So if the pair he broke are the ones we saw him putting on as he exited the bank vault - which brought all that blurry rubble into focus - then he should be able to read to his heart’s content. And “progressives” weren’t around back in 1959.
No, they aren’t bifocals, which have a distinctive line across each lens. And yet we’re clearly shown that he can’t see anything, either up close or far away, without them. The only way to address that is to have a different pair of glasses for each situation, or to have bifocals. What fixes one problem can’t correct the other. But if I had hyperopia, I’d need a different pair of glasses. I have glasses (and contacts) that correct that. Everything up close looks sharp, but anything beyond the reach of my arms is fuzzy. The glasses you get depend on your problem. When - spoiler alert! ) - they fall and break at the end, our hearts break with them, because we know that Henry has just seen his happy plans to read all those books shattered.īut how can the same pair of glasses help him see both up close and far away?Īs anyone who wears glasses can tell you, most people whose eyesight is imperfect are either far-sighted (hyperopia, where you need help seeing things up close) or near-sighted (myopia, where you need help seeing things far away). The fact that the man is practically blind without them is central to the twist.
So what? TZ isn’t really a sci-fi show at heart, anyway - it’s a fantasy drama with sci-fi trappings.īut there’s a technical detail in “Time Enough at Last” that’s hard to overlook, especially because - unlike most of the show’s other gaffes - it’s crucial to the plot. I don’t roll my eyes if, for example, a TZ says Mars is X number of miles away, and that estimate isn’t even close.
As I mentioned in my review of The Twilight Zone Companion, I give the show wide latitude in this area. Mind you, I’m not normally one to nitpick the Zone on such details.
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