THE LATENESS OF THE HOUR
Rod Serling first won fame for social teleplays. But when censors began to limit what he could say about contemporary life, he turned to the fantastic and supernatural, creating the famed Twilight Zone series (1959-64).But Serling cheated the censors, as every enthusiast of this series knows. Because he disguised social commentary as fantasy.
View this Twilight Zone segment called "The Lateness of the Hour" (1, 2, 3) and try to relate it to social issues you may know yourselves as children or what you know of other families.
Consider this general topic as well as the specific questions below.
Then prepare to discuss the plot of the teleplay in terms of general social issues regarding family, children, education, socialization, the welfare state, or similar matters. The main characters are Dr. and Mrs. Loren; Jana, their daughter; and Nelda and Robert, the robots.
1. When was the picture of Nelda in the photo album taken?
2. What is Nelda holding in her hands in the photo?
3. How does Jana compliment today against the picture of her in the photo album?
4. What does the father say to Nelda to do with the photo album?
5. What does Jana want to do herself with the photo album?
6. What is the temperature?
7. What is the optimum temp?
8. According to the daughter what is the fireplace designed for?
9. What are the chairs designed for?
10. What are the windows?
11. What are the ceilings designed for?
12. What is everything designed for?
13. What does Nelda do to the mother?
14. What does this do to the mother's appetite?
15. What time does Jana want to eat?
16. Where does she want to eat?
17. What kind of food does the father think they'll find there?
18. What physical consequences might follow if they go out, like Jana wants to do?
19. According to Jana, what clean beautiful sound is out there?
20. What kinds of sounds are inside the house, according to Jana?
21. Why does Jana want her father to yell at her?
22. What does Jana say is happening every second the family is in the house?
23. What does Jana say "the army of domestics" do for the family?
24. What does the father say about family secrets?
25. What does Jana say about family secrets?
26. What does Jana say the robots are turning her mother and father into?
27. In one word, how does the robot maid describe Jana?
28. How durable are Dr. Loren's robots?
29. What word does Jana use to describe her father's the robots?
30. What does the narrator, Rod Serling, say about perfection?
31. What does the daughter want to do for her father instead of allowing Robert the Robot to do it?
32. What does the father say his daughter has become?
33. What does she say her father has turned her into?
34. What does the father say he has done for his daughter?
35. In one word, how does Jana describe what she has become?
36. What does she say about "time"?
37. What does she want her father to do with the robots?
38. According to the father, what human characteristics (traits) do his robots have?
39. What can the robots remember in detail?
40. What roles were the robots built to play?
41. How might this relate to social roles or the way we are socialized?
42. How does the father describe his robots? Or to what does he compare them?
43. How does the mother say Jana is behaving?
44. What does Jana say the mother wants five times a day?
45. According to Jana, hat kind of pleasure does the father want from the robots?
46. How might this relate to US culture in the 1950s or to Taiwan's "strawberry generation"?
47. What does Jana want in life instead?
48. Where does she want to be?
49. What do the robots say Jana must show to her parents?
50. How might this relate to demands made on young people today?
51. To what does Jana describe the robots at this point in the drama?
52. What is the father accustomed to?
53. How might the father's demand for this quality in his robots relate to a parent's demand for the same quality in his or her children?
54. Jana threatens her father with the reminder that though the robots may be indestructible, who is not indestructible?
55. What does Jana want her father to do with the windows?
56. What does the father promise Jana with the robots?
57. Who does Jana ask to "rest in peace" (a common idiom of sympathy for the dead)?
58. Where does the father ask the servants to go?
59. What does the Butler say he has been as a butler?
60. What does the father say to Robert in order to quell (stop) the robot's rebellion?
61. How does the wife predict life will be without the robots?
62. How does Jana say they will live now that the robots are gone?
63. Whom does Jana hope she will find soon now that the robots are gone?
64. What does she want to have with this person?
65. What does Jana notice about the pictures in the photo album?
66. According to her father, what does Jana remember from her childhood?
67. How did she get her childhood memories?
68. Jana discovers she's not her parents' child? Was that because she was adopted or for another reason? Give the reason.
69. Why did the father do this?
70. From what feelings did the father create his daughter?
71. How might this comment on the meaning of "love" in some families?
72. According to her, what can't Jana feel?
73. What does the father tell his wife he couldn't stand regarding his daughter?
73. Sum up Rod Serling's postscript message?
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