Sure, the show had its ups and downs- it had its share of “weak” episodes (and hey, didn’t ALL shows in this genre?) but when it was good, it was very, VERY good, and I’d say that the 40 % of the episodes that were great rank among the very best that Twilight Zone has to offer!
Out of all of these episodes, the one that truly stands head and shoulders above the rest is the heartwarmingly sweet story called “A Message from Charity”. A time traveling tale (of sorts) of a girl living in colonial times seeing through the eyes of a boy living in the “modern” 80’s (LOL) and vice versa, this tale fits right into the Twilight Zone genre of fantasy/science fiction, and it may be all of that, but the heart of it is a tale about the value of friendship and the special first true love experiences that one cherishes for a lifetime.
When our story begins, the year is 1700 in Annestown, Massachusetts and a young girl named Charity Paine has come down with a bacterial infection brought about by tainted water. At the same time in 1985, a boy named Peter Wood is in bed with the exact same sickness. In her delirium, Charity overhears the sound of the television in Peter’s future, and Peter himself glimpses the face of an Aunt tending to Charity back in the past!
A few days later, both kids are on the mend, and it’s while resting that they fully “feel” each other’s presence and realize their strange connection.
After briefly conversing, they realize what has happened: He can see and feel the past through her, and she can see and feel the future though him. Though at first apprehensive about the situation, they slowly begin a friendship as they deal with this new phenomena together.
They keep each other company as they go about their daily chores, and on his days away from school, Peter uses them to show Charity the finer points in the advancements of mankind over the last 100 years! He takes her on a ride in an airplane. He eats every flavor of ice cream so she can taste it. And when he realizes she loves reading but can’t afford many books, takes her to the town library where he offers to let her “read” as many books as she wants…through his eyes!
Much of their time is spent in this way and soon enough, Peter finds that he is in love with Charity. A lonely, bookish boy, he’s never had any friends nor participated in any activities, and here he’s found a perfect person- a friend who he can talk to, laugh with and experience life with! At one point she asks him to stand before a mirror so she can see what he looks like. At first nervous, he is relieved to find her reaction warm. And then when he asks to see her reflection (no mirror around so she peers into a riverbank), he finds that she is in fact, “quite a beauty!”
But the fun can’t last forever, and when Peter jokingly tells Charity to tell her friends of her “Rides through the Air” and the “Visions in boxes where one can see the likeness of people many leagues distant” for a laugh, her friends’ responses are less than humorous. No girl or boy of Charity’s time knows of Airplanes or Television, and instead accuse her of being devil-ridden!!
When he realizes what he’s started, Peter begs Charity to say no more, but it is too late. Peter has forgotten that in the 1800’s the world is still very much living in the Fear of witchcraft, and the least little thing can cause someone to go from a respectable citizen to someone burned at the stake!
And sure enough, the stern town Squire Hacker (played with oily lecherous aplomb by actor Gerald Hiken) soon pays a visit to the Paine household, intending to give Charity a “very thorough search of her body for evil markings”. The Squire’s goons take down her father, but before he can get his hands on her, Charity shoves him out of the way and flees into the forest, while poor Peter sits in the town Library, helplessly wringing his hands.
After running a while, the exhausted Charity comes to rest at the stream. She begs Peter to stay with her as she is confused and frightened, which of course he does. Suddenly inspired, she asks if any of the books of the future might tell what became of her. Peter doesn’t think so, but goes through the books for her sake, anyway.
After long hours of poring over books, he can’t come up with anything about her, but suddenly comes across an important article: he finds that after his death, Squire Hacker was found guilty of murdering two sailors, their remains found buried beneath his house.
With this information, they finally have a game plan- to go before Hacker (who is also the town judge) and use this knowledge to make him let her off the hook! When Charity has her public hearing in the town court the next day, the Judge immediately resumes his accusations that Charity is a witch because of the strange things she’s told her friends.
She says that she’s no witch, and if anything, is blessed with a sort of second sight. “And do you use this gift for spying on your neighbors?” “I cannot see what my neighbors are doing, except…” she begins, then slowly and quietly says, “Once, I did see a vision of a most foul murder…and of two bodies buried on unhallowed ground. Does thou wish me to speak further?”
Realizing what Charity may be referring to, and fearful of gaining the crowd’s interest, the judge backs off, saying he’s decided she isn’t a witch after all…but should be casutious about what she sees and tells, for such things lead to serious disputes.
Peter and Charity (as well as her family) are jubilant with Charity’s release, but that night, after much thought Charity comes to a hard decision. She realizes that it isn’t right to know too much of one’s future. “I am afeared that it must be…wrong, for thee and me talking togehter like this, knowing whats to come “We’ll just be more careful”, pleads Peter, knowing what is to be. But Charity knows this shouldn’t be, and finally sadly concludes, “I think twould be better if you stay in your time, and I in mine.”
Desperately, Peter tells her that she’s the only friend he’s had, but she reassures him that he will have many others, and will be proud to call him a friend as much as she. They say their farewells, and then she is gone.
Epilogue:
It’s the beginning of the next school year, and something has changed in Peter- No longer an outsider, we see that, thanks to the encouragement and confidence Charity has given him., he’s become a friendly, outgoing person, and has adjusted well to life. And over time, he even begins to even think maybe the whole thing with Charity was a dream.
Until One day.
He’s on his way home from school, and suddenly he hears a familiar voice in his head.
"Peter?"
It’s Charity, but before Peter can let out his excitement and say something to her, she tells him, “Only for a minute, but I had to tell you…there is a message down by Bear Rock”.
As Peter feverishly runs down to the stream, the narrator tells us: “Harmon Brook is very different today, the waters not quite as pure and the edges lined with tract homes and shopping malls… but Bear Rock is still there, and so is a message from a girl long gone, and yet never really gone...in heart and mind"
“ A last remembrance of friendship and first love, a love that exists only and always…in the Twilight Zone”.
MAN, What an episode! The first time I saw this one, it simply rocked my world! Such a bittersweet ending to such an interesting story! As I talked to my friends about the episode the nest day, we all had the same thought- we thought that when Peter went back to school in the epilogue, there was gonna be a new student that looked exactly like Charity, ho, ho ho. That would have been a REAL cliché ending a la WEIRD SCIENCE, thankfully, instead they gave us this truly poignant ending that just brought me to tears!
Everything about this one was awesome but MAN, the heart and soul of this episode belongs to actress Kerry Noonan. As the titular character Charity Paine, she embodies this sweetness and innocence that just makes you just fall in love with her (as I admittedly did, big time), making you truly care about her, and making that ending even more heartbreaking!
When CBS finally got around to releasing the 80’s Twilight Zone series on DVD, I immediately picked it up with a cackle of victory (my poor betamax tapes were just falling apart by then) and began to enjoy the series all over again, this time with lear clarity and NO commercial interruptions! And when I finally got to the disc with “A Message From Charity” on it, it was QUITE a special surprise to find that Kerry Noonan had actually recorded an audio commentary for this story OH MY GOSH SOOOO AWESOME! In fact, she was just about the only actor who appeared, as most of the others who offered their commentaries were primarily the directors and writers!
