Screengrab
Whenever a movie or television show is set in space, you can expect something to go terribly wrong. May it be an alien invasion on board the space shuttle or the passengers on the spaceship slowly suffering a mental breakdown, things always go wrong. After watching the commercial for this week’s episode of The Twilight Zone which takes place on a spaceship on its way to Mars, I immediately thought of two ways this episode could turn out: One would be that the crew would be visited by an unknown species, or they would all turn on each other due to the effects one can go through when in space for a long period of time. Turns out, I was wrong about both.
‘Six Degrees of Freedom’ sets up an excited crew ready for takeoff on their way to Mars. Moments before their launch, they receive news that nuclear missiles from North Korea have been launched and are headed their way. They quickly have to come up with a decision — either stay on Earth and suffer the same fate as everyone else or follow through with their mission to Mars and have no support besides each other on their way there. They end up following through with their original plan of traveling to Mars. As the episode progresses, tension rise amongst the group and you are constantly wondering what is real or isn’t.
‘Six Degrees of Freedom’ is perfectly paced with the right amount of tension presented throughout its 54-minute runtime. The tension amongst the group slowly rises once Ray and Casey, the Engineer and Pilot on board, are caught hooking up which could lead to an unplanned pregnancy. The passengers have a limited supply of food and a newborn on the ship would cut into that. This creates common issues within the group as some feel that they are being targeted by others. It is common in movies and shows with a similar premise for passengers to get jealous, lonely, or even hostile. I think this episode handled the tension amongst the crew well as it increasingly got more hostile on the spaceship.
Screengrab
As the group keeps trying to call loved ones to see if they are okay after the nuclear attack, Mission Specialist Jerry is shown analyzing data and collecting samples for something later revealed in the episode. This is where the story gets interesting and I start to question if something is wrong on the ship or with Jerry. He believes that everything that is going on is not real. He tries to convince the rest of his team that they are being tested and that they should ignore any upcoming threats. This leads to him testing his theory and opening up the airlock door and seeing if people would be waiting for him on the other side, but there wasn’t. I totally expected a group of scientists to be waiting for him and explain to him what was going on, but all that was waiting for him was a solar flare. I actually believed him for a second was hoping that this would be the big twist for the episode, but I looked at how much time was left and thought that they wouldn’t exhaust their twist so early on in the episode. A much larger and more complex twist came in the last few minutes of the show that was more Twilight Zone than anything.
On a side note, I noticed one of the passengers holding a toy Northern Goldstar airplane, which was the same plane that Adam Scott rode on in the second episode. I love when the creators have a small connection to other episodes. They are hard to see at first, but this one was a little more obvious.
‘Six Degrees of Freedom’ is one of the more suspenseful and longer Twilight Zone episodes. The acting was great and I loved how the episode was shot. I kept trying to guess how the episode would end since what I originally thought was not right at all. It ended in typical Twilight Zone fashion and made me think ‘oh, that’s interesting’ and when a Twilight Zone episode ends like that, I am satisfied.
What did you think of this episode? Tell us in the comments below!
Share this post
