Arch Oboler's LIGHTS OUT is one of the handful of radio shows I've listened to over the years that was genuinely worth listening to. (One of my all-time favorite writers, Harlan Ellison, mentioned Oboler's show somewhere along the line, and that's how I came to it. In DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND, one of Ellison's two episodes of the original black and white series THE OUTER LIMITS, one of the characters is called "Arch." I'm guessing he was named after Oboler.) Likewise, his end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it feature, FIVE, was watchable. THE TWONKY, while maybe not as watchable as FIVE, is nonetheless not bad for what it is (or isn't). As pointed out elsewhere, it could've fit right in with the rest of the episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Once the one-eyed monster gets its hooks in you, you're as good as finished. (Just look around you.) Both NETWORK and VIDEODROME would go still further in their depictions of a medium gone mad, but Henry Kuttner and Arch Oboler were there first. And funniest.
Review of The Twonky
