The Twilight Zone (TV Series) Mute (1963) User Reviews

Ignorance casteth out telepathy

[rocketXpert · 5/10 · 1 June 2011]

While watching this episode about how a young girl's remarkable gift is overlooked, misinterpreted and ultimately psychologically bullied out of her, if you'd asked me what the moral was supposed to be, I would have guessed that it had to do with how society tends to destroy anything it doesn't understand. I suppose the actual message is meant to be "love is better than psychic powers." That's as may be, but this episode failed to set the right tone to deliver such a message. Everyone might have had Ilse's best interests at heart, but I was far from convinced that their idea of what was was best for Ilse was correct, or that their actions were appropriate.

Another reviewer excuses the teacher's behavior as simply being a product of that era. I don't know how you could see this woman's actions and attitudes as anything less than sinister, particularly her line about making Ilse just like everyone else. As for Cora Wheeler, I have my doubts that she truly loved Ilse and find it plausible she saw her more as a substitute for her dead daughter. The underhanded way in which she sabotaged Ilse's chances at being reunited with people like herself did little to endear me to her, nor did the hysterical way she clung to the confused Ilse in the end, screaming about how Ilse needed her, when the case seemed to be more the other way around.

All this is not to necessarily say that I wholeheartedly approve of child rearing techniques of Ilse's biological parents, but frankly, if a line hadn't been shoehorned in at the end that explains that the Nielsens viewed Ilse as a science experiment more than a daughter, it would be harder to condemn them as parents simply because they were a tad unorthodox. When Ilse begins speaking her name out loud for the first time, it didn't register as an uplifting moment for me, like Helen Keller saying "water" in "The Miracle Worker," but rather it had the extremely uncomfortable feel of watching someone break under the strain of mental torture. What was intended as a hopeful ending instead left me feeling saddened that something special had been lost in order to force Ilse to conform to the rest of "normal" society.

A flawed episode still worth watching

[lyrast · 6/10 · 10 December 2009]

"Mute" which is the fifth episode of season four of The Twilight Zone tends to get some flak from reviewers. I can understand why. The actual structure of the story is flawed—quite surprising seeing that Richard Matheson, an excellent writer and consistent contributor to the original series is the author.

The story begins with a prologue which creates an absurd scenario for future events involving a "pact" to raise children as pure telepaths {without the power of speech, as events later show}. Despite concerns by some members of the pact about violating the human rights of their children in pursuing such a course, the group charges on with their plan. In fact, as the last reviewer stated, this entire prologue could be skipped and the story could dramatically and effectively begin with the next scene. Here the plot fast forwards about a decade when one of the children concerned, Ilse, is found outside the burning house of her parents, apparently in shock.

Another annoyance is the surly xenophobic behaviour of an old man to a polite and gentle older German couple who have come to see about Ilse. This is a small Pennsylvanian community with the name "German Corner" which evidently would indicate a number of residents would have German ancestry and/or connections. Why would an older resident of such a town engage in that type of obnoxious behaviour? Worst of all, is the horrible schoolteacher, Miss Frank, who psychologically brutalises Ilse. There is even an undercurrent of a repressed desire to inflict physical punishment on the child as she generally picks up and clutches a ruler as she questions the girl. Miss Frank never gets her comeuppance nor is her cruelty ever recognised, even by Cora Wheeler who bonds with Ilse, loves her, and convinces her husband to initiate adoption procedures.

What saves the episode is some excellent acting by Barbara Baxley in the part of Cora Wheeler, good support by Frank Overton as her husband and a brilliant performance by the young Ann Jillian as Ilse. The relationship of those three characters is beautifully and engrossingly dramatised. The photography is excellent with some interesting and telling shots and the inner life of Ilse is conveyed through both camera work and sound effects.

As to the ending. . . .

For me it didn't work. There was something too pat, too contrived about it. An ending of that kind was probably called for in terms of the story's events, but this specific dramatisation of it fails to convince.

I would like to read the original story by Matheson sometime, and see how it works in that format. Perhaps it is one of those tales which simply are difficult to transfer to another medium. However, in the end, I feel that "Mute" might have gained considerable impact if it had been compressed to a half an hour. Somehow I feel that there is a seed of a great episode hidden in this attempt.

Given the Circumstances Potential Unfulfilled

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 21 April 2014]

This is about a young girl who becomes the victim of a sad experiment. A group in Germany decide to promote telepathy as the sole means of communication in their children. The little girl is sequestered by her parents in a small town. The worst happens. Her parents/scientists are burned in a fire which she manages to escape. She is taken in by the sheriff and his wife. She cannot speak and this leads to great complications. She doesn't seem able to read or write and can't be coerced to speak. She also comes under the tutelage of an evil teacher, Miss Frank, who bullies her and demeans her. School is a nightmare. Meanwhile, the sheriff's wife, who lost a child to drowning, begins to bond with the little girl. She intercepts the mail her husband tries to send to Europe as he searches for relatives. This is a story about how we can't accept differences. We beat up those who aren't like us. The teacher even says of Ilse, the little girl, we are going to make her "Just like everyone else." The problem with the plot is the telepathy never plays a part, other than as a deafening cacophony, driving the little girl to despair. The wife is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and it would have been so much more interesting if she had connected in some way with the girls gifts. The story slogs along and is ultimately kind of empty.

Interesting but Uneven

[dougdoepke · 13 February 2017]

Ace performance from little Ann Jillian that almost puts this 60-minutes over. The entry's concept of substituting telepathy for speaking is an interesting one. Unfortunately, the dynamics are muddied in development. It seems the telepathy taught to little Ilse must proceed in a language, English or German, yet she seems flummoxed by spoken words of any kind. Maybe I missed something, but the details of her acquired incapacity appear unclear in important respects. Adapting a concept of this type to an hour's dramatic format without lengthy exposition may be the underlying problem, even for such a skilled writer as Matheson.

Nonetheless, the acting's first-rate, especially from Jillian whose suffering can register only through facial expressions, which she does in controlled, non-sticky fashion. Ironically, it's hard to know just what therapeutic direction would help. It's certainly not that of the lock- step demanding teacher (Dailey). As a result, I ached along with her. Still, that Hollywood ending may have relieved audiences, but it's spread on pretty thickly, and amounts to a divergence from the TZ norm.

All in all, it's an interesting, if uneven, entry, salvaged in no small part by an excellent cast. (In passing—good to see the familiar face of the gnomish little Percy Helton picking up a payday.)

About love?

[darrenpearce111 · 6/10 · 1 February 2014]

I think this story is about the essential need for love and the moral need to act for the good of the child. Little Ilse (Ann Jillian) is born to parents belonging to a weird society that wants to further telepathy, partly by keeping children mute. Her parents die in a house fire and the couple who look after her become very emotionally involved.

Cora (Barbara Baxter) is a bit psychologically fragile and very clingy to Ilse, probably because she had a daughter who died. Baxter plays the part well, never trying to make Cora saintly or plain selfish. All the adults seem to have their own agenda, so its hard most of the time to know what to wish for Ilse.

I think its about love-either that or Richard Matheson wrote it to drive us all bloody mad. Decent, watchable TV drama but not what I really feel TZ should be.

Mute girl, you'll be a troubled woman soon...

[Coventry · 6/10 · 24 January 2022]

Of the approximately 100 "Twilight Zone" episodes I've seen thus far, this was only the first where I genuinely had the impression the script was too ambitious and too intelligent for its own good. Richard Matheson's ideas are intriguing but very convoluted, and there isn't enough time to let everything unfold like it should. This would have made a great novel, probably.

As said, the basic premise is beyond fascinating, or at least that's how it felt to me. A group of telepathically gifted parents make a pact and decide they'll raise their children exclusively via telepathic communication. But what then happens if the parents die in a horrible accident, like a house fire, and their timid and mute child is taken in by strangers? This overcomes 12-year-old Ilse Nielsen in a little Pennsylvanian town. The "strangers" are people with the best intentions, and also still struggle with the loss of their own daughter, but they are unable to communicate with the girl, and quickly suspect that Ilse got emotionally and mentally abused by her parents.

Despite the complete lack of any action or supernaturally uncanniness, "Mute" is absorbing from start to finish, and thrives on the immensely powerful performance of Barbara Baxley as the tormented mother/housewife Cora Wheeler. My main (and only) complaint is that I wanted to know more... How exactly do you raise a child telepathically? What happened to the other parents in the initial Düsseldorf group? How exactly did telepathy rescue Ilse from the fire? How did the teacher figure it out so quickly? Matheson really should have made a novel out of it.

All about Barbara Baxley

[localbum24-1 · 7/10 · 13 January 2019]

You don't have to care much for the epsisode itself to still appreciate the powerhouse performance Barbara Baxley gives as Cora. Some of the best character acting of the entire series

Yeah, could have been better

[ericstevenson · 7/10 · 18 August 2018]

I found this to be one of the weakest episodes. The plot is that a little girl who doesn't talk and have telepathic abilities is rescued from a fire that killed her parents. She gets adopted. There really isn't a twist ending or anything. Honestly, I do still like the setup and the conclusion is nice. The girl initially doesn't want to go to school.

Friends of her parents come and agree with this. It does end with her realizing that she can live with her new family and talk. I guess it does teach a good lesson. The problem is that it's not enough for an hour long episode. It would've worked better as a half hour one. It's still fine for what it is. ***

I can't believe the low ratings

[Bot_feeder · 9/10 · 5 November 2018]

I found this episode an incredibly well composed and emotionally intense one.

Silent Girl

[AaronCapenBanner · 2/10 · 3 November 2014]

Ann Jillian stars as a young girl named Ilse Nielsen who is caught by a cruel trick of fate: she was the subject of a telepathic experiment by her parents where she wasn't taught to speak verbally, but mentally. Unfortunately her parents die in a fire, and since the experiment was done in secret, no one else knows what is "wrong" with Ilse, but a determined teacher named Miss Frank will force Ilse to speak, and be just like everyone else... Appalling episode gives an entirely wrong-headed message about forced public pressure on a young girl to crushingly conform, and her misguided, ignorant teacher to escape unpunished, and indeed to have the ending viewed as a "happy" one is a travesty to be shunned. Only Jillian's sympathetic performance as this poor cursed girl saves it from total ruin. Substitute telepathy with autism to see what I mean...

Incredibly Nuanced

[yayasan40 · 8/10 · 13 December 2019]

I'm surprised at how good The Twilight Zone is. The 60's were an awful time for American television. This was the era of sitcoms based on the most ludicrious situations. Like being married to a Genie/Witch or having a family made up of monsters or being lost on an island with all your Earthly belongings.

But The Twilight Zone is incredibly good.

This episode deals with a lot of subjects and doesn't spoon feed the audience an easy answer.

It touches on child abuse, what makes a parent a parent, conformity, trauma, children being used as pawns, Germans as the symbolic stand in for extremism, and difference as both strength and weakness. All wrapped up in a story about telepathy. A story of voicelessness. A truly underrated episode.

So many TZ episodes we're groundbreaking. This isn't one of them.

[gregg-524-163135 · 4/10 · 27 October 2021]

I absolutely LOVE Twilight Zone but you'll understand why this may be the worst of the whole series when you hear Mr. Wheeler say about Ilse (the telepathic orphan girl taken into the Wheeler home)..."She's been here over a week now.! There's just no getting through to her!" I guess Mr. Wheeler forgot that Ilse's parents were burned to death in a house fire the week before. Why doesn't the little girl suck it up and forget the tragic death of her parent? I mean it's been a whole week!

Different Times (Era) Leads To Misinterpretations

[MarriedMom · 12 July 2010]

It seems 3 previous posters must be younger than me because they are not aware of how things were at the time of the making of this episode. (The > to the left of a line means that was quoted from a prior post from someone else.)

> lyraaqb3 from Ireland wrote: >the horrible schoolteacher, Miss Frank, who psychologically brutalises Ilse. There is even an undercurrent of a repressed desire to inflict physical punishment on the child >as she generally picks up and clutches a ruler as she questions the girl. Miss Frank never gets her comeuppance nor is her cruelty ever recognised

At the time this episode aired, that was not considered abuse or cruelty, just stern and appropriate authoritative control. Teachers not only raised rulers to their students but were allowed to hit children with them at the time. They considered it "discipline", not abuse - my teachers "disciplined" several students in everyone's view with the standard (for the time) wooden rulers that had the sharp metal jutting out the side simply for not memorizing something they needed to know for a test. (I don't condone their actions, just stating the attitude of the time.)

> jcravens42 from Portland, Oregon, wrote: >Like many episodes, some of the biggest fiction is how officials are portrayed and emergencies supposedly handled: for instance, how a law enforcement officer deals with a >traumatized, suddenly-orphaned girl -- medical exam? psychological exam? social worker visit? They are never mentioned. He just brings her home to his wife, no >problem.

They did mention getting a medical exam. As for psychological exams, that wasn't really done at the time unless there were serious behavioral issues (e.g. the person appeared to be a danger to him/herself or someone else, or appeared to be what they considered at the time to be insane). As for a social worker, agencies like CPS (Child Protective Services) didn't really come about until sometime between 1974 and 1980 (11 to 17 years after the airing of this episode). In 1974, efforts by the states culminated in the passage of the federal "Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act" (CAPTA; Public Law 93-247) providing federal funding for wide-ranging federal and state child-maltreatment research and services. In 1980, Congress passed the first comprehensive federal child protective services act, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-272). As for taking in an homeless child without any paperwork or real authority, I knew several people who did that and it was considered charitable, not unlawful.

>planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida, wrote: >Oddly, all of these folks look too old to do such an experiment--as they look to be at least middle-aged. >you, too, might find yourself wondering what makes the freaky school teacher tick---she's pretty intense (i.e., not child-friendly) and has an odd back story that is never fully >explained.

When Ilsa (actress Ann Jillian) is age 13, the actress portraying the woman she's living with had just turned 40 (just a couple weeks earlier) and actresses played roles of females younger than their actual ages so she was probably supposed to portray someone in her 30s, appropriate at the time for the role of a mother (adoptive, guardian, etc.) of a 13 year old.

I explained above about the teachers actions and attitude. She wasn't meant to be portrayed as not child friendly, she identified with Ilsa (she explains she was also trained as a child to be a mute telepath) and didn't want the little girl to feel like a lab experiment instead of a typical child. She was offering "tough love" as a way to help Ilsa learn to speak and become educated. (Again, I'm not condoning the actions and such, just stating the attitude of the time.)

Excellent episode, if you don't read the reviews until afterwards.

[glennsmithk · 8/10 · 3 November 2019]

This is an amazing performance by both Baxley and Dailey. It's also one of Serling's better teleplays. Yes, there's an underlying social message. Yes, it's about parenting and personal agency. The most profound message for me was never trust a teacher who makes statements like "It's the only way" or "We are going to work with her until she's exactly like everybody else." That's the truly horrifying part of this story. One should see it before reading some of the reviews here. This episode has depth.

Richard Matheson didn't get this one right

[kellielulu · 3/10 · 22 September 2022]

Ilsa is a young girl with a gift. She also just lost her parents in a house fire . The family moved from Europe to America and isolate themselves. They practiced a form of telepathic communication. When the townspeople rescue Ilsa they have no understanding of why she can't communicate and by the time the people who knew her parents could tell them Ilsa has already been subjected to bullying school teacher who's determined to break Ilsa and make her conform.

The woman who wants to keep Ilsa wants her to replace her dead daughter. The husband seems indifferent. The people who were part of the same group come to claim Ilsa give up when Ilsa starts screaming her name and her gift is ruined . The departing couple discuss it and the wife says Ilsa is loved now she was just an experiment to her biological parents! What a way to excuse everything done to Ilsa .

We never had that information and it felt tacked on .

Ann Jillian gives a strong performance of the sensitive Ilsa especially considering how little she speaks. It does take up the episode slightly.

While it lacks irony and a twist, this is still an interesting episode.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 1 June 2010]

If you are looking for an ironic twist or something really, really weird, this episode will probably disappoint you. It seems less "Twilight Zoney" than most episodes! However, because the main idea is so incredibly original and interesting, these deficiencies can be forgiven.

The show starts in Germany. A group of eight weird scientists are meeting to discuss a radical experiment. They all believe that humans possess innate telepathic abilities that are lost because of our reliance on spoken language. So, they all agree to raise children in strange conditions--with no spoken language in order to force the children to access their dormant mental abilities--not exactly the most ethical experiment! Each pair of male/female scientists will live in semi-isolation with their children. Oddly, all of these folks look too old to do such an experiment--as they look to be at least middle-aged.

The rest of the show focuses on one group that relocated to a small town in Pennsylvania. A tragedy has struck and the parent/scientists are killed in a fire. Their freaky child who cannot speak or understand human speech is now an orphan and goes to live with a family that lost a girl that same age years ago. The foster-parents are mixed in their views towards the kid--the father is the Sheriff and is pretty realistic about the child and the mother is drawn to the kid strongly--so strongly she cannot allow anyone else to claim the girl. Where it all goes from there is for you to see for yourself.

Overall, very interesting and worth seeing. However, when you do watch this, you, too, might find yourself wondering what makes the freaky school teacher tick---she's pretty intense (i.e., not child-friendly) and has an odd back story that is never fully explained.

Corny and Pointless Episode

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 5 August 2023]

In 1953, in Dusseldorf, three German couples sign a pact to experiment telepathic communication inclusive in their kids. Holger Nielsen, his wife and the two-year-old daughter Ilse travel to German Corner, in Pennsylvania, to live in an isolated house. When a fire destroys their house and only Ilse survives, Sheriff Harry Wheeler takes the custody of the child until her parents are contacted, and brings her home. His wife Cora misses their diseased daughter Sally and feels attracted to Ilse. But the girl is telepathic and cannot communicated with anybody.

"Mute" is a corny and pointless episode of "The Twilight Zone". The story is confused, with a stepmother that misses her daughter and wants Ilse to replace her. A teacher that seems to be the villain but actually is trying too make Ilse to communicate with her school mates. A crazy pact that does not consider the need of communication of the children. Therefore, it seems to be a great mess. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Sem Voz" ("Without Voice")

starts off great, and then...

[jcravens42 · 8/10 · 13 April 2008]

Like many episodes, some of the biggest fiction is how officials are portrayed and emergencies supposedly handled: for instance, how a law enforcement officer deals with a traumatized, suddenly-orphaned girl -- medical exam? psychological exam? social worker visit? They are never mentioned. He just brings her home to his wife, no problem. Aside from that, with a few changes, this could have been a GREAT episode. For instance, there was no need for the opening scene at all -- it could have started simply with the next scene, leaving the audience to discover, slowly, that the girl doesn't speak and is, instead, telepathic. Secondly, the teacher's explanation of knowing why the girl is telepathic just seems to come out of NO WHERE. I mean really, what are the odds of a person who was also trained as a child to be telepathic living in German Corner? And thirdly, the ending statement by the visiting Germans, saying that Ilse's parents never loved her and she's better off where she is -- an assurance to the audience, perhaps, that's what has happened to Ilse is for the best? With all that said, it's still worth the time to watch. Nice to see Ann Jillian in one of her early roles.

Enough politics

[gvpalazz · 23 May 2011]

One of the reviewers is so bent on pushing his/her political agenda that s/he seems to have missed the point altogether. A liberal philosophy of education bent on results rather than the marvelous conservative one of opportunity???? This episode is NOT about approaches to schooling. And my goodness, the parents who denied their child the ability to speak have NOT given her opportunity to succeed in a world where speech is essential.

Mr. Serling is criticizing the arrogance of parents who think they know what's best for their child but are actually cruel and damage them. He criticizes parents who treat their children as objects to be molded but who don't see them as people with needs and rights of their own. As the sheriff's wife states, the welfare of a child is everyone's concern. But Serling also recognizes the inadequacy of "love only" in repairing the damage done.

And by the way, it was "liberals" who came up with the idea of "equal opportunity." The traditional way actually afforded less opportunity for those of limited means or without family connections. But again, that isn't even the point of this episode.

Nothing here.

[bombersflyup · 2/10 · 2 December 2019]

Mute has an idea, but not necessarily a good one and it's handled quite poorly. It plays like the teacher has some ill-intention and ulterior motive, when in fact she's just good at what she does and improves the child's life.

"We are going to work with her until she's EXACTLY like everybody else".

[classicsoncall · 9/10 · 23 June 2010]

Emphasis on the word 'exactly' in the summary line above is mine, and not the script's. It struck me while watching this episode how brilliant Rod Serling and his writers were. Serling waged a personal war against statist agendas in many of his stories, and championed the ideal of personal responsibility along with individual freedom. I can't say for a certainty what he was getting at with this story, but with the perspective of fifty years of hindsight, it appears that the target here were liberal educators who meant to level the playing field. Forcing Ilse to become 'exactly like everybody else' is a core concept to achieving equal outcomes, contrary to the belief of social conservatives who believe in equal opportunity. Ilse had no right to be exceptional, and Miss Frank (Irene Dailey) is meant to symbolize society's equalizer. Almost five decades later, we've become a nation that doesn't believe in keeping score in youth sporting activities, while awarding medals and ribbons to those who try but fail to win. That mentality has now reached the highest echelons of government service, where a belief exists that America has been guilty of arrogance and deserves to feel guilty for it's past achievements.

Enough of the soapbox stuff. This episode of The Twilight Zone could have gone in a couple of different directions. Not having seen this one before, my resolution would have found Cora Wheeler (Barbara Baxley) developing her own power of telepathic communication to close the link with young Ilse (Ann Jillian). Or perhaps a fellow student her own age with whom she could have forged a connection. Instead, the story relied on Miss Frank (Irene Dailey) to expose the 'evil' nature of the telepathic ability inherited by Ilse from her deceased parents. This was given further credence by the Werner's, though Mrs. Werner (Eva Soreny) stopped short of considering Ilse part of a failed experiment. The story ends with a too quick reminder that love is more important than telepathy, but at least the idea was snuck in before it was all over.

I'll have to watch this story again. I was just so awestruck by Rod Serling's vision with this episode that I couldn't stop thinking about it. He had done as well if not better with similar themes in other episodes of the series, but this one just seemed to leap out without warning. But it came with a warning - beware that you don't wind up like everybody else, a victim of herd mentality after being forced to conform to a mass identity.

Not bad, but...

[IdaSlapter · 5/10 · 5 November 2023]

...it could've been so much better.

The problems with this episode are mainly due to a huge plot hole in the storyline, and the casting. Or better, the miscasting.

Plot holes: We're told and shown that Ilsa can't tolerate human voices. This is demonstrated by tweaking the voices around her to sound garbled along with adding some screeching noises in an early scene. Poor Ilsa covers her ears because she's so tormented by this noise.

But then that problem disappears! For 90% of the rest of the episode, she stops covering her ears. That is until those evil children in her class start repeating her name: Ilsa, Ilsa, ILSA, ILSA, LWSAH, ILLSSHAH, and then worse, when her fellow clairvoyants come from Germany to pick her up and start conveying their THOUGHTS to her -- their thoughts become garbled as well.

Also, Ilsa's apparent telepathy -- and some occasional clairvoyance -- come and go. If she knows what's going to happen, why doesn't she stop her new "mother" from burning the letters that are being sent from Germany? Yes, she can't speak or write, but she could certainly express her anger via a tantrum, or tears.

And while most of the cast is good, including Barbara Baxley, Ms. Baxley is just too old to play the grieving mother. With all the heavy eye shadow and thick lashes, she looks like she'd be more at home playing some washed up lounge singer. Especially when she yells at the teacher in a critical scene near the end. Her voice is so gravelly, she almost sounds like Bette Davis, not some 40-something mother.

Same for Frank Overton. While he was only 46 when this was made, he looks a good 10 years older, even with the heavy 'tan' makeup. He seems very uncomfortable and not because of the storyline. Perhaps he wasn't in good health as he died only 3 years later at the young age of 49. A good actor, just miscast.

I agree with the others though, than Ann Jillian does a great job as the telepathic child. Especially in the last 15 minutes or so when she's required to show and FEEL the emotions she's experiencing.

But the best actor of all in this episode is the young boy who's asked to recite from a book about sailing ships. He's 100% natural, with none of the often grating "I'm a child actor" overacting that comes with some young performers. The episode is worth it for his 15 seconds alone.

What I have to say about Mute...

[BA_Harrison · 9 April 2022]

Young Ilse Nielsen (Ann Jillian) is part of an experiment by a group of scientists trying to develop the power of telepathy; she has been raised by her parents in German Corners, Pennsylvania, to use her mind to communicate and has therefore not learnt to speak. When a fire claims the lives of her mother and father, Ilse is cared for by Cora and Harry Wheeler (Barbara Baxley and Frank Overton), who tragically lost their own daughter Sally in a drowning accident.

Ilse is sent to school where teacher Miss Frank (Irene Dailey) attempts to make Ilse conform by forcing her to talk. Meanwhile, Harry is trying to contact her parents' colleagues in Germany, who might be able to better deal with the girl. Will Ilse become exactly like her classmates or will she retain her remarkable powers?

According to Marc Scott Zicree's The Twilight Zone Companion, Mute is about individuality vs conformity: should children should be raised on a level playing field or should those who show special promise have their particular abilities nurtured and developed beyond the norm. It's an interesting theme, with all of the adults having their own agenda regarding the girl, but the subject is dealt with in an unengaging manner by writer Richard Matheson, whose meandering script fails to draw any conclusion, ending things in a sappy manner with love being the deciding factor for Ilse's future.

In short, Mute is an episode designed to make the viewer think rather than to entertain; I would prefer it to be both.

A Glimpse into the Handicapped

[charlestt-26841 · 8/10 · 13 June 2020]

First of all, the very beginning is bogus from my standpoint, as the pact that is formed, makes the totally unfounded presumption that people originally communicated by telepathy. If those Germans depicted, had any religious background whatsoever, I think they would had remembered the Garden of Eden, and even with very dusty memories of it, know for a fact that the communication going on then was all SPOKEN (even a serpent talking).

In any event, I think it's pretty clear that people were not meant to read minds so to speak, and even with all the superior abilities even demons have in contrast to ordinary human beings, they cannot read minds. Is telepathy still possible though? Perhaps. But if it's actually possible, I think if this episode were anything linked to it's actual execution, it's plain why it's inferior in many respects, simply due to the fact that the mind can be overrun with things it meant not to take in (such as Ilse being overrun with the thoughts of a group of children). To be fair, one can be overcome with too many spoken voices as well, but one can always nullify, if not eliminate too much audible noise. As Hollywood has depicted telepathy, I don't recall there being a way to switch it off, or reduce it, but alas, that's only fantasy.

One thing I found a little silly here, and for people not having to deal with people whom cannot hear, in particular, this aspect for the early going of the episode is a slight bit of plot hole, or call it lack of knowing how to deal with such a subject. That is, they have a very difficult time making themselves understood to her (yet she castes her thoughts to herself perfectly in English, so we can understand her telepathy I suppose, but it does sabotage the notion she doesn't understand English, so some license is used so to speak) yet they never think at any point of WRITING to her. Now if what they think is true, that she was nothing more than a medium, and was otherwise completely unschooled, then it is entirely likely she doesn't understand writing at all, but they didn't even try. I believe the first family that accepts her, and in the end keeps her, had no knowledge of how she was usedl, and only her teacher had a sense Ilse was used as she was - completely uneducated beyond telepathy.

We understand full well, though the German Town residents are ignorant of it, that the original pact was pro-telepathy, and anti-speech, but there wasn't a pact against writing. Naturally, as the original pact members saw things, it's likely they also had hangups, against all forms of communication but telepathy, but it's certainly not stated. They really wanted to focus on telepathy in any case, and you only have to wonder why Ilse's parents would not had also instructed her in writing, if speech is such an awful thing as the pact made rather clear.

It's also clear, as written, that the original pact members had no regard for the future generations aside from anything but telepathy, because, after all, the members already had the ability to read and write, and speak, so why waste time instructing Ilse on such things? Yes, I think this was the intention of the writer, to show how those people were fanatical to the point of not even bothering in the slightest with instructing the young on what they regarded as the inferior ways of communication. This is definitely abuse, because at least how the episode defines it, it seems they cannot contact strangers to telepathy, with being able to hear telepathy, and if so, only to a spotty degree. So you leave a junior high girl completely unable to speak to the outside world, and possibly unable to understand reading and writing? We all need a backup system to communicate, do we not?

Aside from all of that, I thought it was a good episode as it sort of reminds you what a week in the life of Helen Keller might had been like (aside from Isle being sighted, but it scarcely aided her in communication. Yes, I think Ilse could hear, but again, it scarcely seemed to help her very much. If it were possible, you might assume telepathy isn't done in English, but the audience just hears it that way). This episode featured one scene when Ilse was running away, very reminiscent of the previous late season's episode featuring Veronica Cartwright running away on the very same studio lot (even shot from the exact same direction). Definitely one of the more heady episodes anyway.

Generally, any episode that gets you to thinking, is a good episode, even if it doesn't turn out to be one of the very best.

I don't think this episode is fully understood.

[acdc_mp3 · 9/10 · 25 November 2023]

I haven't watched this episode in a very long time and I watched it last night. I realized there was many more layers to this story than I remembered and reading some of the reviews here, I can see many of these layers are being missed by some of the viewers.

The first layer is the group of Germans who decide to train their children to be telepathic. To what end doing this will accomplish is still a bit sketchy, but there must be a good reason.

The story then moves 10 years into the future and we are introduced to Ilse, the daughter of the group leaders who are killed in a housefire. This is were the layers of the story begin to unfold.

The fire chief brings Ilse home to his wife to keep her safe until next of kin can be found. It is apparent that the fire chief has reservations having her there while his wife dotes on her immediately. It is revealed that their only child, a daughter, drowned. The intense pain the mother shows in that flashback shows how having Ilse in her house is a means to healing. The fire chief is obviously deeply effected by having her there as well, and you can tell he is preparing for the inevitable pain when Ilse has to leave.

Ilse can sense the intense love and caring the wife has for her and she begins to respond, albeit non-verbally. This leads to the next layer that seems to be the one many do not seem to realize: When Ilse goes to school, the teacher is intense and bordering on being cruel to her. Everyone's first thought goes to her being a sadistic and horrible person. I did too until I realized she knows exactly who Ilse is and why she is mute, because she went through the same upbringing and it was something she doesn't want happening to Ilse. Notice that she begins to cry when she is telling Ilse this. It totally explains how the teacher reacts to Ilse.

The next and final layer is the intense love the fire chief's wife has for Ilse and she will not let her go. The godparents from Germany arrive and attempt to telepathically communicate with Ilse. Ilse's love for the wife is as intense and her telepathic powers rapidly fade. The godparents know the best place for Ilse now is living a normal life with the fire chief and his wife. She verbally says "I am Ilse" repeatedly and goes to her new mother's arms. It was a very emotional moment.