The Fever was inspired by Rod Serling’s celebratory trip to Las Vegas when The Twilight Zone was first signed. I do have sympathy with his wife… You can also tell poor Flora never gets out of the house. This one needed more time to build.There is nothing wrong with Everett Sloane’s acting…the change is just too quick. Franklin goes from hating everything about gambling and fun to being a grumpy gambler in the span of a few minutes. Yes there is an important lesson but it doesn’t happen naturally at all. Everett catches the gambling “fever.” I feel the episode is forced. He reluctantly plays a slot machine and wins…from there on it’s all down hill for Franklin. Flora is just excited to be there but Everett will have none of it. Everett Sloane plays Franklin Gibbs who is a grouchy man who with his suffering wife Flora wins a trip to Las Vegas. As always the episode has a moral lesson but…it loses something. This is the only episode so far I’ve given a lower than 3 stars to. I watched this last week and also Thursday night again just to make sure I wasn’t marking it too low.
This is the second time I’ve published this…it vanished from the Reader. If you want to see where we are… HERE is a list of the episodes.
