The Burning Man is the second segment of the eighth episode from the first season of the television series The New Twilight Zone. It is based on Ray Bradbury's short story "The Burning Man", first published in Bradbury's collection Long After Midnight.
Plot[]
On a hot summer day, a woman and her nephew are driving along a dusty, country road. It is apparently dated in the 1930's or 1940's, by the style of clothes and the car. They soon come upon an old man in raggedy clothes who hails them to stop. They do stop and he hops in and says to just go, because someone is chasing after him. When they ask who, he says the sun. The old man starts talking of the seventeen-year locusts coming and other wild theories about people and... evil. Specifically genetic evil, people who are born evil. When they stop to fix a flat tire, the old man continues telling the boy his strange theories, but the aunt is starting to tire of it. She apparently thinks the heat has gotten to him. When she can't take anymore, the aunt stops the car and throws the old man out. They try to laugh it off and head for a lake, where they stop and enjoy the day.
Soon, the boy starts to worry about the evil the old man was talking about when all of a sudden, they come upon a boy in a bright white suit. He claims he was at a picnic and got separated and then lost. They pick him up and take off. Soon it becomes dark and suddenly the boy in the white suit leans forward and says something to the aunt. The car comes to a stop and dies. The aunt and nephew look back at the boy. Smiling, the boy in the white suit asks, "Have you ever wondered if there was such a thing as genetic evil in the world?"
| v • e The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes | |
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| Season 1 | "Shatterday" • "A Little Peace and Quiet" • "Wordplay" • "Dreams For Sale" • "Chameleon" • "Healer" • "Children's Zoo" • "Kentucky Rye" • "Little Boy Lost" • "Wish Bank" • "Nightcrawlers" • "If She Dies" • "Ye Gods" • "Examination Day" • "A Message From Charity" • "Teacher's Aide" • "Paladin of the Lost Hour" • "Act Break" • "The Burning Man" • "Dealer's Choice" • "Dead Woman's Shoes" • "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" • "The Shadow Man" • "The Uncle Devil Show" • "Opening Day" • "The Beacon" • "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" • "Her Pilgrim Soul" • "I of Newton" • "Night of the Meek" • "But Can She Type?" • "The Star" • "Still Life" • "The Little People of Killany Woods" • "The Misfortune Cookie" • "Monsters!" • "A Small Talent for War" • "A Matter of Minutes" • "The Elevator" • "To See the Invisible Man" • "Tooth and Consequences" • "Welcome to Winfield" • "Quarantine" • "Gramma" • "Personal Demons" • "Cold Reading" • "The Leprechaun Artist" • "Dead Run" • "Profile in Silver" • "Button, Button" • "Need to Know" • "Red Snow" • "Take My Life...Please!" • "Devil's Alphabet" • "The Library" • "Shadow Play" • "Grace Note" • "A Day in Beaumont" • "The Last Defender of Camelot" |
| Season 2 | "The Once and Future King" • "A Saucer of Loneliness" • "What Are Friends For?" • "Aqua Vita" • "The Storyteller" • "Nightsong" • "The After Hours" • "Lost and Found" • "The World Next Door" • "The Toys of Caliban" • "The Convict's Piano" • "The Road Less Traveled" • "The Card" • "The Junction" • "Joy Ride" • "Shelter Skelter" • "Private Channel" • "Time and Teresa Golowitz" • "Voices in the Earth" • "Song of the Younger World" • "The Girl I Married" |
| Season 3 | "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" • "Extra Innings" • "The Crossing" • "The Hunters" • "Dream Me a Life" • "Memories" • "The Hellgramite Method" • "Our Selena is Dying" • "The Call" • "The Trance" • "Acts of Terror" • "20/20 Vision" • "There Was an Old Woman" • "The Trunk" • "Appointment on Route 17" • "The Cold Equations" • "Stranger in Possum Meadows" • "Street of Shadows" • "Something in the Walls" • "A Game of Pool" • "The Wall" • "Room 2426" • "The Mind of Simon Foster" • "Cat and Mouse" • "Many, Many Monkeys" • "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" • "Special Service" • "Love is Blind" • "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" • "Father and Son Game"
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