The Twilight Zone (TV Series) Gabe's Story (2002) User Reviews

"It was the other guy!"

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 15 February 2022]

"Gabe's Story" is a rather funny episode of "The Twilight Zone". Gabe is a hard luck loser whose life is constantly a mess. One day he has an accident and smashes his head. Afterwards, he sees a guy in an orange jumpsuit spraying some chemicals on the lawn in order to kill the grass. Gabe yells at him to stop...and the guy with the sprayer is shocked that Gabe can see him! Apparently, Gabe is the only one who can now see him...and it's because of that blow to the head. Later, he sees the same guy smash a vase and Gabe is blamed for it. Apparently, this jumpsuited guy has been making Gabe's life a mess...and Gabe has no idea why. Not surprisingly, other things happen to poor Gabe...and it's all because of that guy messing up his life. But why???

This is a most unusual episode of "The Twilight Zone" and offers the series some well needed humor. This is because, in general, the shows in this 2002 reboot just aren't very good...certainly not even close to the level of the original series. While I would never call "Gabe's Story" a rousing hit, at least it isn't more of the same.

Despite the rather low score for this particular episode, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It was incredibly surreal and funny...and made me not wanna give up on the series as, by now, I'd seen too many mediocre and sup-par episodes.

"Hey, be smart. Forget you ever saw me."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 13 March 2023]

Notwithstanding the supernatural elements of this story, it had a lackluster ending with no sense of irony. You couldn't even call it a twist in the traditional sense, because all Gabe O'Brien (Christopher Titus) did was resolve to take charge of his own life. Isn't that what we're all expected to do? Apparently, the supervisor (William Samples) of Gabe's script writer Roxanne (Sarah Strange) in the heavenly realm felt that for most of the world's population, self-determination was a losing proposition. I can't say I agree with that premise, but that's what the story was built on. The concept for this episode seemed like a good one, but somehow it got frittered away by a resolution that didn't make much of a surprise. I wonder if the orange jumpsuit guy (Kelly Perine) ever got hauled in for a reprimand after spilling his information to Gabe, since the powers that be really bent the rules to satisfy his objection to their interference.

You Can Look It Up?

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 9 July 2017]

The idea that we are merely figures in a story is an old idea. In this one, a perpetual loser who blames everyone for his mishaps, is about to lose his family. People are suing him and taking his wages. His wife has had enough. But there is a strange entity. A chubby man in an orange jump suit causes all kinds of misfortune for the man. When his problems are explained, the man sounds ridiculous. Until he pushes the little guy to tell him what's going on. Stories are being written for a host of people, making this job almost overwhelming. So he does a brave thing. He goes to the top. Not the greatest episode because the premise is utterly lame and unbelievable. But it does have a decent message.

The World is a Stage: And were all actors in it

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 8 February 2015]

****SPOILERS**** With his life totally screwed up and no end in sight electronic delivery man Gabe O'Brian, Chris Titus, is ready to throw in the towel until he spots this strange man in an orange jumpsuit, Kelly Perine, spraying for bugs in his backyard! Who the hell is this guy anyway and who asked, not Gabe, him to do this spray job, which he can't afford to pay him for, a stunned Gabe thinks to himself. Confronting the jumpsuit guy Gabe is told that he's not supposed to see him and that he works freelance for a company involved in charting peoples, like himself, lives.

Feeling that the jumpsuit guy is some kind of a nut Gabe forces him to take him to his place of employment a majestic 2100 floor, some four miles high, building that pops up, like a Jack-in-the-box, out of nowhere right in the middle of town that only he, and the jumpsuit guy, are able to see. Gabe soon realizes that all the trouble that he faces in life is in fact preordained by the person Roxanne, Sarah Strange, assigned in writing his biography. Blowing a fuse Gabe threatens to expose this operation to the general public unless his screwed up life is given a new write up or make over where he's no longer the messed up guy that he's been, by Roxanne, made out to be!

****SPOILERS**** In taking the bull by the horns and forcing Roxanne and her boss Mr. Jennings, William Samples, to give or write him a new life Gabe's life in fact turned around for the better. And it couldn't have come at a worse or better time. What was to happened to him, in the biography that Roxanne was writing, was that he's to have been arrested for grand larceny and end up behind bars for some five to ten years! But by him threatening to expose her and Mr. Jennings whole operation Gabe makes the things or events that were to happen to him work in his favor!