"Deal with the Devil" was a common archetype in episodes of The Twilight Zone, although like many of its remembered archetypes, perhaps not as ubiquitous as it might be in the popular imagination. Deal with the devil stories come about one a season, starting with Escape Clause, then including A Nice Place to Visit and The Howling Man. Many other stories follow the basic template, such as the recent Jess-Belle, while not having an explicit Satan figure.

There is a few differences between "Printer's Devil" and those earlier episodes. One is that, being an episode from the fourth season, it is an hour long, which allows more time to show the corruption of the devil's power. But foremost is that this time, the devil is Burgess Meredith, in his fourth starring roll in The Twilight Zone. The story owes a lot to his physical portrayal, his movements showing a devil that is both clownish and serpentine.

And that brought me to the largest revelation about this episode: in this story, the devil upends the natural order, not the moral order. If that seems like a fine distinction, it is, but that is the subtlety of The Twilight Zone. The story begins with a struggling small town newspaper publisher named Douglas Winter realizing that he is about to go bankrupt. He gets drunk and tries to commit suicide, only to be met by a strange old man who claims to be a linotype operator who will work for free. And has 5000 dollars in his pocket to pay the newspaper's debts. Soon, the struggling newspaper is picking up circulation, due to being able to get stories on the street so quickly, almost as if the mysterious linotype operator is finishing them before the events even happen. When the publisher works out what is happening, what will he do?

One of the things that I was expecting from this episode was some take on the place of journalistic ethics and the role of media in society. One of the criticisms of the media is that it creates stories, instead of reporting them, and this episode shows that literally. But other than a few establishing shots, where it is shown that Winter reports stories more honestly than his main competitor (the mayor's granddaughter apparently won her prize in a fixed beauty contest), the fact that this is a story about journalism doesn't really play a large part. This story could take place in a toothpaste factory and be essentially the same. This is not, at least to me, social criticism.

And this is why I say this story is about the natural order, not the moral order. Especially with Meredith's physical comedy, he seems more like a sprite than a demon. He does impossible things and turns the laws of causality upside down, and while he is certainly damaging and amoral, it seems like this is more a story of chaos than corruption. I don't know if the difference makes sense, or if everyone agrees that it would apply to this story, but this seems more like a medieval fable than a story of moral and ethical corruption.

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