Jessica Simpson Was Once Terrorized By Evil Dolls In The Twilight Zone
How many millions of records have you sold? If you're Jessica Simpson, that number is well over 20 million. If you're not Jessica Simpson — and you're not, like, Elton John or one of those guys from Aerosmith — that number is probably a heck of a lot less. At the turn of the century, thanks to hit singles like "I Wanna Love You Forever" and her reality TV series "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," Jessica Simpson was one of the most famous human beings in the entire world. And she's still really darned famous.
And like most singers who break into the popular zeitgeist, Simpson has also tried her hand at acting. She's probably best known on the big screen for playing the role of Daisy Duke in the 2005 "Dukes of Hazzard" movie, or at least for her cover of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" from the soundtrack. She also did a brief stint on "That '70s Show" as Ashton Kutcher's girlfriend Annette. And if you're really into Dane Cook movies for some reason, you probably saw her in "Employee of the Month" as a young woman Cook and Dax Shepard try to sleep with by [checks notes] ... becoming the employee of the month? That's a real movie? That's a real plot? The 2000s were a really weird time.
Anyway, Jessica Simpsons remains a pop culture idol to this day, but her acting career never quite took off like her singing career. That's most of her filmography right there, except for cameos as herself. Yup, that's all there is to that chapter of Jessica Simpson's history.
Oh wait, remember when Jessica Simpson was attacked by dolls in "The Twilight Zone?!"
These dolls are made for stalkin'
The year was 2002, and UPN's not-very-successful "Twilight Zone" reboot, hosted by Forest Whitaker, wasn't exactly setting the world on fire. This, despite the fact that there were actually some really great episodes, like the one where Jason Alexander played the Grim Reaper and tried to end his own life, or the creepy sequel to the classic "Twilight Zone" episode "It's a Good Life."
One of the ways the UPN show tried to stand out against a slew of network and cable competitors was with a series of notable guest stars. Remember when Katherine Heigl tried to kill baby Hitler? It was that kind of show. And at the time it's fair to say that Jessica Simpson was an even bigger "get."
The episode, "The Collection," stars Simpson as Miranda Evans, a college student studying child psychology. She takes a gig babysitting a little girl named Danielle, whose parents are overbearing but who lives in a nice house with a giant collection of dolls. Funny thing about those dolls: Danielle keeps them behind locked glass doors and refuses to let them out, even to play with them. (Danielle is played by Ashley Edner, by the way, who recently did a six-episode stint on the hit series "Evil," and even played the alien in extremely elaborate makeup who Chekov flirted with at Captain Kirk's birthday party in "Star Trek Beyond.")
When one of Danielle's dolls mysteriously falls over, she insists on fixing it herself, but when she opens the cabinet and grabs the plastic figure she screams! A doll she calls Shelly bit her, or so she claims, so Miranda takes her downstairs to bandage the wound, and wouldn't you know it, Miranda leaves the key in the cabinet. When they get back upstairs ... Shelly is gone.
Between you & I (and these creepy dolls)
Miranda tries to use her child psychology textbook to convince Danielle that her doll isn't alive, and isn't out to get her, but sure enough Shelly starts popping up in inexplicable places and Danielle gets hurt again. Even Miranda is having trouble explaining how Danielle — for surely it must have been Danielle — keeps making her dolls vanish and reappear around the house. But when the house is suddenly full of Shelly and her other doll friends, and they've somehow moved the alphabet magnets on the refrigerator to spell out the word "LEAVE," even Miranda has to admit something weird is going on.
Before long Miranda is in full panic mode, trying to save Danielle and fight off the evil dolls. Except these aren't the kind of evil dolls that move on-screen, so a lot of the second half of this "Twilight Zone" episode is just Jessica Simpson staring in horror at a bunch of dolls, and grabbing one and unconvincingly slamming it on the ground a few times, yelling, "You stupid b*tches!"
Eventually Miranda finds Danielle locked in a closet, knocks away the dolls keeping her trapped inside, and tries to save her. But when Danielle notices that Miranda has picked up her unicorn handbag she desperately tries to steal it away. Miranda looks inside and discovers pictures and wallets of all her old babysitters, who each look like one of Danielle's dolls. Somehow, Danielle has transformed them into playthings and locked them in her house. The dolls weren't trying to kill Miranda, they were trying to save her. But it's too late now, because Danielle has a new doll ... and it looks just like Jessica Simpson. (Well, kinda.)
I wanna love you forever (Twilight Zone style)
"The Twilight Zone" has had no shortage of creepy doll episodes, and let's just say "The Collection" certainly is one of them. The twist is pretty obvious from the get go, and the fact that we never see the dolls move gives all their scenes a comical quality that, unfortunately, seems to be unintentional. This episode isn't kitschy, and even though Jessica Simpson has to do a few ridiculous things at the end of it, she mostly plays her role rather well. So it never veers entirely into camp territory either.
"The Collection" was written by Erin Maher and Kay Reindl, a writing duo whose TV work includes hit shows like "Millennium" and "The Dead Zone," and cult favorites like "Moonlight" and the 2019 "Swamp Thing" series. It was directed by John T. Kretchmer, who has a list of prominent TV credits longer than your arm and, not for nothing, was also the first assistant director on "Jurassic Park." That's pretty cool, dang it.
In the end, "The Collection" isn't the finest episode the UPN version of "The Twilight Zone" ever produced, but it's emblematic of what makes the show relevant today. It's an interesting throwback to a specific era of television, when a specific generation of celebrities had the time, the inclination, and the good taste to make weird genre television. On UPN, of all channels.