If you have never seen it, I encourage you to take a half-hour to watch it I wouldn’t want to spoil the delight and surprise I had in my first viewing. After the break, I’ll offer my thoughts about and interpretations of both versions of the story. Below is a Youtube video of the first part of this fascinating episode, which was based on a short story by Lynn Venable. That is, until I was introduced to a popular Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough at Last,” first aired in 1959. One medium I have missed thus far is television, perhaps the dominant medium of American culture from the mid-20th century onwards. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: indeed, I think it makes my research speak to a public that, like my blog, craved an interesting and captivating set of texts to give expression to their nuclear fears. In looking back on the materials I have introduced in this blog, I realize that, though I had intended to primarily deal with literature, I have explored a wide range of cultural artifacts, from news articles and magazine clippings to paintings and photographs, a blog post, films, and even (briefly) a post-nuclear video game.Īs an aside, I wonder whether I have introduced these media because they make the blog more visually interesting and appealing than posts simply filled with blocks of text. As I have discovered, these ideas are almost invariably based on a certain set of cultural texts, owing no small part, I suspect, to the range of cultural expression that has dealt with the idea of a nuclear apocalypse. A happy consequence of having chosen a thesis topic that resonates so widely in American culture is that when I share my research, everyone I speak to has a unique, interesting perspective to share about the nuclear bomb.

Lynn venable time enough at last