The sheriff is conflicted, while the deputy is convinced Jagger is guilty; the latter is accused of perjury by the town news reporter.
The sky has turned dark over North Vietnam; a section of the Berlin Wall; areas of Shanghai and Birmingham, AL; a political prison in Budapest; a section of Dallas (where President Kennedy was fatally shot), and other places around the world where hatred runs rampant.
Look for it before the light goes out altogether.Serling wrote this script primarily as his personal reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
The episode is similar to "Many, Many Monkeys", a script written for Twilight Zone by its producer, William Froug, but never shot.
In that script an epidemic breaks out in which afflicted persons' eyes seal shut as folds of flesh grow over them.
Though a nuclear explosion is initially blamed, one character proposes that it is a physical manifestation of hate that is blinding them.
The network bought the script but then shelved it, finding its subject matter too disturbing, but it was eventually produced in 1989, during the first revival of Twilight Zone.
This story was based on the Emmett Till case, and Serling had to deal with executive interference and network censors before the episode could air.