When Serling became overwhelmed with writing duties, he searched for new writers to help balance the workload. Many critics praised director Boris Sagal's creative choice, with Tone talking out of the side of his mouth making him extra cruel and manipulative as he chides and humiliates Tennyson (leading to one of the harshest twist endings of the series). The solution to shoot only the other half of Tone's face had an unexpected creative benefit. They soon found out that he had an accident and ended up with one-half of his face scraped completely raw. This proves difficult, as Taylor taunts him relentlessly to make him lose the bet.ĭuring shooting, the cast and crew became concerned when Tone didn't show up on set one day. When Tennyson takes him up on the offer, he's promised half a million dollars if he can stay silent while living in a glass room. In it, smug country club member Archie Taylor (Franchot Tone) bets loudmouth fellow member Jamie Tennyson (Liam Sullivan) that he can't remain quiet for a year. "The Silence" was one of the rare Twilight Zone episodes with no elements of the supernatural or science fiction. Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion, joked that episode should be called "Cadaver is Coming", and that's a pretty fitting description! The end result not only killed its prospects of becoming a new series, but also being notable as one of the worst Twilight Zone episodes ever.
Terribly unfunny and missing the sharpness of Rod Serling's best writing, the episode even features a laugh track, but it fails to be infectious. The problem was that "Cavender is Coming" was a dud. White plays the title character, a bumbling guardian angel whose attempts at wish-fulfillment for theater worker Agnes (Burnett) continually backfire. In the end, he doesn't get his wings, but gets the go-ahead to help other subjects, just setting up the recurring premise for a new series. Serling thought the episode could lay the groundwork for a successful sitcom.
While The Twilight Zone was an anthology series with self-contained episodes and casts, Serling had something different in mind with "Cavender is Coming", a comedic episode starring Carol Burnett and Jesse White.
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