The Twilight Zone: You Drive

Work Title: The Twilight Zone: You Drive
Medium: TV Episode
Episode Title: You Drive
Year: 1964
Writer(s): Rod Serling
"Original" Writer: Yes Writer(s): Earl Hamner Jr.
"Original" Writer: Yes Own work?: No
Summary:

from imdb.com dougdoepke from Claremont,USA Businessman Edward Andrews is a hit-and-run driver, to which his car reacts in a most peculiar way. Slender premise can't fill out full half-hour, so subplot of office rival Kevin Hagen is added. Tall, ungainly Andrews specialized in slippery or sinister businessmen. Here he carries show with gamut of emotions in a bravura performance. Writer Earl Hamner was creator of 70's family show The Waltons, so I suppose its not surprising that the script stays within Andrews' household. Trouble is the gimmick has no wallop and lead-up lacks suspense. Even baroque stylist John Brahm directs without usual flair, apparently unengaged by the single-note plot. One notable feature-- how did they manage the driverless car, the episode's one real memorable oddity?

  • Self-Written?:
  • Source Name: IMDB
  • Source URL:
Era/Year of Portrayal: present_day
Distinctive characteristics of the world in portrayal:

Present day 1964.

Technology

  • Name of portrayed presence-evoking technology: Car
  • Description of the technology: The car appears to be a normal car, mobile, inanimate. However, after it is used in a hit and run, it begins to act strangely. It wakes up the driver, Oliver, by blasting the radio and flashing lights. It makes Oliver fell guilly, and tries to tell other people by stopping at the scene of the crime and not moving. Eventually, it drives itself, chasing Oliver. It then takes Oliver to jail. Oliver interacts with the car as if it is a normal car, and then as if it was his conscious.
  • Nature of task or activity: Doing anything in the house, sleeping, driving.
  • Performance of the Technology: It acts strangely, turning on by itself, the engine stops, light and radio come on randomly.
  • Description of creator(s): unknown.
  • Major goal(s) of creator(s): to make money.
  • Description of users of technology: Oliver is in his 40s or 50s, white, an office manager, self centered. Married.
  • Type(s) of presence experience in the portrayal: social_presence
  • Description of presence experience: The experience is frightening. The car makes sure that Oliver feels guilty and cannot forget what hes done. He is terrified and anxious.
  • User awareness of technology during experience: yes.
  • Valence of experience: unpleasant.
  • Specific responses: mental sickness, anxiety, terror, distorted memory and social judgments
Long-term consequences:

Oliver turns himself in for his crime. The innocent man arrested presumably goes free.

Other:

Coder name: Amanda Scheiner
Coder email: amandags@temple.edu
Coder affiliation: Temple University