“Pretty”

Dearest Rachel –

This is entirely the wrong season for this to come to mind (this will normally come up during October, as of late), but it’s not like dreams care about times and seasons. Besides, that’s sort of the whole point of this particular dream – it could be brought to fruition without any concern about the when and who. The only problem is, I woke up in the middle of the night with this in mind, and had to get it written down before going back to sleep again, lest I lose it to the darkness of the ether.

I should mention that I actually didn’t wake up with a plot to this story; that came within a few moments of waking up, and you can decide for yourself whether it’s an improvement – or even necessary – or not for the moment. Frankly, the fact that the technology is still somewhat rudimentary at this moment would, I think, be as much of what the story – and the show itself as revived – could revolve around to give the vibe of the original.

I’m talking, of course, about the use of artificial intelligence to resurrect the Twilight Zone, which I’ve mentioned a couple of times in these letters in the past. That’s pretty much it, as far as the dream itself was concerned, with only a couple of the actors clearly defined in my mind – two of whom are currently publicly available as LoRA models, and presumably the third could easily be trained like I did with your pictures.

It seemed to feature Elizabeth Montgomery and (I think) Dick van Dyke, which would have been a challenge to put together back in the day, given their individual commitments (and impossible now, considering that Montgomery has long been on your side of the veil (although exactly where, I couldn’t say; as with everyone I don’t know personally – and many I do – I’ve no idea where her heart was on that score). But with AI, of course, there are enough images, recordings and footage to reconstruct each of them, and so many others from television’s Silver Age.

The plot of the episode (and I remember the title having been the one I gave this letter – “Pretty”) was rudimentary in my dream, but it could have been along these lines; a vain young starlet realizes her career is tied up in her beauty, which is taking more time and effort to maintain all the time – time which she thinks would be better spent getting herself in the public eye that much more, either in acting roles or self-promotion. To this end, she seeks out an inventor would believes he has found the means to preserve one’s youth and beauty on a virtual basis, by uploading one’s form and mind into a series of files that can be utilized to perform worldwide through the internet (yes, I know that wasn’t even thought of by Serling and his writing team; just assume it could still be considered science fiction to 60s-era viewers and leave it at that).

There are several possible trademark twists that could cause this plan to go wrong (and undoubtedly others that I haven’t thought of, but come on, this was at two in the morning that I came up with this); the upload process could destroy her corporeal form entirely, leaving her only existence to be within the virtual world; similarly, it could leave her comatose within the scanning pod, while the computer gathering data on her refuses to stop the process, as there is constantly more information to find and upload (she is, as it happens, the first real human subject of this experimental process); or the scientist, while legitimate in his efforts, turns out to be an obsessive about the actress, and keeps her trapped within the pod while he effectively controls her virtual form like a puppet.

In each of these cases, the virtual starlet is conscious and sentient within the virtual word, able to see into and interact verbally with the outside physical world, but not escape back into it. She is trapped within the box that is the screen, forced to perform for eternity, being able to look out at other screens as she performs, with every moment of her eternal existence on display for all to see. Given that this is the internet we’re talking about, this could imply an existence much more sordid than could have been on the original series; although, if one wanted to create a basic feel of the original, such implications would needs be decidedly muted).

While I had to come up with the plot of the pilot upon waking up, the real thoughts going through my head during the course of the dream was just how possible the idea of doing this in real life – and, more to the point, the ability of cranking out episode after episode – could be in this day and age. Not for myself, in particular, since I’m nowhere near the level of fan of the show dedicated enough to put something like this into motion, but the idea of a revival that all but writes, casts and films itself seems to be within the reach of almost any aspiring devotee. It’s entirely possible that the show could be generated in perpetuity right now, with scripts written by some ChatGPT-style LLM trained on the works of Serling, Richard Matheson and other sci-fi authors of the time.

Even the rudimentary nature of AI as it exists today would actually be an asset to such a show; the ‘uncanny valley’ appearance of AI-generated… do you call it animation when it looks like live action? – would work in its favor, as the “close but not quite right” vibe that it gives off would be exactly the atmosphere that show is meant to give off.

This could also give a certain overarching ‘meta’ nature to the show, since the very concept of using dead actors and writers to keep generating episodes in perpetuity is just the kind of creepy, “science-runs-man” theme that was the show’s stock in trade. It would push the fourth wall over in a way that the original didn’t – and couldn’t, for that matter – which might make up for a possible lack of quality that might otherwise exist in the revived show as generated. Heck, at some point, whoever decides to create the content might wind up being a character in an episode, compelled as they are to keep cranking out content in order to make a living. They may find themselves puppetted by the very automatic forces they thought they were harnessing; a slave to the algorithm (which sounds like a pretty good episode title in and of itself)

And I speak of a creator, since these episodes would still require editing, both in the script and the cinematography stages, to get the perfect feel for the series, but it seems remarkably straightforward to set up and perpetuate the process, especially if someone is sufficiently dedicated to the idea. To be sure, that someone isn’t going to be me (hey, I don’t want to be the algorithm’s slave), but it would be interesting if someone reads this over your shoulder, and thinks that it would be worthwhile to try their hand.

Now, if only people’s attention spans were long enough to watch a 25-minute show anymore…

Anyway, that was the thought for this morning; hope you found it interesting, honey, even if you’ll never get the chance to see it implemented. For now, though, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.