I have continued to be obsessed with Rod Serlings "Patterns" lately, one reason being I sort of identify with the Andy Sloane character, who gets booted out because he is an old has-been. But anyway, something always bothered me about this Rod Serling fare (I mean it might well have been an hour-long Twilight Zone, except for the fact that there is nothing supernatural or science-fictiony about it -- but remember, the real motivation for TZ was that Serling wanted to make certain comments on society but without getting in trouble with the sponsors who then forced him to change things in the script). If you watch "Patterns", and if you haven't seen it, I really encourage you to do so, its about this really Machiavellian type boss at a big corporation that has to get rid of his aging vice president. And he brings in this new guy to replace the VP. But the old guy is someone who believes that you must think about the people who might be hurt by what the corporation does. And this new guy agrees with him. So it all comes down to this final scene between the new VP and the boss. But at the end of that confrontation, its kind of like the mean boss was maybe correct in his philosophy. But this really leaves kind of a bad taste in your mouth. So I wanted to get some other peoples' viewpoint on this TV drama called "Patterns" (I'd also like to know WHY Serling named it "Patterns"). Well, tonight I hit pay dirt. I found someone who viewed this TV show and decided that Serling had sold out (Rod Serling’s “Patterns” by M.G. Piety). Apparently, Rod Serling had originally written an ending to his TV drama "Patterns" where the new VP tells his boss off and then QUITS (this original teleplay was called "Pattern")! This would indeed make the ending more satisfying. And it is interesting that Rod Serling originally wrote it this way. But M.G. Piety believes that when Rod Serling originally tried to sell the script to CBS, they had rejected it because it made the executive of the company look so rotten. So she thinks that Rod changed the ending to what it is today. And it is strange because the ending is almost like something Ayn Rand would write. I remember once on YouTube some commenter wrote something like 'gee, this Rod Serling play almost had me believing I have been wrong about capitalism'. By the way, if you read these reviews of "Patterns" I have been reading, you will find that what Rod Serling said about it was this: If Patterns has a message, Serling explained, “it is simply that every human being has a minimum set of ethics from which he operates. This minimum set of ethics often injects itself into a man’s own journey upward against competition. When he refuses to compromise these ethics, his career must suffer; when he does compromise them, his conscience does the suffering”.
So what do you think? Did Rod sell out? And by selling out on his script for "Patterns", did it become another bit of motivation for him to decide to do a series like "The Twilight Zone"?
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