Twilight Zone: In Praise of Pip
Reviewed by Geno McGahee
Jack Klugman stars as Max Phillips, a bookie that works for a loan shark and has an alcohol problem. Klugman, as always, delivers. He is such a wonderful actor and you immediately feel sympathy for him when you find out not only his current lifestyle but the fact that his son was seriously injured in the Vietnam war. Pip (Bobby Diamond) probably won’t make it and Phillips now looks back on his life and realizes that he has missed a lot and with his son on the verge of passing away, there isn’t much to live for.
George (Russell Horton) owes Phillips 300 dollars…a bet that didn’t come through, but the money is refused and Phillips reports to his boss, Moran (S. John Launer) 300 shy of what the take was supposed to be. He explains that the kid “Georgie” would get arrested because he stole the money and that it was only 300 bucks, but Moran and his goon beat the kid up and are now going to kill him if they do not get the money. Phillips begins to question his life more and more at this point and when he gets a call that his son is on death’s door, he snaps.
After a scuffle with his boss and the goon, Phillips escapes with a serious wound and stumbles into an empty amusement park, where he runs into a 10 year old Pip (Bill Mumy). This was the age that the two would go to the park and everything was right…before his dealings with loan sharks and booze. When Pip informs his father that he has to move on, the A game of Klugman and Serling kick in. The lines and the delivery of the lines from Klugman are so moving, where he says that he spent “too much time dreaming and not enough of doing,” and “too much time wishing and not enough trying.” You cannot help but to hope that time will be rewound and Klugman will be reunited with his young son and he will be given another chance. I won’t let you know what happens, but this is certainly a very touching episode of the Twilight Zone.
Overall, this episode delivers and when you have Klugman in the lead role and Rod Serling writing the script, you can’t lose. Perhaps I’m getting soft in my old age, but this is a very touching episode, and where a lesson is once again learned. I highly recommend it.
RSR Rating: 10/10. Klugman made me sad.