episode #42 - The Eye of the Beholder

Air Date: 11/11/60    written by Rod Serling    Directed by Douglas Heyes

Careful -- this clip gives away the ending:

A world of shadows and misdirection - the episode seems to take place on some future date version of Earth, but like another episode, 3rd From the Sun, there are disturbing hints that this is not so.  The story focuses on a female patient in a hospital; her face is covered in bandages, so we can't see it.  But, the eerie and intriguing aspect to this is that we can't see the faces of any of the hospital staff either, until near the end. The episode is filmed in such a way so that the faces of the various characters are always turned away from the camera.  The female patient - we learn through the dialog - has some kind of severe disfiguration and this is the 11th and final operative attempt to 'correct' her problem. The doctor and nurses speak with some pity in regard to this patient but can't completely hide their revulsion. We eventually learn that this society treasures conformity and that the patient is bound for some isolated community whose members have the same 'affliction' as she. BoG's Score: 8 out of 10

Spoiler:

Eye of Trivia: a popular title among TV series, such as on TNG and the Star Trek animated series, though usually these titles are without the "The" prefix. Two actresses played the female patient - one bandaged and the other when the bandages come off. Also, this was one of the episodes remade for the 2003 series.