The Night of the Meek

Night of the Meek is certainly a unique twilight zone episode, coming off more like a family Christmas classic than the typical stuff we have come to expect from Rod Serling, things about other worlds and aliens and mysterious happenings. There is, of course, a lot of that in this episode, but it's couched in a story that resembles A Christmas Carol than anything else.

A drunk stumbles late back to his seasonal job as Santa Claus at a local mall, and on the way a cat screeches and knocks over a bag of garbage, which suddenly turns into a bag overflowing with toys and gifts. The drunken Santa suddenly becomes a real Santa, eagerly snatching up the bag and distributing to anyone he can find their heart's desire.

This is a great way to show what people's true heart's desire may be, and I love the way it makes us think about our own heart's desire. It seems to me that the purpose here is to call attention to how trivial a lot of our desires may be. When offered the opportunity to have anything they want, the people in the show ask for meaningless things like sweaters and pipes.

There is a moving scene in the episode where Henry, the drunk Santa, says that if he could have anything he wanted, he would want to do this same thing every year. It's a wonderful illustration of what I think is our inherent desire to do good things for other people. Alcoholism is a terrible affliction, but it is immediately forgotten about when Henry suddenly finds himself in the position to bring so much happiness to so many people.

It gets a little cheesy at the end, like so many of them, but is still a great example of the twilight zone presenting a story that captures the spirit of the season.