Visit to a Small Planet

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal writes in his preface: "I took the plunge into television, the very heart of darkness, and to my surprise I found that I liked it, that it could be taken seriously, and that in spite of the many idiot restrictions imposed by those nervous sponsors who pay for plays, it was possibly to do a certain amount of satisfactory work. New novels are not wanted ... but television needs plays by the hundreds."

His 1956 television play "Visit to Small Planet" has TV anchorman Roger Spelding and his family witness the arrival of a UFO in his garden. Out of it emerges Kreton, visitor from a far away place where death and other excitements have already been eliminated. Kreton, then, is an enthusiastic student of human emotions.

Spelding and wife, Reba, also have a more conventional visitor, their friend, General Tom Powers of the US army. In the first half of the play Powers' excitement at the potential for interstellar war with the invader is only matched by Spelding's eagerness to break the news and scoop his rivals with an interview with the alien.

Soon, however, Kreton has befriended Powers and has himself manufactured a miniature cold war incident in order to convince the Americans to strike against the Russians. Naturally, this being a satire, he has worked the same trick with the Russians so that they too are poised to strike against the USA. It soon becomes clear that Kreton, far from being the sage he first seems is merely a child, vicariously enjoying the squabbles of earthlings. Just in time, a second spaceship arrives and Kreton's own people appear and whisk Kreton home before any damage can be done.

OK, as a satire this stuff is well past its sell-by-date. The idea that the Russians and Americans could be made to spring at each other's throats at the tiniest provocation was presumably less of a cliche in 1955. But the satire still has some edge in its characterisations. The eager TV man, the bumptious general, the Apple Pie American wife Reba, these people are still with us. And Kreton the alien is given some nicely mischievous lines: (To the humans): "War is your specialty. Historians love you for it. War is the principal art form of your race".