If you've seen enough Twilight Zone stories, you'll come to realize that Rod Serling quite often took a particular theme, and then reworked it to arrive at a diametrically opposite conclusion. In fact he did that with the prior series episode, 'A Kind of a Stopwatch', which had all the earmarks of the first season's 'Time Enough at Last'. Each story was resolved with it's protagonist facing a catastrophic future, but for significantly different reasons.
This one appears to recall the third season's 'Four O'Clock', in which Theodore Bikel's character presumes to identify all evil people in the world at a pre-ordained time by reducing them to miniature size. He's condemned to suffer his own punishment when his desire is exposed for the evil that it truly is.
With 'The Last Night of a Jockey', Rod Serling takes the same basic idea and stands it on it's head. Mickey Rooney's character wants to be big, at least make it big, but he didn't exactly clarify his terms. The Twilight Zone had a way of conferring a literal meaning on every miscreant's wish, and consequently they wound up getting exactly what they asked for.
Whether you're a Mickey Rooney fan or not, you'll be impressed with his performance here. He's actually portraying two characters - Grady the horse doping, race fixing jockey under suspension for his misdeeds, and his alter-ego conscience trying to show himself the error in his thinking. As he did in 'Four O'Clock', Serling telegraphs the ending so it winds up what you expected, but still delivering an instructive twist to make it worth your while.
This one appears to recall the third season's 'Four O'Clock', in which Theodore Bikel's character presumes to identify all evil people in the world at a pre-ordained time by reducing them to miniature size. He's condemned to suffer his own punishment when his desire is exposed for the evil that it truly is.
With 'The Last Night of a Jockey', Rod Serling takes the same basic idea and stands it on it's head. Mickey Rooney's character wants to be big, at least make it big, but he didn't exactly clarify his terms. The Twilight Zone had a way of conferring a literal meaning on every miscreant's wish, and consequently they wound up getting exactly what they asked for.
Whether you're a Mickey Rooney fan or not, you'll be impressed with his performance here. He's actually portraying two characters - Grady the horse doping, race fixing jockey under suspension for his misdeeds, and his alter-ego conscience trying to show himself the error in his thinking. As he did in 'Four O'Clock', Serling telegraphs the ending so it winds up what you expected, but still delivering an instructive twist to make it worth your while.
