that. The end is a bit anticlimactic, as you could love it or hate it depending on how literally you take it.

Definitely one of my favorite episodes and one of the most memorable, but not so much for the twist or any irony as much as the sense of mystery and the characters, in particular the performance of the clown is one of the better ones in the series. The joy here is in the journey and its implications, and possibly the notion that maybe it's all just as absurd as anything else. Perhaps this is why the clown character is so central, as a juxtaposition to the Major. We can be driven to action and to find answers, but we must be prepared for those answers to be no real answers at all, and certainly not satisfying ones.

Five people - an Army Major, a ballet dancer, a clown, a hobo and a bagpiper - find themselves locked in an unknown place. They don't know their names or how they got there. They are determined to escape.

Very clever episode of The Twilight Zone. Set up very well - the mystery, the intrigue, the lack of characters' backstories or even names. Plot develops well and the conclusion is both unpredictable and wonderfully sentimental.

Excellent episode.

"Five Characters In Search of An Exit" clearly has to be one of the more clever and better "Twilight Zone" episodes ever made because of it's abstract ideas and thoughtful plan where the characters have to search to discover identity and it ends as a surprise. You have a military major, a female dancer, bag pipe player, a clown, and hobo who all awake together in the bottom of a wall and none know how they got there and they don't know who they are. So the episode starts out with very interesting drama and suspense from the very beginning making it so soul searching for the viewers interest to want to know the characters true identity and backgrounds. Plus the episode even adds more intrigue for the fact it places different types of characters with different views and lifestyles all with one goal in common to escape and find identity, and peace that's very compelling for the viewer. Only in the end I don't want to spoil for those who haven't seen a surprise fall happens! Proving that many times you might want to stay where you are away in your little sheltered world and be away from the masses of other people's world as you will see the characters are loved in a different way by people in a much different form. Really great and cleverly done a real shock twist surprise that makes the viewer see the unexpected and cruel fate that happens sometimes when you search and seek.

While researching Susan Harrison (The Ballerina) in reference to a Bonanza Episode, I was reminded of this gem.

This episode is the inspiration for Dylan's "All Along the Watch Tower" (Hendrix's cover is probably as well know and is one of his best) which is one of HIS best.

Thus this episode is responsible for several 'bests' - not bad for approximately 22 minutes of television.

But this is "The Twilight Zone". Further comment of the series is unnecessary.

'5 Characters' is typical Serling. Intense, dramatic, barreling toward an end that is as inevitable in hindsight as it is surprising the first time you see it.

This episode is spoiled in one sentence and is too good to spoil for any who have not seen it.

But you will feel ambushed. And you will never listen to Hendrix with the same ears again.