The Twilight Zone Randomized: Number 12 Looks Just Like You

TZ (1959) "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"

In a dystopian society circa 2000 AD, teenagers entering adulthood are pressured by society to accept surgery giving them a traditionally aesthetic body, prefabricated from a limited variety of stock choices. Lead character Marilyn Cuberle (Collin Wilcox, giving off Sissy Spacek energy) is determined not to get the procedure, but her support system's insidious insistence that they know best might erase her free will anyway.

The premise, a clear companion piece to the famous episode "Eye of the Beholder", is a skeleton key that unlocks a lot of fascinating thematic material. The way that catalogued models represent ready-made body templates people can choose to look like comes off as a satire of modern marketing images. "Traditionally beautiful" images have a powerful subconscious effect on self-esteem, and the episode literalizes the impulse to mold oneself on those images.

We see the perspective of adults who have already undergone the procedure. At one point Marilyn's mother comments that the body she chose is "everybody's favorite", which is an oddly arrogant and boastful thing to say. One implication of the technology is that members of families and friend groups can look exactly the same as each other. Again, taking family resemblance to a satirical extreme.

As obviously disastrous as this dystopia is, it throws up complex shadows. For instance, in a world where so many men and women look the same, that might be a world where people must truly rely on their personalities to attract mates. But as the episode goes on, it's clear: the procedure changes how you look, but it also, tragically, smooths out how you think.

And as Marilyn's individual agency is snuffed out, replaced by a boilerplate shell with a blandly docile personality, we realize that while every citizen of this nameless failed utopia may start out with doubts, idiosyncrasies, or violent resistance to homogeny, the state always wins in the end.

While gender-biased pronouns are used throughout, this dystopia holds up. 7/10.