Twilight
Zone
Episode List
This nOde
last updated January 15th, 2008 and is permanently morphing...
(9 Et'znab (Flint) /
6 Muwan (Owl) - 178/260 -
12.19.14.17.18)

Episodes:
Mike Ferris, a man in an Air Force jumpsuit, is all alone in a strange town. He searches all over town trying to find someone. He finally collapses, pushing the "walk button" at a stoplight. The "walk" button is actually a panic button, and Ferris is an astronaut-trainee in an isolation booth. He has been in the booth for 484 hours, and has been hallucinating the whole town.
"Up there, up there in the vastness of space, in the void that is sky, up there is an enemy known as isolation. It sits there in the stars waiting, waiting with the patience of eons, forever waiting... in the Twilight Zone."
Lew Bookman, a sidewalk salesman, is informed by Mr. Death that he is to die at midnight. Bookman convinces Death to allow him to live until he has had a chance to do his masterpiece, the Big Pitch - "one for the angels." Death arranges for a truck to hit Maggie, a neighborhood child, to take Lew's place. Death has to be in Maggie's room at midnight to claim her. Bookman saves Maggie by making a pitch so enthralling that Death misses his deadline. Having made his pitch, Lew leaves with Mr. Death.
"Lewis J. Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Formerly a fixture of the summer, formerly a rather minor component to a hot July. But, throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore a most important man. Couldn't happen, you say? Probably not in most places - but it did happen in the Twilight Zone."
Al Denton, once a feared gunslinger, now the town drunk, is forced to draw against Hotaling, a sadistic bully. That day, Henry J. Fate arrives in town. Fate's glance gives Denton's hand a life of its own, and Denton disarms Hotaling, and he regains the respect of the town. His new reputation soon attracts a young hotshot that challenges him to a duel. Denton, his gunslinging ability once again gone, buys a potion from Mr. Fate. It will give him ten seconds of deadly accuracy. As soon as the young gunslinger enters the saloon, Denton downs the potion. To his horror, he sees the young man doing the same thing. They shoot the guns out of each other's hands, each sustaining an injury that will end both of their gunslinging careers. Denton tells his adversary that they've both been blessed.
"Mr. Henry Fate, dealer in utensils and pots and pans, liniments and potions. A fanciful little man in a black frock coat who can help a man climbing out of a pit - or another man from falling into one. Because, you see, Fate can work that way... in the Twilight Zone."
Barbara Jean Trenton, an aging actress, secludes herself in a private screening room and watches her old films. Her agent, trying to help, gets her a small role in a film, and arranges a visit with an old leading man of hers. This only pushes her further into the past. A maid, bringing a meal, discovers the room empty. She looks at the screen, and runs out of the room. She calls the agent and he turns the projector back on. On the screen he sees the living room of the house, filled with stars as they appeared in old films. Barbara Jean throws a scarf at the screen. When the film runs out, the agent finds the scarf on the living room floor.
"To the wishes that come
true,
to the strange, mystic strength of the human animal, who can take a wishful
dream and give it a
dimension
of its own. To Barbara Jean Trenton, movie queen of another era, who has
changed the blank tomb of an empty projection screen into a private world.
It can happen - in the Twilight Zone."
After a blowout, Nan Adams repeatedly sees the same hitch-hiker. She tries to run over him, only to be told by a sailor to whom she's given a lift that there was no one on the road. She calls home and learns her mother suffered a nervous breakdown after the death of her daughter in a car wreck. Nan returns to her car, where the hitch-hiker - his purpose and identity known - awaits.
"Nan Adams, age twenty-seven. She was driving to California, to Los Angeles. She didn't make it. There was a detour - through the Twilight Zone."
Walter Bedeker makes a deal
with a Mr. Cadwallader:
Immortality
in exchange for his soul. An escape clause is provided, however; if Bedeker
ever tires of life, he need only summon Mr. Cadwallader. Bedeker soon realizes
nothing can harm him, but nothing excites him either. He jumps in front
of subways, trains and buses, drinks poisons, all without anything harming
him. He decides to jump off his apartment building. His wife, trying to
stop him, falls instead. He seizes the opportunity to experience the
electric
chair, and confesses to his wife's murder. The judge however sentences him
to life
imprisonment
without chance for parole. Cadwallader appears and releases him from imprisonment,
in the form of a fatal heart attack.
"There's a saying, 'Every man is put on Earth condemned to die, time and method of execution unknown.' Perhaps it is as it should be. Case in point: Walter Bedeker, lately deceased, a little man with such a yen to live. Beaten by the Devil, by his own boredom - and by the scheme of things in this, the Twilight Zone."
Allenby, the captain of a supply
ship, takes pity on Corry, and leaves him Alicia, a robot that looks and
sounds like a woman. Corry is repelled by the robot, but eventually falls
in love with her. Allenby returns one day and tells Corry he's been pardoned,
and they've come to get him. Corry can only take fifteen pounds of gear,
and Alicia weighs more than that. Corry refuse to leave without her, so
Allenby pulls a gun and shoots Alicia in the face, revealing a mass of
wires.
Allenby tells Corry, "All you're leaving behind is loneliness." Stunned,
Corry replies, "I must remember that. I must remember to keep that in mind."
"On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man's life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them; all of Mr. Corry's machines - including the one made in his image, kept alive by love, but now obsolete... in the Twilight Zone."
Bank teller Henry Bemis loves to read. He sneaks into
the vault at lunchtime to read and is knocked unconscious by a shockwave.
When he wakes up, he discovers a nuclear war has destroyed the Earth. He
decides to commit suicide until he sees a
library.
This is paradise to him, and he begins to organize books to read for years
to come. Just as he settles down to read his glasses slip from his face
and smash, forever trapping him in a blurry world.
"The best-laid plans of mice and men - and Henry
Bemis, the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but
time.
Henry Bemis, now just a part of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the
rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Bemis...
in the Twilight Zone."
Edward Hall is a man with a
cardiac condition. He has sought the aid of Dr. Rathmann, a psychiatist.
He tells the doctor of a dream he's been having about a
carnival
dancer,
Maya.
In his dream she leads him into a funhouse and onto a roller coaster, with
the
intention
of scaring him to death. If he sleeps, he knows he'll return to this dream
and die. If he stays awake, the strain will be too much for his already
weak heart. He doesn't believe the doctor can help him, so he starts to
leave. He realizes that the doctor's receptionist is a dead ringer for Maya.
He returns to the doctor's office and jumps out a window. Dr. Rathmann calls
the receptionist into his office, and on the couch is Edward. The doctor
tells the receptionist that Hall came in, fell asleep on the couch, and
then let out a scream and died.
"They say a dream takes only
a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can
suffer and die, and who's to say which is the greater
reality:
the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the earth...
in the Twilight Zone."
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Three astronauts have returned from this first space flight. Major Gart is hospitalized with a broken leg. The other two, Colonels Harrington and Forbes head for a bar. Harrington gets a strange feeling and calls his parents. They inform him they have no son. Harrington then disappears, with nobody remembering him but Forbes. When Forbes tells Gart what happened, Gart says he doesn't remember Harrington either. Forbes runs out the door screaming, "I don't want this to happen!" When Gart gets to the door, Forbes has disappeared. Then Gart and their ship vanishes, wiping the last evidence of their existence off the face of the Earth.
"Once upon a
time,
there was a man named Harrington, a man named Forbes, a man named Gart.
They used to exist, but don't any longer. Someone - or something - took
them somewhere. At least they are no longer a part of the
memory
of man. And as to the X-20 supposed to be housed here in this hangar, this
too does not exist. And if any of you have any questions concerning an aircraft
and three men who flew her, speak softly of them... and only in the Twilight
Zone."
Scientist William Sturka, and test pilot Jerry Riden, certain that an all-out nuclear war is imminent, plot to steal an experimantal spaceship and escape with their families to another planet. They overpower a government man, Carling, and escape. In space they wonder what their new home will be like. From radio braodcasts they know it is inhabited by people like themselves, and it is called Earth.
"Behind a tiny ship heading into space is a doomed planet on the verge of suicide. Ahead lies a place called Earth, the third planet from the sun. And for William Sturka and the men and women with him, it's the eve of the beginning... in the Twilight Zone."
The Arrow One disappears from
the radar screen and crashes. Three of the
eight
astronauts survive. They believe they have crashed on an asteroid. They
only have five gallons of
water
between them. Corey intends to kill Pierson and Donlin for their water.
Before Pierson dies he climbs to the top of a mountain, looks over it, and
draws a symbol in the sand. Corey pays no
attention
to the drawing and kills Donlin. He then climbs the mountain and sees what
the symbols meant:
telephone
poles. They had been on Earth the whole time, in the Nevada Desert.
"Practical joke perpetrated by Mother Nature and a combination of improbable events. Practical joke wearing the trappings of nightmare, of terror, of desperation. Small human drama played out in a desert ninety-seven miles from Reno, Nevada, U.S.A., continent of North America, the Earth, and of course - the Twilight Zone."
Franklin Gibbs is not happy about his wife winning a trip to Las Vegas. A drunk gives him a silver dollar and forces him to play a slot machine. His attitude changes when the machine pays off. He starts to hear the machine calling to him, and develops a mania to play it. He plays till his last dollar, which jams when he attempts to play. Believing the machine purposefully jammed he pushes it over. Later, back in his room, believing he sees the machine coming for him, he falls out of his window. The machine rolls up to him on the pavement and spits out his dollar.
"Mr. Franklin Gibbs, visitor to Las Vegas, who lost his money, his reason, and finally his life to an inanimate metal machine variously described as a one-armed bandit, a slot machine or, in Mr. Franklin Gibbs's words, a monster with a will of its own. For our purposes we'll stick with the latter definition - because we're in the Twilight Zone."
During a World War I mission, Decker deserts his best friend, who is surrounded by enemy planes. He flies through a strange white cloud, and lands at a modern-day American air base in France. Decker discovers that the man he left behind went on to become a hero in World War II, and is due to inspect the base that very day. Decker, realizing he's been given a second chance, overpowers the major, returns to his plane, and takes off. Later, when Decker's friend arrives to inspect the base, he says Decker did return to save him - at the cost of his own life.
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
William Fitzgerald, a lieutenant serving in World War II, suddenly gains the mysterious ability to discover who is about to die via a flash of purple light across their face. After correctly predicting several deaths, he eventually sees the light flash across his own face. On the way back to headquarters, his jeep drives over a landmine.
From
William Shakespeare, Richard the Third, a small excerpt. The line reads, 'He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war.' And for Lieutenant William Fitzgerald, A Company, First Platoon, the testament is closed. Lieutenant Fitzgerald has found the Twilight Zone.
Almost out of fuel, three astronauts
set down on an asteroid. The place looks like Earth, except no one moves.
They see a number of ordinary events: a marching band, a card game and a
homely woman winning a beauty contest. They do find someone that moves -
Jeremy Wickwire, a caretaker. He explains that the asteroid is an exclusive
cemetery, that lets the departed
realize
their greatest wish. He asks them what their greatest wish is, while serving
them wine. They say to be on their ship, returning home. Too late, they
realize Wickwire, an android, has poisoned their drinks. Having ensured
the continuing tranquility of Happy Glades, Wickwire places the embalmed
figures of the three men back in their spaceship.
"Kirby, Webber and Meyers, three men lost. They shared a common wish, a simple one - they wanted to be aboard their ship, headed for home. And fate, a laughing fate, a practical jokester with a smile that stretched across the stars, saw to it that they got their wish, with just one reservation: the wish came true, but only in the Twilight Zone."
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Millicent Barnes is confused by the actions of various employees at the bus station. The ticket taker tells her that she has repeatedly asked when the bus is going to arrive, and that her suitcase has already been checked. The washroom attendant claims she was there a few seconds earlier. Yet she hasn't done any of these things. While in the washroom, she sees herself sitting on a bench out in the bus station. She runs out, but the room is empty. Paul Grinstead, a businessman, becomes concerned for Millicent. They go to board the bus, but Millicent runs back in after seeing the other her already on the bus. Paul stays to comfort Millicent, who now says she knows what is happenning: a mirror image of herself from another world has entered this world, and must take her place to survive. Paul, certain she's mentally ill, calls the police. After the police take Millicent away, Paul chases a man who he believes has stolen his case. As the man turns around, Paul realizes that the man is a duplicate of himself.
"Obscure
metaphysical
explanation to cover a phenomenon, reasons dredged out of the shadows to
explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it parallel planes or
just insanity. Whatever it is, you find it in the Twilight Zone."
After what is believed to be
a meteor flies overhead, Maple Street experiences a total power failure.
Pete Van Horn leaves to find what is going on. Tommy, a reader of
sci-fi,
says human- looking
aliens
have infiltrated Maple Street. No one takes this seriously until Mr. Goodman's
car cranks for a few seconds. Suspicion falls on him, made stronger by a
neighbor's
memory
of seeing him looking up at the stars at night. Everyone begins to panic
as the evening approaches. When a mysterious figure walks towards them in
the dark, Charlie Farnsworth takes a neighbor's rifle and fires. The mysterious
figure turns out to be the returning Pete Van Horn. Charlie is then accused
of being the alien, then Tommy, then total madness breaks out. As various
house lights flash on and off, rioting breaks out. Two nearby aliens watch
these events. One tells the other that by manipulating
electricity,
it is easy to turn neighbor against neighbor. Maple Street is only the beginning.
"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own - for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone."
Businessman Arthur Curtis finds
his phone dead. He is then surprised to hear a voice yell, "Cut!" and see
that his office is just a set on a soundstage. Everyone tells him that he
is Jerry Raigan, a drunken movie star on the decline, and "Arthur Curtis"
is a character Raigan is playing. Curtis drives to where his home should
be, but finds no evidence of his life. Raigan's agent, thinking his client
is having a nervous breakdown, tells Curtis not to worry about returning
to the set, the picture has been cancelled and the sets are being dismantled.
Curtis, realizing the last link to his world is about to be destroyed,
rushes
to the set. Just in
time,
he arrives on the set and pleads not to be left in this uncaring place.
Curtis finds himself back in his office, while the agent arrives on the
set and finds Raigan has vanished.
"The modus operandi for the departure from life is usually a pine box of such and such dimensions, and this is the ultimate in reality. But there are other ways for a man to exit from life. Take the case of Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six. His departure was along a highway with an exit sign that reads: 'This way to escape.' Arthur Curtis, en route to... the Twilight Zone."
In class, Jameson, Kittridge's colleague for twelve
years and future son-in-law, reads from a Civil War journal of officer Hugh
Skelton. Later, at his house, Kittridge tells Jameson he looked Skelton's
photo up and found him to be a dead ringer for Jameson, down to a mole and
ring. Jameson admits he is Skelton. More than two thousand years before,
he paid an
alchemist
for the gift of
immortality.
Kittridge forbids Jameson to marry his daughter. Jameson convinces her to
elope with him that night. He goes home to pack, and discovers a very old
woman in his study. She is a wife he long since abandoned. She grabs a revolver
off of his desk and shoots him. Kittridge hears the shot and rushes in,
just in time to see Jameson turn to dust.
"Last stop on a long journey, as yet another human being returns to the vast nothingness that is the beginning and into the dust that is always the end."
Marcusson, the optimist that believes people are alike all over, is killed when their ship crashes on Mars. Conrad is terrified when he hears someone banging on the outside of the ship. He is relieved when he sees that the martians are human looking, but telepathic. The next day, the Martians give Conrad a home of his own. Left alone, he quickly realizes there are no windows and all the doors are locked. Suddenly, a wall slides up, revealing bars through which a crowd of Martians stand. Conrad then realizes he is in a zoo. He cries out, "Marcusson, you were right - people are alike everywhere."
"Species of animal brought
back alive. Interesting similarity in physical characteristics to human
beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain;
comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself Samuel Conrad. And
he will remain here in this cage with the running
water
and the
electricity
and the central heat as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found the Twilight
Zone."
Even though Jackson breaks his
hand prior to the fight, he wins because Henry - a boy who adores the fighter
and believes in magic - made the "big, tall wish." After the fight the boxer
refuses to believe in magic. Henry tells him if he doesn't believe, it won't
be
true.
Jackson just can't believe. Suddenly, Jackson is back in the ring, and counted
out.
"Mr. Bolie Jackson, one hundred eighty-three pounds, who left a second chance lying in a heap on a rosin-spattered canvas at St. Nick's arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who shares the most common ailment of all men, the strange and perverse disinclination to believe in a miracle, the kind of miracle to come from a little boy, perhaps only to be found in the Twilight Zone."
After being shot to death by a policeman, Rocky revives to find himself unhurt. He is in the company of a seemingly good-natured man named Pip, who says he is Rocky's guide and has been instructed to give him anything he wants. At first this is great, Rocky assumes he must be in Heaven, with Pip being his guardian angel. But he soon grows tired of always winning, always getting any girl he wants. He begs Pip to send him to "the Other Place." Pip replies, "This is the Other Place!"
"A scared, angry little man who never got a break. Now he has everything he's ever wanted - and he's going to have to live with it for eternity... in the Twilight Zone."
Schoolteacher Helen Foley finds
a strange and very serious little girl on the stairs outside her apartment.
The little girl seems to know her, and tries to jog her
memory
about a man she saw earlier that day. The man arrives at Helen's door and
Markie runs out the back way. The man is Peter Selden, who worked for Helen's
mother when Helen was a child, and claimed to be the first to find her mother
after she was murdered. Helen witnessed the murder but has blocked it out.
She mentions Markie, and Selden tells her that was her nickname as a child,
and shows her an old photo of herself. She then realizes that she and Markie
are one and the same. Selden leaves, and Markie reappears. She tells Helen
she is Helen, and that she is there to force her to remember her mother's
murder. Selden returns and confesses to the murder, and say he has tracked
down the only witness to his crime. She manages to run into the hallway
and push Selden down the stairs to his death. Markie was a part of Helen
that did remember the murder, and was trying to remind her conscious self
of it.
"Miss Helen Foley, who has lived in night and who will wake up to morning. Miss Helen Foley, who took a dark spot from the tapestry of her life and rubbed it clean - then stepped back a few paces and got a good look at the Twilight Zone."
Gart Williams is a very unhappy
man. He has a terrible boss and a shrewish wife. Riding home on the train
one day he falls asleep, and
dreams
it is 1880, and he is entering a small town called Willoughby. The conductor
tells him Willoughby is a town where "a man can slow down to a walk and
live his life full measure." Williams realizes this is the place for him,
but he receives only ridicule from his wife. The pressure of his job being
too great, he finally cracks. He calls his wife to tell her he is quitting,
but she hangs up on him. On the train home, he suddenly finds himself back
in Willoughby. The townsfolk all greet him by name. He's there for good
this time. Meanwhile, the train has stopped. Mr. Williams has jumped from
the train yelling something about "Willoughby." The body is loaded in a
hearse that bears the name "Willoughby Funeral Home."
"Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things - or perhaps, for a man like Gart Williams, who clmbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is part of the Twilight Zone."
Joey, convinced he'll never amount to anything, throws himself in front of a truck. He wakes up to find himself all alone on the street at night. Visiting several of his regular haunts, he cannot find anyone he knows. And the people that are there can't see or hear him. Failing to see his own reflection in a mirror, Joey believes he must be a ghost. Looking back on his life, Joey realizes it wasn't as bad as he thought. He meets a tall man in a white tuxedo, who explains that it is the other people that are dead, he is simply in limbo between life and death, and which way to go is his choice. Joey chooses life, and is suddenly back on the pavement, just after being hit by the truck, alive and well. That night while playing his trumpet on a rooftop, he meets Nan, a new girl in town, who asks if Joey would show her the sights. He accepts the offer.
"Joey Crown, who makes music, and who discovered something about life; that it can be rich and rewarding and full of beauty, just like the music he played, if a person would only pause to look and to listen. Joey Crown, who got his clue in the Twilight Zone."
James Bevis is an underachiever who on the same day wrecks his automobile, loses his job and gets evicted. Drinking in a bar, he is introduced to his guardian angel and has his life improved. However, the little joys of his life disappear. He decides to go back to his old life although the guardian angel promises to stick around.
"Mr. James B.W. Bevis, who believes in a
magic
all his own. The magic of a child's
smile,
the magic of liking and being liked, the strange and wondrous mysticism
that is the simple act of living. Mr. James B.W. Bevis, species of twentieth-century
male, who has his own private and special Twilight Zone."
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Marsha buys a gold thimble from
a rude saleslady on the ninth floor. When she goes to complain, she is
informed
there is no ninth floor. She points out the saleslady, but is shocked to
find it is just a store mannequin. She is helped to a store office where
she falls asleep. When she wakes up, she finds she is locked in the closed
store. She hears voices coming from the mannequins as she wanders through
the empty store. She backs into the elevator which takes her to the ninth
floor. There the mannequins all come to life one by one, including the saleslady
and elevator operator. They explain that she too is a mannequin, and that
each of them is allowed a one month journey among humans. She forgot her
true
identity and didn't return on time. She apologizes, then turns back into
a mannequin.
"Marsha White in her normal and natural state: a wooden lady with a painted face who, one month out of the year, takes on the characteristics of someone as normal and as flesh and blood as you and I. But it makes you wonder, doesn't it? Just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask - particularly in the Twilight Zone."
Victoria West sees her husband and a blonde through a window, sharing drinks. But when she barges into his office, he is alone. Gregory tells her that by describing something into his dictation machine, he can bring anything into being. To make it disappear all he needs to do is throw the tape in the fireplace. He demonstrates by describing an elephant in the hall. Victoria ignores the evidence and informs Gregory she is going to have him committed. Gregory removes an envelope from a wall safe, and tells her it contains the tape that describes her. Victoria grabs the envelope and throws it into the fireplace, and promptly disappears. Gregory quickly begins to redescribe Victoria, then reconsiders and begins to describe Mrs. Mary West. A loving Mary appears mixing her husband a drink.
"Leaving Mr. Gregory West,
still shy, quiet, very happy - and apparently in complete control of the
Twilight Zone."
David Ellington is on a walking
trip of Europe following WWI when he gets caught in a storm. He finds a
remote hermitage, but is turned away. After he passes out, the monks are
forced to take him in. After reviving, he hears a howling that the brothers
say they do not hear. Following the sound, he comes upon a cell with an
old man locked inside. The old man says he is being held captive by Brother
Jerome, who is insane. After confronting Brother Jerome, he confesses that
he is holding the old man
prisoner,
but the old man is actually the Devil! Ellington promises to keep this secret,
but as soon as he gets a chance, he returns to the cell and releases the
old man - who proceeds to transform into the devil and disappears. Shortly
after, WWII breaks out. Ellington devotes his life to recapturing the Devil.
He finally does recapture the Devil. As he prepares to leave to make arrangements
to ship him back to the hermitage, he tells his housekeeper to pay no mind
to the howling. But, as soon as he leaves, she lifts the bar on the door,
and the door swings open.
"Ancient folk saying: 'You can catch the Devil, but you can't hold him long.' Ask Brother Jerome. Ask David Ellington. They know, and they'll go on knowing to the end of their days and beyond - in the Twilight Zone."
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Janet Tyler anxiously awaits the outcome of her latest surgery. Janet, who's abnormal face has made her an outcast, has had her eleventh hospital visit - the maximum allowed by the State. If it didn't succeed, she will be sent to live in a village where others of her kind are segregated. As her bandages are removed, she is revealed to be very beautiful. The doctor draws back in horror. As the lights come on we see the others, their faces are misshapen and deformed. As Janet runs from her room crying, she runs into another of her kind, a handsome man named Walter Smith. He is in charge of an outcast village, and he assures her that she will eventually feel she belongs. He tells her to remember the old saying: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
"Now the questions that come to mind. Where is this place and when is it, what kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm? The answer is, it doesn't make any difference. Because the old saying happens to be true. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence, on this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out among the stars. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lesson to be learned... in the Twilight Zone."
While waiting for their car to be repaired, Don and Pat grab a quick meal at a local diner. A table top fortune-telling machine catches Don's eye. Although the answers are extremely general, Don soon believes the machine has accurately predicted two events - his promotion, and a near-accident he and Pat have while crossing the street. Don panics and begins feeding pennies into the machine. Pat convinces him that they must make their own future, without the machine. Don comes to his senses, and the couple leaves. Soon after they leave, another couple hurry into the diner and begin putting pennies in the machine. They ask when they might be allowed to leave town.
"Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstition, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places in the Twilight Zone."
Dr. Loren lives in a house staffed by human-looking robot servants. His daughter Jana believes that her parents' reliance on the robots is turning them into vegetables. She gives her father an ultimatum: dismantle the robots or she leaves. He complies with her wishes. When she tells her parents that she will soon meet a young man and have children of her own, their expressions frighten her. She looks through old photo albums for a picture of herself as a child. She realizes that she is a robot and collapses. Dr. Loren knows things will never be the same, so he reprograms her - as a maid.
"Let this be the postscript: should you be worn out by the rigors of competing in a very competitive world, if you're distraught from having to share your existence with the noises and neuroses of the twentieth century, if you crave serenity but want it full time and with no strings attached, get yourself a workroom in a basement and then drop a note to Dr. and Mrs. William Loren. They're a childless couple who made comfort a life's work, and maybe there are a few do-it-yourself pamphets still available - in the Twilight Zone."
Templeton longs for the years
when his beloved wife Laura was still alive. After a young director dresses
him down for being late, Templeton
rushes
from the theater and finds himself back in 1927. He locates Laura in a speakeasy.
She is not the Laura he remembered - she is vulgar, self-centered and flirtatious.
His memories shattered, he returns to the theater. He looks at several sheets
of paper Laura was fanning herself with, and that he accidentally brought
back with him. They are pages to a script entitled "What To Do When Booth
Comes Back." Booth realizes the whole thing was staged so he would stop
living in the past, he returns to the stage, filled with a new self-confidence
and ready to start living in the present.
"Mr. Booth Templeton, who shared with most human beings the hunger to recapture the past moments, the ones that soften with the years. But in his case, the characters of his past blocked him out and sent him back to his own time, which is where we find him now. Mr. Booth Templeton, who had a round-trip ticket... into the Twilight Zone."
Chester Diedrich and his wife Paula, after burglarizing a curio shop, end up with a camera that takes pictures of events five minutes into the future. Paula's brother Woodward arrives, as predicted by the camera. He and Chester decide to go to the race track with the camera. They make a killing, but back at the hotel a waiter tells them that an inscription on the camera says, "ten to an owner." Chester and Woodward fight over how to use the remaining pictures, and they both fall out the window. Paula takes a picture of them, and gathers her stuff to leave. Suddenly, the waiter comes back. He has figured out they are crooks and he wants the money. He looks at the picture and notices there are more than two bodies, Paula rushes to look out the window, trips and falls to her death. Then the waiter notices there are four bodies instead of three. With a shout, he falls from the window, too.
"Object known as a camera, vintage uncertain, origin unknown. But for the greedy, the avaricious, the fleet of foot who can run a four-minute mile so long as they're chasing a fast buck, it makes believe that it's an ally, but it isn't at all. It's a beckoning come-on for a quick walk around the block - in the Twilight Zone."
A fast-talking used car salesman, Harvey Hunnicut, gets more than he bargained for when he purchases a Model T that forces him to tell the truth to customers, to his employees and to his wife.. After a few embarrassing situations, he decides to unload the car on the Russian Premier, who would be most humiliated by the truth.
"Couldn't happen, you say? Far-fetched? Way-out? Tilt-of-center? Possible, but the next time you buy an automobile, if it happens to look as if it had just gone through the Battle of the Marne, and the seller is ready to throw into the bargain one of his arms, be particularly careful in explaining to the boss about your grandmother's funeral when you were actually at Chavez Ravine watching the Dodgers. It'll be a fact that you are the proud possessor of an instrument of truth manufactured and distributed by an exclusive dealer in the Twilight Zone."
The woman goes up to her roof to investigate a noise, and finds a flying saucer with two tiny, robot-like creatures emerging from it. The creatures torment the woman, until finally she grabs and batters one of the creatures into lifelessness. With an ax she destroys the saucer. Before the final creature is killed he sends a message to his home planet not to send any more ships to this planet. The lettering on the side of the saucer reads "U.S. Air Force."
"These are the invaders,
the tiny beings from the tiny place called Earth, who would take the giant
step across the sky to the question marks that sparkle and beckon from the
vastness of the universe only to be
imagined.
The invaders, who found out that a one-way ticket to the stars beyond has
the ultimate price tag. And we have just seen it entered in a ledger that
covers all the transactions of the universe, a bill stamped 'paid in full,'
and to be found... in the Twilight Zone."
Hector pays for a morning paper
with a coin that stands on edge. He then finds he has telepathic powers.
He informs his boss, Mr. Bagby, that Sykes, a businessman trying to get
a large loan is actually going to bet it at the racetrack to try and repay
embezzled funds. Sykes leaves in a rage, and Bagby is greatly displeased.
Smithers, an old,
trusted
employee, is thinking of stealing some money, and escaping to
Bermuda.
A search of his briefcase reveals that Smithers was just daydreaming, and
Poole is fired. Later, Mr. Bagby informs him that he was right about Sykes,
and offers him his job back. Using
information
he has about Bagby's weekend plans with his mistress, he is made an office
manager. Leaving from work he buys a paper, and knocks the coin he stood
on end earlier down, and his psychic abilities disappear.
"One time in a million, a coin will land on its edge, but all it takes to knock it over is a vagrant breeze, a vibration or a slight blow. Hector B. Poole, a human coin, on edge for a brief time - in the Twilight Zone."
After accelerating past three
thousand knots, the crew are unable to raise anyone on the radio. Descending
below the clouds they see
dinosaurs;
somehow they have went back in
time.
They try to catch the tail wind again to return to the present. They succeed,
but are confused when the control tower claims to have never heard of radar
or jet aircraft. In the distance the crew sees the 1939 World's Fair. They
did not come far enough back. Running low on fuel, they attempt to find
the tail wind for one last attempt at returning to their time.
"A Global jet airliner, en route from London to New York on an uneventful afternoon in the year 1961, but now reported overdue and missing, and by now, searched for on land, sea, and air by anguished human beings fearful of what they'll find. But you and I know where she is, you and I know what's happened. So if some moment, any moment, you hear the sound of jet engines flying atop the overcast, engines that sound searching and lost, engines that sound desperate, shoot up a flare or do something. That would be Global 33 trying to get home - from the Twilight Zone."
Four thieves rob a bullion train
headed to California. They head back to a cave, and use a gas invented by
their leader Farwell, and go into suspended animation. One of them is killed
by a rock while they're asleep. The rest awake one hundred years later,
safe from any police pursuit. DeCruz uses the truck to run over Brooks,
but loses control and wrecks it. Farwell and DeCruz must walk through the
desert to the nearest town, carrying as much gold as they can. Farwell,
the older of the two, quickly tires. He loses his canteen and has to pay
DeCruz one gold bar for each sip of
water.
Then Decruz raises the price to two gold bars, and Farwell kills him with
one of the gold bars. Weak and tired, Farwell heads down a highway while
carrying the gold he refuses to abandon. Just as he finally collapses, a
futuristic car pulls up. He offers his gold in exchange for a ride into
town, but it's too late, and he dies - never learning that a way to make
gold had been found, making his bullion worthless.
"The last of four Rip Van
Winkles who all died precisely the way they lived, chasing an idol across
the sand to wind up bleached dry in the hot
sun
as so much desert flotsam, worthless as the gold bullion they built a shrine
to. Tonight's lesson... in the Twilight Zone."
Archie Taylor, a member of an exclusive club, bets another member, Jamie Tennyson, half a million dollars that he can't stay quiet for an entire year. Jamie wins the bet but he can't collect because Archie went bankrupt several years ago. However, in order to ensure winning the bet, Jamie had his vocal chords severed.
Mr. Jamie Tennyson, who almost won a bet, but who discovered somewhat belatedly that gambling can be a most unproductive pursuit, even with loaded dice, marked cards, or as in his case some severed vocal cords. For somewhere beyond him a wheel was turned and his number came up black thirteen. If you don't believe it, ask the croupier, the very special one who handles roulette in the Twilight Zone.
Troopers follow the tracks from
a frozen pond, into a diner. Inside they find a soda jerk, a bus driver
and his seven passengers. The bus driver is certain only six people boarded
his bus. There's two married couples, a businessman, a
dancer
and an eccentric old man. The troopers give up the investigation when a
call comes through that the bridge is safe now, and the bus may continue
on. Later, the businessman returns to the diner. The bridge really wasn't
safe, the call was an illusion. He is the Martian, advance scout for an
invasion force. He proceeds to drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette,
using all three of his arms. The soda jerk tells him that he's a Venusian,
and that his invasion force has intercepted the Martian fleet. Grinning,
he removes his cap, revealing a
third
eye.
"Incident on a small island, to be believed or disbelieved. However, if a sour-faced dandy named Ross or a big, good-natured counterman who handles a spatula as if he'd been born with one in his mouth, if either of these two entities walks onto your premises, you'd better hold their hands - all three of them - or check the color of their eyes - all three of them. The gentleman in question might try to pull you into... the Twilight Zone."
Romney Wordsworth, a
librarian,
is declared obsolete in a totalitarian state of the future. However, he
is able to trap the Chancellor in his room with the bomb and he gets the
Chancellor to invoke the name of god. Because of this action, the members
of the state declare the Chancellor obsolete and tear him to pieces.
The Chancellor - the late Chancellor - was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so was the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under 'M' for mankind in the Twilight Zone.
A woman wearing a uniform encounters a man dressed in the enemy's uniform. She is very distrustful of him. A while later she admires a dress in a shop window. The man removes it and gives it to her. She changes in an old recruiting office. Seeing the posters reminds her of the war, and she rushes out and fires several rounds at the man. The next day he returns in civilian clothes and she is wearing the dress. She joins him and they walk off together.
"This has been a love story, about two lonely people who found each other... in the Twilight Zone."
During a party for Dr. Stockton,
the radio announces that
UFOs
are headed southeast and that everyone should head for their shelters. The
Doc, his wife and son barricade themselves in their shelter, but their neighbors
are unprepared and beg to be let in. Doc refuses saying there is only food
and air for three. The neighbors find a pipe and beat the door down. Just
then, the radio announces that the UFOs were really just satellites. The
neighbors apologize but Doc knows that the experience has destroyed them
all.
"No moral, no message, no prophetic tract, just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight's very small exercise in logic from the Twilight Zone."
