When a privileged woman agrees to let her housekeeper use the family address as a way to help her out of a scrape, she unleashes consequences that will question her opinions on right and wrong.

I’m not sure that the mix of stories in this series of The Twilight Zone is quite right, certainly in the running order, as here’s yet another very thinly-veiled allegory, this time addressing white privilege and the wish to ignore immigration if it doesn’t directly affect you. I have no issue with this sort of story, but not every week, and I’m yearning for a good old-fashioned sci-fi tale rather than another polemic.

Ginnifer Goodwin (Once Upon a Time) is believable as mom Eve Martin, a do-gooder who is more interested in being seen as a pillar of society than being effective in her own home. She has effectively outsourced her house management and parenting to housekeeper Anna (Zabryna Guevara – Castle Rock/Gotham) and by doing a favour she feels like she’s giving something back. Unfortunately it leads to a Kafka-esque nightmare where men in black descend on the colluders – James Frain (Star Trek: Discovery) is particularly effective as a sinister interrogator, Mr Allendale.

As matters go from bad to worse we wonder how things will resolve themselves, or indeed what the twist is going to be. When the latter is revealed it’s not much of a surprise and the whole ‘illegal alien’ allegory is hammered home literally. And as for the children being separated from their parents at the facility… yep, saw what you did there. The point it’s making is that we all came from somewhere and we don’t deserve to be judged for that reason alone – but then we all knew that already, didn’t we? And is it OK to be a stickler for rules and then hypocritically break them when it suits your own circumstances? Oh, and as a throwback to the original series, Matheson Charter School is clearly a name check to regular writer Richard Matheson.

Verdict: Not so much a morality tale as a warning that your narrow-mindedness might be blinding you to some inconvenient truths, it’s a solid, well-played episode, but could they please change the tune next time? There’s only so much preaching you can take. 7/10

Nick Joy