# Was Rod Serling scientifically illiterate... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 10, 2020, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212 "2020-03-10T17:00:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/61 "2020-03-13T05:44:37Z")
Cast on the NIGHT COURT show didn’t behave like real people in USA night courts. BUFFY had no actual vampires to slay. SUPERMAN didn’t fly. Radioactive sawdust doesn’t come alive like the OUTER LIMITS episode IT CRAWLED OUT OF THE WOODWORK. HEE-HAW wasn’t a documentary (though some disagree). Don’t even ask about MY FAVORITE MARTIAN. These are fantasies, like singing puppets, talking mules-horses-dogs-cars, dancing beercans, CANNON’s driving skills, and Fox News reports. Their only function is to entertainingly seize eyeballs for advertisers. If writers could sneak-in subversive content, fine. If not… that’s showbiz, folks! ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/62 "2020-03-13T12:09:22Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Don’t even ask about MY FAVORITE MARTIAN. One of my favorite fanwanks is that My Favorite Martian, Bewitched, and I Dream Of Jeannie all take place in the same Wacky Hijinks universe, where the constant use of preternatural power has weakened the fabric of reality. This occasionally causes impossibly silly things to happen elsewhere; Gilligan’s Island, The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres take place in this universe as well. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/63 "2020-03-13T17:09:11Z")
“Preternatural” power? I think you mean “supernatural.” “Preternatural” means “highly unusual.” “Supernatural” means “contrary to ordinary nature.” ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/64 "2020-03-13T17:35:03Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Cast on the NIGHT COURT show didn’t behave like real people in USA night courts. BUFFY had no actual vampires to slay. SUPERMAN didn’t fly. Radioactive sawdust doesn’t come alive like the OUTER LIMITS episode IT CRAWLED OUT OF THE WOODWORK. HEE-HAW wasn’t a documentary (though some disagree). Don’t even ask about MY FAVORITE MARTIAN. These are fantasies, like singing puppets, talking mules-horses-dogs-cars, dancing beercans, CANNON’s driving skills, and Fox News reports. Their only function is to entertainingly seize eyeballs for advertisers. If writers could sneak-in subversive content, fine. If not… that’s showbiz, folks! Another one that doesn’t “get it”. No one cares if Night Court denizens don’t behave like actual defendants. It’s a comedy. In the context of the show, they are consistent. But if at the end of season 1, it was revealed that said Night Court was actually on Jupiter, which, outside of the courtroom, looks like Willy Wonka’s factory with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. And actual Roman gods run the place. But we never were shown that until the end. And season 2 goes back to being the same show from season 1. Wouldn’t that make you feel cheated, deceived? What if at the end of A Dog’s Purpose, a magical fairy brings the dog back to life and everyone is happy. The entire point of the movie would be undermined. At the end of The Natural, it is revealed that Roy is actually Jesus. Or an alien. Or JFK. Who cares, it’s just a movie. My Favorite Martian in internally consistent. In the world of the show, Martin and Tim act like real people (well, real sitcom people). If in season 2 of Mr Ed it was shown that ALL animals talk, and always have, would you mind the change? Saying no would be like being one of those people that just watch action movies for the explosions. Some of us like a good story. Some like internal consistency. Fantasy is OK. Stupid is not. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/65 "2020-03-13T18:22:43Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > Repeat to yourself, over and over: > **“It’s just a show, you should really just relax.”** I will merely observe that although this was in the theme song, the host and the bots on MST3K spent the entire show ridiculing inaccuracies in the featured movie.😃 ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/66 "2020-03-13T19:14:57Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > For the people that keep saying, in various forms, “it’s just a show”. > > For TZ, NO ONE cares that aliens look like humans in rubber masks. NO ONE cares if spaceships have FTL and gravity, or if supernatural things happen. > > But we DO CARE if the story is fundamentally stupid. And the TZ in question is fundamentally flawed. If the only way you can tell your story is that the characters are irredeemably stupid _within the logic of the show itself_, then maybe you should tell another story. Every tv series of multiple seasons accumulates its share of lousy episodes. Twilight Zone is no exception. What is exceptional about it is how many really great episodes it presented. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/67 "2020-03-13T19:24:54Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I will merely observe that although this was in the theme song, the host and the bots on MST3K spent the entire show ridiculing inaccuracies in the featured movie.😃 Wow, that is very true. I’ve enjoyed that show for 30+ years and never gave that point a single thought. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/68 "2020-03-13T19:25:22Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Some of us like a good story. Some like internal consistency. Universal 1G is internally consistent for almost all filmed Sci Fi in the Fifties and Sixties. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/69 "2020-03-13T19:53:41Z")
> [@TimfromNapa](#): > > Every tv series of multiple seasons accumulates its share of lousy episodes. Twilight Zone is no exception. What is exceptional about it is how many really great episodes it presented. See my quote from Serling earlier. The “rule of thirds”. Classic TZ has many episodes that are still great. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/70 "2020-03-14T01:39:09Z")
Just Asking Questions, you give several examples of why it would bother you if a show at the end showed that things were completely different from how you thought they were, like if at the end of _A Dog’s Purpose_, a magical fairy brought the dog back to life and everyone is happy or if at the end of _The Natural_, it was revealed that Roy was actually Jesus or an alien or JFK or if it was revealed that _Night Court_ was actually on Jupiter. So you would be bothered by any huge reveal at the end of a TV series. Would you be bothered if at the end of _Newhart_ it was revealed that the entire series was a dream of a character from _The Bob Newhart Show_? Would you be bothered if at the end of St. Elsewhere it was revealed that the entire series was just in the mind of the autistic son of a construction worker who that son believed to be a doctor at that hospital? Well, both of those things happened. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/71 "2020-03-14T01:49:13Z")
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**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2020, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212/72 "2020-03-16T21:59:05Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Just Asking Questions, you give several examples of why it would bother you if a show at the end showed that things were completely different from how you thought they were, like if at the end of _A Dog’s Purpose_, a magical fairy brought the dog back to life and everyone is happy or if at the end of _The Natural_, it was revealed that Roy was actually Jesus or an alien or JFK or if it was revealed that _Night Court_ was actually on Jupiter. So you would be bothered by any huge reveal at the end of a TV series. Would you be bothered if at the end of _Newhart_ it was revealed that the entire series was a dream of a character from _The Bob Newhart Show_? Would you be bothered if at the end of St. Elsewhere it was revealed that the entire series was just in the mind of the autistic son of a construction worker who that son believed to be a doctor at that hospital? Well, both of those things happened. I thought St Elsewhere’s ending was wrong. It thought it was clever, and I thought it was really stupid (it’s a thin line between them.) I didn’t think it added anything to the show, and made all those other seasons meaningless, basically. IMO. [Plus it de-legitimized a shit-ton of shows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall#The_Tommy_Westphall_Universe_Hypothesis), if you take the ending as canon. Newhart I excuse because 1) it’s a comedy (but so is Night Court) and 2) during the other episodes the characters acted like real (sitcom) characters, in the real world. If you never saw the final scene, it would still be an enjoyable show. Night Court on another planet wouldn’t be the same thing. I know, I risk being called contradictory, but that’s my reasoning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-rod-serling-scientifically-illiterate/849212.md?page=3)