Cult-TV Theme Watch: World War II

We all know that World War II was the global fight against fascism that endured between 1939 and 1945.  For America, the war started with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941.  World War II was then waged by “The Greatest Generation” (per Tom Brokaw), and those combatants are often hailed publicly for their sacrifice and patriotism.  World War II is widely romanticized today because it seems to -- at this juncture in our history -- represent a simpler, more clear-cut conflict; one wherein the stakes for America’s continued existence were absolutely clear.

In cult television history, World War II is often featured in very dramatic terms because the Nazi menace proved so terrifying and existential, and because it conformed so easily to Hollywood definitions of “evil.”    In other words, the Nazis make great villains in drama because of their horrible real-life acts.  It's not hard to hate and fear them.

In one type of cult-television World War II tale, surviving Nazi soldiers often face a comeuppance for their nasty ways.  In The Twilight Zone’s (1959 – 1964) “Death’s-Head Re-Visited,” for example, a Nazi soldier who escaped justice after commanding the Dachau Death Camp returns to that grisly location only to face trial by his ghostly victims.  The scales of cosmic justice are finally righted.

 One Step Beyond (1959 – 1961) dramatized a similar tale, called “The Haunted U-Boat.”  In this creepy story -- reportedly based on fact according to host John Newland -- the crew of a Nazi submarine in World War II is driven to distraction by a persistent, ubiquitous banging noise.  Finally, the ship surrenders to the Allies, and it is learned that the banging was caused by the ghost of a laborer who became trapped inside the boat’s hull during construction.  Again, the mechanisms of the supernatural intervened with our affairs to punish a very real form of human evil.

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On Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (1970 – 1972), an episode titled “The Devil is Not Mocked” memorably pitted Count Dracula against the Nazis during an occupation of the blood-sucker's Transylvanian castle.  In the end, the episode suggested that the Nazis were much more a force for evil than vampires could ever be.

            

The other brand of story about World War II featured on cult television involves the dreaded resurrection of the Nazi terror in the present (or future).  Both “He Lives” on The Twilight Zone and “Echo of Yesterday” on Mission: Impossible (1966 – 1973) revive the frightening visage of Adolf Hitler in the 1960s.  And Star Trek’s (1966 – 1969) second season entry, “Patterns of Force,” similarly, involves a Nazi takeover of a distant planet in the 23rd Century, courtesy of a very misguided Federation history teacher, John Gill.

            

Star Trek occasionally returned to the World War II milieu in the 1990s and 2000s, via the auspices of the holodeck on Star Trek: Voyager (“The Killing Game"), and time travel on Enterprise (“Storm Front.”)  The latter episode landed creepy non-terrestrials into Nazi, SS uniforms.

            

The X-Files (1993 – 2002) also featured a World War II era episode in its sixth season, titled “Triangle.”  There, Mulder (David Duchovny) passed into a Bermuda Triangle-styled anomaly and encountered 1940s counterparts for his friends and enemies.  Naturally, the Cigarette-Smoking Man was a Nazi officer…

            

I submit that World War II is so popular a setting for cult television because it provides extreme examples of human nature.  In one conflict, we see both horrible evil manifested (in the form of the Nazis) and great good, in the form of those who resist their war machine and ideology.  Interestingly, V (1983), V:The Final Battle (1984), and V: The Series (1985) all recreate some aspects of the World War II dynamic, only with alien fascists rather than Nazis.  In this case – as in others in cult television – the belief that “it can’t happen here” is proven dramatically wrong.