The episode managed to tell a freaked-out story but also shined some light on the cruelties of abusive husbands and fathers, how they could gradually rip apart the seams of a family until there was very little left.
TWILIGHT ZONE MARATHON SERIES
Rod Serling's magnificent series showed insight and sensitivity to an experience a LOT of women and children were going through. I think Living Doll was very bold in how they approached this subject considering the constraints of the period and how a deeper message could be expressed to the audience. A bullied girl, by some unknown energy of the universe, is prevented from being the victim in a time period and society where some of the most helpless victims were women and girls, caught in a trap of abuse and emotional neglect. What's really at the center is an innocent kid being emotionally tormented by a man she tries to reach out to in her own small way (calling this very un-fatherly man "Daddy" even though he does not necessarily welcome it and doesn't show her any real love and affection, in fact angrily yelling that he "is NOT her daddy" in one particularly nasty scene). I also think this episode was a profound commentary on family dysfunction and bullying. Even MORE creepily, could a regular little doll somehow have been picking up the angriest and most bitter parts of both the mother AND the daughter, channeling that into destruction? Could it have been a conductor of their subconscious cries? Wisely, we're left wondering and that is what gives this episode its power! The last scene involving Tina and Annabelle seems to unravel everything that's been happening in the house, re-adjusts what you think you've pretty much figured out. I've always wondered about whether Talky Tina was meant as an instrument of evil or whether it was some type of 'avenging spirit'. It didn't shy away from diving head-first into the spooky pool and challenged the viewer as to what they thought was right vs. What happens at the end of this very scary episode to Annabelle, Erich's wife and the mother of the little girl this doll is supposedly trying to shield from harm begs the viewer's question as to exactly what the hell is the meaning of this madness? Living Doll was a story that I thought was told with an edge that showed itself in the strongest, most haunting TZ episodes. BUT (a big but), the brilliant part of this episode is that appearances may be deceiving and the viewer's expectations just may be subverted. Running through this episode is the retaliation Erich Streator receives from a pint-sized foe, a female fascimile-something that reverses the power dynamics for the mother and the child.
TWILIGHT ZONE MARATHON HOW TO
Annabelle keeps up appearances of the domestic, playing house with a man who has repeatedly shown that he not only not knows how to be a father to the child he already has, his step-daughter, but does not know how to be a husband. With Erich (Telly Savalas in a terrific performance), he's allowed his own personal angst on his inability to father a child, to turn him against the people he should be loving and protecting. Annabelle is a woman who represents a LOT of women throughout the years who've landed in marriages that have quickly turned sour because of the internalized rage of increasingly spiteful men. Is the doll Tina somehow a supernatural friend and ally to the child, coming to her rescue in some strange, uncanny way? Or (and the ending of Living Doll REALLY makes you wonder about its intentions), is "Talky Tina" a conductor of energy, a vector of chaos, a strangely sentient object with the sole purpose of disturbance, chaos and even violence? The writing and performances in this episode are pitch-perfect, the mother Annabelle played by the actress Mary LaRoche and her daughter Christie by Tracy Stratford. What I've always loved about this episode was the "unreality" of it-it plays with the viewer's mind.
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