Most readers will identify the major theme of Richard Matheson’s Button, Button as greed: the immoral pursuit of ‘easy money’ by pushing a button in a mysterious box that will result in the death of an innocent stranger. One character comments that this may be OK if the person that dies is some old Chinese peasant ten thousand miles away. This suggests that the story may also be an allegory. Pressing a button to launch a missile in war, and dealing in commercial quantities of drugs in peacetime, have one thing in common. The victims are all faceless strangers.
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This is an episode from the 1980’s revival of the famous Twilight Zone TV series. The protagonists are younger, poorer, and about as far as you can get from being called a loving couple. The wife is a dislikeable, chain-smoking shrew who manages to humiliate her husband while maintaining a deranged look throughout the show. Few viewers will be disappointed with the way the ending has been changed!
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