"The way it actually does turn out is surpising, but in an arbitrary way; it feels like the writer could have written the last 5 minutes in five different ways, and those endings would have fit into the first 40 minutes just as well as the one we heard."

Morton, that strikes me as an extremely astute remark. I feel pretty much as you do about this show, and so I haven't really anything to add; but your comment strikes to the heart of why, for me, the ending fails. It's that way with some of the lesser TWILIGHT ZONE episodes as well--the twist endings might indeed be unforeseen, but in a similarly random kind of way.

Thanks for articulating this point so well. 