"Number 12 Looks Just Like You"

The Twilight Zone episode

Marilyn after transformation

Episode no.

Season 5
Episode 17

Directed by

Abner Biberman

Written by

John Tomerlin

Based on

"The Beautiful People"
by Charles Beaumont

Featured music

Stock (from Bernard Herrmann's score for the 1956 CBS Radio Workshop production of "Brave New World", with additional cues by Fred Steiner and Jerry Goldsmith)

Production code

2618

Original air date

January 24, 1964

Guest appearances

Collin Wilcox: Marilyn Cuberle
Suzy Parker: Lana Cuberle / Eva / Doe / Grace / Jane / Patient / Number 12
Richard Long: Uncle Rick / Dr. Rex / Sigmund Friend / Dr. Tom / Tad / Jack / Attendant
Pam Austin: Valerie / Marilyn (after transformation) / Number 8

Episode chronology

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"The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross"

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"Black Leather Jackets"

The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 5)

List of episodes

"Number 12 Looks Just Like You" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It is set in a dystopian future in which everyone, upon reaching adulthood, has their body surgically altered into one of a set of physically attractive models.

Opening narration

Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future where science has developed the means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now, in The Twilight Zone.

Plot

In a future society, all nineteen-year-olds go through a process known as "the Transformation", in which each person's body is changed to a physically attractive design chosen from a selection of numbered models. The process also slows deterioration due to age and confers immunity to disease, extending human lifespans, as well as making unspecified psychological corrections. Due to the overwhelming popularity of female model 12 and male model 17, all adults wear name badges to avoid confusion.

Eighteen-year-old Marilyn Cuberle decides not to undergo the Transformation. Nobody else can understand Marilyn's decision, and her family and best friend are all confused by her displeasure with the conformity and shallowness of contemporary life. Her "radical" beliefs were fostered by her now-deceased father, who gave Marilyn banned books and came to regret his own Transformation years earlier, committing suicide upon the loss of his identity. Her mother takes her to see Dr. Rex, who initially thinks Marilyn wants to have the procedure early, but is shocked to find about Marilyn's refusal.

Dr. Rex sends her to Professor Sigmund Friend, who claims that the Transformation is justified as it has led to the end of war and hate in society, along with many health benefits, in addition to the change in appearance. When Marilyn protests that she still does not want the procedure, he has Marilyn confined to a hospital room against her will, ostensibly to psychologically examine her and cure her of her reason for refusing the procedure. Marilyn suspects that despite not being legally required, the Transformation is not optional, and is being maintained by the leaders of society to ensure conformity. Her best friend Valerie, who has already undergone the Transformation, shows no emotional reaction to Marilyn's protests, even when she is driven to tears. Marilyn realizes that no one who has undergone the Transformation remains capable of any empathy for or understanding of her. She tries to escape from the hospital, but ends up in the operating room to undergo the Transformation.

Dr. Rex, who operated on Marilyn, comments that some people have problems with the idea of the Transformation but that "improvements" to the procedure now guarantee a positive result. Marilyn reappears, looking and thinking exactly like Valerie. "And the nicest part of all, Val", she gushes, "I look just like you!"

Closing narration

Portrait of a young lady in love - with herself. Improbable? Perhaps. But in an age of plastic surgery, body building and an infinity of cosmetics, let us hesitate to say impossible. These, and other strange blessings, may be waiting in the future, which, after all, is The Twilight Zone.

Program notes

To show this future society in this episode, Suzy Parker and Pam Austin play almost all of the female roles (actress Collin Wilcox plays protagonist Marilyn prior to her transformation), while Richard Long plays all of the male roles; dialogue in the episode indicates that Parker and Long portray the most popular models selected for the Transformation. According to show producer William Froug, Parker was specifically cast because she "was at the time the most famous model in the [United States] ... it was my notion that if you were going to do a show about everybody looking as beautiful as possible to use her."^[1]

This episode was originally sponsored by American Tobacco (Pall Mall), with an "alternate sponsors" message (from Procter & Gamble) in the middle.

Cultural influence

This episode highlights Hollywood's age-obsession and youthful looks for women, as well as themes of conformity and individuality. Although Collin Wilcox (b. 1935) and Suzy Parker (b. 1932) had only a three-year age difference, Wilcox played the daughter of Parker's character. Wilcox was aged 29 playing an 18-year-old.

The 2005 novel Uglies shares several themes with this episode. It also takes place in a future where teens receive an operation to look 'perfect' and live healthier and longer and centers on a girl who initially refuses the operation.

The band The Number Twelve Looks Like You took their name from the title of this episode.

Charlie Brooker stated in an interview that this episode influenced "Fifteen Million Merits", an episode of his anthology series, Black Mirror.^[2]

Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers franchise used the same pinky gestures as Richard Long from this episode.^[3]

References

External links

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"