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Mr. Bevis (Season 1, Episode 33)
Directed by: William Asher
Written by: Rod Serling
Based on: N/A

Opening: In the parlance of the twentieth century, this is an oddball. His name is James B. W. Bevis, and his tastes lean toward stuffed animals, zither music, professional football, Charles Dickens, moose heads, carnivals, dogs, children, and young ladies. Mr. Bevis is accident prone, a little vague, a little discombooberated [sic], with a life that possesses all the security of a floating crap game. But this can be said of our Mr. Bevis: without him, without his warmth, without his kindness, the world would be a considerably poorer place, albeit perhaps a little saner. … Should it not be obvious by now, James B. W. Bevis is a fixture in his own private, optimistic, hopeful little world, a world which has long ceased being surprised by him. James B. W. Bevis, on whom Dame Fortune will shortly turn her back, but not before she gives him a paste in the mouth. Mr. James B. W. Bevis, just one block away from the Twilight Zone.



Spoilers abound. There's an episode summary here.

Ah, my old nemesis, the Twilight Zone comedy episode: we meet again.

I should say upfront that while this is a bottom-tier episode for me, it’s one of the more tolerable in the group. I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it, and I would still rank it above, say, “The Mighty Casey” or “The Bard.” It’s not dire, just too self-consciously quirky.

Orson Bean’s performance in the title role helps salvage all this somewhat. This is a twee episode, and Bean doesn’t change that, but he leans into it with a touching sincerity. He has the kind of rubbery face that’s great for comedy, especially when Bevis gets plaintive, but he also knows exactly when to tone things down to nail the episode’s one real dramatic beat. I would dread sitting next to Mr. Bevis on a long flight, but I wind up honestly glad that he gets to carry on being his authentically kooky self and even gets to live a charmed life. As long as he lives it far away from me.

That said, there are some antics even Bean can’t sell. Even in the opening, he’s at his best with the milder comedy of a frazzled, eccentric guy running late amid a lot of self-generated chaos; he can’t do anything to make pratfalls—like sliding down the banister and tumbling ass-over-teakettle out the door and down the stoop—less cringe-worthy. (Also, his cheerful “Why not?” before straddling the banister and sliding down is genuinely baffling to me. I’ll tell you why not, Bevis: because you’re clearly going to wind up banging your groin at the end there. At least slide down with both your legs on the same side!) Him hopping into the kids’ football game is also a groaner for me, maybe because it feels very generic—him whistling to them to help him with his car is cuter and more convincing.

Parts of this episode make me cranky. Look, Bevis is a good guy, but if you keep losing jobs at a rapid clip because you can’t stand the dehumanizing nature of not playing zither music in the office and not hiring Christmas carolers to come into work at the height of the business day, maybe that’s on you as well as your heartless employers. It’s sweet that you’re building a model ship for a kid you know! Maybe don’t do it at work! And while I agree that people should get to personalize their desks, the décor is less charming when it includes a taxidermied squirrel and—much worse—a golliwog-esque clock. Actually, you can keep the squirrel if you just get rid of the clock; that’s how bad the clock is.

And honestly, if you’re going to be such an eccentric free spirit, maybe don’t correct your bartender when he says “who” instead of “whom.” You know this tendency is extra-annoying because uptight guardian angel J. Hardy Hempstead (Henry Jones) actually approves of it.

So: J. Hardy Hempstead. I’ll admit to being a little amused by an angel with that name—and by Hempstead’s line about how “the organization” technically approved of Bevis’s Christmas carol stunt—but the setup here is too bizarrely convoluted to work for me. Just give him a guardian angel with a history of looking after distinguished people of great renown! Coming up with a backstory about one of Bevis’s ancestors doing something remarkably brave and getting rewarded with having one person per generation of his descendants looked after by a guardian angel is just a shade too complicated. It’s too specific, and then jokes like “Magellan Bevis” are too broad.

Hempstead resetting Bevis’s day and giving him a tweaked persona and personal history is a fun setup, and I think this glimpse of his alternate life is generally well-handled. It’s a nice touch that Hempstead has given him a universe where the authority figures—his landlady and boss—treat him with fawning approval while his coworkers, neighbors, and even dogs are indifferent to him; it’s a good way of showing the shallowness of Hempstead’s concept of respectability. I also like that no one really hates Bevis in this alternate world; the fruit seller yells at him for asking for a freebie and the dog snarls at him, but that’s about it, and they’re both understandable reactions to what seems like unwarranted closeness from a stranger. The kids aren’t scared of him, and his coworkers don’t hate him. They’re just cool and quiet. In his sharp black suit, without his eccentricities, without his personality, he’s just part of the scenery. The episode is called “Mr. Bevis,” and while Hempstead tries to present this universe as offering a different (and, to his mind, improved) Bevis, we can see that what it’s really offering is no Bevis at all.

This isn’t acceptable to Bevis, nor should it be. His confrontation with Hempstead is a well-played moment on both ends, with Hempstead losing his patience, fuming that a ten-dollar raise is all even he could get for Bevis, and outright admitting that he doesn’t “dig” him—and Bevis coming up with the perfect, quiet answer to that: “The things I like, the things I believe in, they may be a little odd, but they’re worth considerably more than ten dollars a week.”

The happy ending—complete with Hempstead restoring the Rickenbacker and adjusting the placement of a fire hydrant to spare Bevis a parking ticket—is earned, I think, by the fact that Bevis chooses his old life even knowing that it’s going to come with a certain amount of rockiness. He accepts instability—including unemployment and temporary couch-surfing—as a price he’s willing to pay to be himself, and there’s something inspiring about that. I don’t know if he can keep it up forever, but it’s a nice, light note to end on, one that’s happy without being outright schmaltz.

Closing: Mr. James B. W. Bevis, who believes in a magic all his own. The magic of a child's smile, the magic of liking and being liked, the strange and wondrous mysticism that is the simple act of living. Mr. James B. W. Bevis, species of twentieth-century male, who has his own private and special Twilight Zone.

MVP(s): I’m going to give it to Horace McMahon, who plays the bartender, and William Schallert, who plays the cop who deals with the wrecked Rickenbacker. They both provide a much-needed dose of slightly-acerbic-but-not-cruel sanity, and they have more reality to them than the characters who exist to either glorify Bevis or persecute him.

Next Verse, Same as the First: We’ll basically be seeing this exact same episode again when we get to Season 3’s “Cavender Is Coming.” I give “Cavender Is Coming” a slight edge over “Mr. Bevis” because it has Carol Burnett.

Personal Tier: Dismal to Poor.

Up Next: The After Hours.