WEBVTT

1
00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:11.919
You unlock this door with the key
of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension,

2
00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:18.079
a dimension of sound, a dimension
of sight, a dimension of mind.

3
00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:23.559
You're moving into a land of both
shadow and substance of things and ideas.

4
00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:46.679
You've just crossed over into the twilight
zone. Love songs have a habit

5
00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:53.119
of telling us that love will conquer
everything, Love will see us through,

6
00:00:54.119 --> 00:01:00.119
and there's nothing that the power of
love can't over calm. And this is

7
00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:07.760
all very nice and very inspirational,
but it's also not true. It may

8
00:01:07.799 --> 00:01:11.840
be said with a degree of assurance
that not everything that meets the eye is

9
00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:15.560
as it appears. Case in point, the senior watching this is not a

10
00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:21.280
hospital, not a morgue, not
a mausoleum, not an undertaker's parlor of

11
00:01:21.319 --> 00:01:25.680
the future. What it is is
the belly of a spaceship. It is

12
00:01:25.799 --> 00:01:30.599
en route to another planetary system,
an incredible distance from the Earth. This

13
00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:34.519
is the crux of our story,
a flight into space. It is also

14
00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:37.959
the story of the things that might
happen to human beings who take a step

15
00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:48.799
beyond, unable to anticipate everything that
might awaken them out there. When we

16
00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:53.879
meet Commander Douglas Stansfield, he is
laying in what season science fiction watches like

17
00:01:53.959 --> 00:02:01.719
ourselves will recognize as some sort of
suspended on a chamber. But this is

18
00:02:01.760 --> 00:02:14.840
one of those unusual occasions where rod
Sailing isn't our only commentator. I remember

19
00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:21.240
things. It's more than just void
darkness and consciousness. The line does work.

20
00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:25.520
There are images, patterns, things
to recollect. It's not just the

21
00:02:25.639 --> 00:02:30.439
long, deep sleep that comes when
the fear has left. The cold is

22
00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:36.840
felt. The slipping away of feeling
is noted and then succumbed to the mind

23
00:02:36.919 --> 00:02:43.439
functions. Time is distorted and jumbled
telescope to accordion, but there is a

24
00:02:43.479 --> 00:02:47.800
sense of time even so, and
I remember things. I remember the way

25
00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:57.319
it began, I remember the way
it was in the beginning. And the

26
00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:02.000
purpose of this other narration is to
bring us back into the recent past,

27
00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.879
and specifically to meet Douglas Stansfield,
a man who is about to be sent

28
00:03:09.719 --> 00:03:17.560
into outer space to a point further
than any human has ever been. But

29
00:03:17.719 --> 00:03:22.639
does it catch. This system is
perhaps one hundred and forty one light years

30
00:03:22.639 --> 00:03:25.280
away from us. That's a rough
estimate, but a good one. The

31
00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.120
ship will have interstellar drive and an
anti bravity device it'll be the fastest man

32
00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:38.439
made object ever conceived of. About
the life, it'll go seventy times faster

33
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:43.360
than the speed of light. But
in terms of the space you must conquer,

34
00:03:44.199 --> 00:03:50.800
it'll be like an end crawling across
as ahah a short Commander from your

35
00:03:50.840 --> 00:04:00.240
trip to these paratory bodies and back
to Earth will take approximately forty years night.

36
00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:04.879
We will take that trip with Douglas
Stansfield, a man for whom duty

37
00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:12.199
and ambition mean. He will make
the decision to leave behind everything that he

38
00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:16.879
knows. But what he knows,
or maybe, to be more precise,

39
00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:25.160
who he knows, is about to
change when he faces the long Morrow.

40
00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:31.160
Commander Douglas Stansfield, astronaut, a
man about to embark on one of history's

41
00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:36.000
longest journeys, forty years out in
the endless space and hopefully back again.

42
00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:42.959
This is the beginning, the first
step toward man's longest sleep into the unknown.

43
00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:46.079
Science has solved the mechanical details,
and now it's up to one human

44
00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:50.480
being to be life in the blueprints
and computers to prove once and for all

45
00:04:50.519 --> 00:04:54.879
that man can live half a lifetime
in a total void of outer space,

46
00:04:55.399 --> 00:05:00.079
forty years alone in the unknown this
is Earth, the headlines of planet to

47
00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:05.680
his system. The vast region in
between is the Twilights on Face, broadcast

48
00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:12.959
on January tenth, nineteen sixty four. Written by Rod Sailing and directed by

49
00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:17.240
Robert Floy. I suppose that the
lack of a true sailing in the scene

50
00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:24.360
here is lessened by the fact that
the sets throughout this episode are very Samey

51
00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:30.279
we have a whippan over to sailing, which unfortunately breaks up the shot.

52
00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:34.639
But because the set he is in
front of is exactly the same as pretty

53
00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:40.360
much everything we see throughout, it
at least feels like he could be there.

54
00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:45.800
And I really like the language that
Sailing users to introduce this one.

55
00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:50.879
But it's interesting that he doesn't really
give any hints as to what this is

56
00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:57.199
truly about. At this point,
we don't know whether it could be about

57
00:05:57.240 --> 00:06:04.079
Stansfield encountering an alien or the ship
crashing somewhere and becoming damaged. We have

58
00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:10.720
no indication at this point that the
damage that will be done is the two

59
00:06:10.839 --> 00:06:15.480
human hearts. So our writer tonight
is Rod Sailing. But you may recall

60
00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:20.519
in the last episode I played to
you that reading of the Gift of the

61
00:06:20.519 --> 00:06:27.360
Magi by O Henry. Now,
I'm sure my mostly American audience will know

62
00:06:27.480 --> 00:06:32.439
this, but for the uninitiated,
oh Henry is the pen name for an

63
00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:39.240
American writer called William Sidney Porter,
who was born in eighteen sixty two.

64
00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:44.759
Now, I'm not particularly familiar with
his work, although I had heard the

65
00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:49.399
Gift of the Magi before. But
I was familiar with people commenting on other

66
00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:57.680
stories, sometimes even Twilight Own episodes, saying that they had an Oh Henry

67
00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:01.839
ending, or it was an Oh
Henry type of story. And what they're

68
00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:08.319
getting at is that O Henry stories
were famous for having a certain type of

69
00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:14.079
twist ending. So the Twilight Zone
may take a little DNA from those stories.

70
00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:19.040
But there is a faurther connection in
Unlocking the Door to a television classic.

71
00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:25.000
Martin Graham's Junior writes that this is
a loose adaptation of that story,

72
00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:30.079
The Gift of the Magi, But
Rod Sailing had been involved with an adaptation

73
00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:34.600
of this before. Around nineteen forty
eight. He played the male role in

74
00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:43.480
the story himself in a radio adaptation
which he also scripted, which was dramatized

75
00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:48.079
at a local station in Ohio,
and Martin Graham's Junior goes on to say

76
00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:54.680
that in November of nineteen sixty Rod
Sailing was approached by the Board of National

77
00:07:54.720 --> 00:08:01.480
Measures of the United Presbyterian Church of
the USA in New US York City to

78
00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:07.240
adapt a teleplay from that short story, and Sailing did do that adaptation and

79
00:08:07.319 --> 00:08:13.600
submitted the script to them in nineteen
sixty one, but I'm not sure whether

80
00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:18.000
that was ever made, So not
to get too ahead of ourselves here,

81
00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:22.040
obviously the setup and the circumstances are
completely different from the Oh Henry story,

82
00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:30.040
but the theme of two people sacrificing
something out of love for another but neither

83
00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:35.679
of them ending up winning, is
of course where this ship is sadly headed.

84
00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:39.559
Tonight's director is one of some note, but we haven't actually seen him

85
00:08:39.559 --> 00:08:46.320
in the Twilight Zone since season one
when he directed Perchance to Dream and The

86
00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:50.799
Fever. So maybe fifty to fifty
on quality there, but I'm not sure

87
00:08:50.840 --> 00:08:56.320
how many people could have made the
talking slot machine look any better now.

88
00:08:56.360 --> 00:09:00.559
I would hope that back in the
day I did a bit of a bio

89
00:09:00.679 --> 00:09:05.600
on Flori, but just in case, here in his last episode, let's

90
00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:11.200
do a mini recap. Florie was
born in the year nineteen hundred in Paris,

91
00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:16.600
France, and he was sadly orphaned
when he was very young and subsequently

92
00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:22.000
went to live in Switzerland, where
he was brought up. In his teenage

93
00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:28.759
years, he developed a fascination with
films, and American films in particular,

94
00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:33.279
and he subsequently found work as a
film journalist, which ended up taking him

95
00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:39.360
to the US, and while there
he worked in a variety of management roles,

96
00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:46.039
such as European advance manager for Rudolph
Valentino. So he had this very

97
00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:52.399
steady entry into the business, a
business that he went from reporting, gone

98
00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:58.679
to working in. In the early
nineteen twenties saw him becoming an assistant director

99
00:09:58.399 --> 00:10:05.159
on several pictures, and the later
twenties saw him stepping behind the camera himself

100
00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:11.799
on several films. Now, this
era of film isn't my area of expertise,

101
00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:18.559
but clearly Florie was having some success
because the thirties and forties saw him

102
00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:24.840
cranking out picture after picture after picture, and he even had a brush with

103
00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:31.080
one of the most famous horror series
of all time when he shot a screen

104
00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:37.440
test with Bella Lagosi playing Frankenstein's monster
for the movie of the same name.

105
00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:41.480
Now, of course, the job
ended up going to Boris Karloff and James

106
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:48.039
Wall, but in another dimension,
I would have been very curious to see

107
00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:54.159
Florrie's version. But although he didn't
direct that movie for Universal, he did

108
00:10:54.240 --> 00:11:00.000
direct Maders in the Room Morgue for
them, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's

109
00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:05.840
work, which starred Bella Lagosi.
So Florie was a very prolific director of

110
00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:11.360
movies, and one of the other
notable credits on his resume was Tarzan and

111
00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:18.600
the Mermaids, starring not the fast
on screen Tarzan, but certainly the most

112
00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:26.240
famous Tarzan, Johnny Weismuller. But
nineteen fifty saw Florri transitions seemingly overnight from

113
00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:33.879
a hardworking movie director to a hard
working TV director, and he remained extremely

114
00:11:33.960 --> 00:11:41.200
prolific. He directed thirty eight episodes
of Four Star Theater, thirty three episode

115
00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:48.679
of Schlitz's Playhouse of Stars, and
many many other things. And here we

116
00:11:48.840 --> 00:11:54.120
actually see him directing the second to
last thing that was ever released with him

117
00:11:54.159 --> 00:12:01.279
as a director, because following this
he directed an episode of The Outer Limits

118
00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:05.960
called Moonstone, and then that was
that. Now I haven't seen that one,

119
00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:09.960
but it's not a bad way to
go out directing a couple of episodes

120
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:16.679
of two of the most famous science
fiction and fantasy anthologies of all time.

121
00:12:16.519 --> 00:12:22.200
So while flori retired from directing in
nineteen sixty four, he passed away in

122
00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:28.679
nineteen seventy nine, So I hope
those fifteen years in between were a happy

123
00:12:28.759 --> 00:12:35.840
retirement for this most prolific director.
So for your services to the Twilight Zone

124
00:12:35.320 --> 00:12:43.559
and movies and television in general,
Robert Florrie, we salute you. While

125
00:12:43.559 --> 00:12:46.639
we're in the realms of directing,
there is a very particular look about this

126
00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:52.399
episode that we will come back to, but face letters ponder for a moment.

127
00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:58.399
The opening, Rod Sailing's opening narration
begins straight away, but it's one

128
00:12:58.440 --> 00:13:03.200
of those narrations that doesn't finish in
one go. In fact, it's not

129
00:13:03.399 --> 00:13:09.200
until six minutes in that we see
Rod Sailing on screen to deliver the end

130
00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:16.840
of his narration, And during that
time we see Commander Stansfield laying down in

131
00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:22.559
that ship that will take him further
into space, further than anyone who's gone

132
00:13:22.639 --> 00:13:28.759
before. And then we get a
flashback to the conversation that Stansfield had with

133
00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:33.360
Dr Bixler, who delivered the news
to him about the mission that he was

134
00:13:33.399 --> 00:13:41.919
selected for. I like this assignment
very much as precisely why you were chosen.

135
00:13:43.279 --> 00:13:48.480
Of course, will be the usual
dangers, usual unknowns. In the

136
00:13:48.559 --> 00:13:52.279
past, you've had leading your showers
to contend with. You've had the usual

137
00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:56.519
calculated risk of mechanical difficulties, landing
difficulties, ejection travels, and the rest

138
00:13:56.519 --> 00:14:03.679
of it. Well, have those
compounded. We have another factor here,

139
00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:11.840
another problem. Distance distance. This
system is perhaps one hundred and forty one

140
00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:16.600
nine years away from us. That's
a rough estimate, but a good one.

141
00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:22.919
The ship will have interstellar dride and
an anti gravity device. It'll be

142
00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:28.519
the fastest man made object ever conceived
are brought to life. It'll go seventy

143
00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:33.440
times faster than the speed of light. But in terms of the space you

144
00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:39.399
must conquer, it'll be like an
ad crawling across as a horror. A

145
00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:46.039
short commander, your trip to these
planetary bodies and back to Earth will take

146
00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:52.360
approximately forty years. Now, this
shows us that Stansfield is a career man,

147
00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:56.159
a man who is accepted that missions
like this are going to be the

148
00:14:56.159 --> 00:15:01.960
main thrust of his life, and
that there's no thought to relationships or being

149
00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:07.840
linked to any other human beings in
any way beyond a professional one. This

150
00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.039
is a man who is accepted that
he will probably live the rest of his

151
00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:16.440
life alone. Now, when he
does learn how long he's going to be

152
00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:22.720
away for, he has naturally taken
aback, but he still takes the mission

153
00:15:22.399 --> 00:15:28.600
because that's who he is. His
duty comes first, and once he takes

154
00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:33.159
a job, he will keep it
and there's no one on earth who will

155
00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:37.840
tie him to it. So with
the mission locked down, we are then

156
00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:43.000
introduced to the third of our cast
of characters, Miss Sandra Horn, who

157
00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:48.639
is walking down the corridor in the
facility and drops some papers that she's carrying.

158
00:15:50.639 --> 00:15:54.559
And as we know from a million
movies and TV shows, there's no

159
00:15:54.679 --> 00:15:58.960
better way of meeting someone that you're
attracted to than either dropping a bunch of

160
00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:03.960
papers or helping someone pick them up. I don't believe we've met. Are

161
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:11.480
you permanently stationed here? I'm with
the Space Agency and your Stansfield commander you

162
00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:18.279
is him? Oh, you're the
one. I don't know whether I should

163
00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:22.840
thank you for that or report your
friends abordination. I've always wanted to meet

164
00:16:22.879 --> 00:16:26.159
you well, and I've always wanted
to meet you. Now, that's true.

165
00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:30.840
I have a ESP and I a
long time ago, I woke up

166
00:16:30.840 --> 00:16:33.960
early one morning and some inner voice
told me with some intensity that I would

167
00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:41.200
meet a girl with a stricken look
who would drop papers and corridors. And

168
00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:47.200
did your ESP tell you the name
Sandra Horn? So notice in this scene

169
00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:52.679
how when Florrie films Miss Horn,
he does it with a real soft focus

170
00:16:52.799 --> 00:17:00.320
to it, that classic Hollywood technique
to emphasize someone's beauty or to emphasize the

171
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:06.079
fact that someone else sees them as
beautiful. But it's especially obvious here because

172
00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:11.000
we're cutting between her in the soft
focus and Commander Stansfield, who is in

173
00:17:11.119 --> 00:17:17.039
sharp focus. And I think it
just gives that impression that she's having this

174
00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:22.319
kind of effect on him. So
it really helps to give that impression that

175
00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:26.319
he is becoming quite enamored with her. So while these two flirt in the

176
00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:33.200
corridor, lets meet the woman who
played Miss Horn. Sandra Horn is played

177
00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:40.240
by Marriott Hartley, and she was
born in nineteen forty in western Connecticut.

178
00:17:41.240 --> 00:17:47.039
Now, apparently her grandfather was a
behavioral psychologist who didn't believe the children should

179
00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:52.000
be cuddled or held, and she
later said that she compensated for this lack

180
00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:56.960
of warmth the home by joining the
theater. And it's in theater at the

181
00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:02.720
age of thirteen where she got or
her start, and while she was a

182
00:18:02.759 --> 00:18:07.240
student at Staples High School in Connecticut, she actually put a call into Rod

183
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:14.160
Sailing himself and asked him to come
and speak at her school, and Rod,

184
00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:18.319
being the man he was, agreed
to do it, and this interaction

185
00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:23.720
stayed in Rod Sailing's minds when he
cast her years later in The Long Moorrow.

186
00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:30.440
Now at this point we meet her
quite early in her screen career,

187
00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:36.400
having had a handful of roles from
nineteen sixty two onwards, so her star

188
00:18:36.599 --> 00:18:41.599
was still rising at this point.
In nineteen sixty nine, she had a

189
00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:45.880
part in an episode of Star Trek, playing Zara Beth in the third season

190
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:52.240
episode All Our Yesterdays. But to
be honest, that's just one of many

191
00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:56.200
many parts she has played over the
years, because she truly is a hard

192
00:18:56.200 --> 00:19:03.880
working actress for the ages, with
numerous parts throughout the sixties, seventies,

193
00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:08.119
and eighties right up to the present
day. But how is she in this?

194
00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:15.960
I think to believe that Stansfield could
fall in love with miss Horn.

195
00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:18.319
We also need to be able to
fall in love with her a little bit

196
00:19:18.359 --> 00:19:25.799
as well, and I think she
has this slightly bashful delight when she and

197
00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:32.680
Stansfield face meet and set up their
face date that is absolutely adorable. But

198
00:19:32.759 --> 00:19:37.839
when she goes on to do the
scenes later on where she is talking about

199
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:42.640
her love for Stansfield, I think
she's absolutely phenomenal. As we'll hear,

200
00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:49.960
some people have problems with I guess
the believability of this episode, But not

201
00:19:51.119 --> 00:19:57.960
for one moment do I ever not
believe Marriott Hartley's performance. It's beautiful and

202
00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:07.440
it's heartbreaking. I don't suppose that
the Space Agency could do without your services

203
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:11.000
for a couple of hours of evening, say just long enough for dinner.

204
00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:25.400
Well, despite the fact that I
am invaluable and the whole space program rests

205
00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:30.000
on me alone, I think a
two or three hour period could be carved

206
00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:36.319
out. I'm in the book,
Commander please phone, No, I won't

207
00:20:36.359 --> 00:20:40.759
call, I'll pick you up.
I'll be there today, Rivaderci, Lady

208
00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:48.720
from the Space Agency at eight o'clock
astronaut Aribaderci. Now, when we begin

209
00:20:48.839 --> 00:20:56.119
this episode, we see some scenes
of Commander Stansfield in what we season science

210
00:20:56.160 --> 00:21:02.640
fiction watches recognize us some kinds of
suspend the animation chamber, and there are

211
00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:07.839
scenes of a minace scattered throughout the
rest of the episode, and we recognize

212
00:21:07.880 --> 00:21:11.920
this because we've seen the Rip van
Winkle Aper, we've seen Planet of the

213
00:21:11.960 --> 00:21:17.759
Apes. But even at this point, suspended animation in some form or another

214
00:21:18.759 --> 00:21:23.960
was a recurring feature of science fiction
stories. In eighteen eighty seven, Edward

215
00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:30.240
Bellamy released Looking Backward, which used
drugs to put the protagonist into a prolonged

216
00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:36.599
sleep. H. G. Wells
wrote When the Sleep Awakes, where the

217
00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:41.799
main character falls into a sleep like
trance and wakes up in the future,

218
00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:48.240
and then in nineteen twenty eight,
Philip Francis Nolan wrote Armageddon twenty four nineteen

219
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:56.000
a d. Which introduced the character
of Book Rogers after a state of suspended

220
00:21:56.039 --> 00:22:02.079
animation. So these early works laid
the foundation for the use of suspended animation

221
00:22:02.200 --> 00:22:08.039
as a plot device, allowing characters
to travel through time or survive long journeys

222
00:22:08.440 --> 00:22:15.319
in countless science fiction narratives. So
it's important that the audience understands this.

223
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:19.759
It seems quite simple to us now
because we have seen it so often,

224
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:26.160
but of course, the Twilight Zone
needed to make sure. So it's explained

225
00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:33.200
very clearly to the audience what the
implications of Commander Stansfield's journey are. You

226
00:22:33.240 --> 00:22:37.160
are thirty one years old, Amanda. When your return from this trip,

227
00:22:37.759 --> 00:22:41.200
the Earth would have aged almost half
a century and something to contemplate. I'll

228
00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:45.720
be over seventy years old. I
would have lived the better part of my

229
00:22:45.799 --> 00:22:49.000
life out in space and alone.
You would have lived the better part of

230
00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:52.480
it, but you will not have
aged it. We intend to try something

231
00:22:52.559 --> 00:23:00.160
new, also a risk, also
decidedly calculated, freezing, an extension of

232
00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:04.920
it, but much more complicated.
It'll be a suspending animation and it's purest

233
00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:11.039
form. We develop a substance for
the limp point tissue of himinating animals,

234
00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:15.599
plus several vidum absorbents and a collection
of drugs the Earth and of age Commender.

235
00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:18.880
But you will not. You'll be
only a few weeks older when you're

236
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:23.400
in there. So that is our
situation. But let's not worry too much

237
00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:27.880
about that for now, because our
couple have a date to go on,

238
00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:33.400
and this is the make or break
point of the episode for a lot of

239
00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:40.240
people. Now, I don't look
up reviews or other people's opinions of episodes

240
00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:47.200
before I formulate my own thoughts here
on the podcast. But occasionally, when

241
00:23:47.240 --> 00:23:52.720
you're looking around the web for little
tidbits of information, you do absorb some

242
00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:56.599
of the comments and reviews that are
out there. And one of the criticisms

243
00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:02.799
that people have is that this is
on believable that these two don't know each

244
00:24:02.839 --> 00:24:07.200
other long enough to be in love
to this degree, to the point that

245
00:24:07.279 --> 00:24:11.079
by the end of their first date
they are already in love. And part

246
00:24:11.160 --> 00:24:18.559
of the Wikipedia entry reads like this, Speaking of Commander Stansfield, it says,

247
00:24:19.079 --> 00:24:25.920
shortly before his mission, he meets
and is enchanted by his young colleague

248
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:30.519
Sandra Horn. They meet that night, after only three and a half hours,

249
00:24:32.039 --> 00:24:36.599
they declare their love for each other
and lament the fact that when Stansfield

250
00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:41.839
returns, Sandra will be an old
woman. We'll come back to that in

251
00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:45.400
a moment, But I think it's
a shame that this is a stumbling block

252
00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:49.480
for some people, and I'll give
my take on that in a moment too.

253
00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:55.799
But it's something that wouldn't necessarily have
been an issue had there just been

254
00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:00.920
a slight tweak in the writing,
because when Commander Stansfield is first told of

255
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:07.480
his mission by Dr Bixler. There
is six months to go until that mission

256
00:25:07.519 --> 00:25:12.039
begins, but when he bumps into
Miss Horn in the corridor, five months

257
00:25:12.039 --> 00:25:18.519
have passed since that meeting with Bixler
and since he was given that assignment.

258
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:23.079
So maybe had they had this chance
meeting happen when he came out of the

259
00:25:23.119 --> 00:25:29.519
meeting with Doctor Bixler or soon after, then there would have been that whole

260
00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:34.920
six months before the mission in which
they could have formed their relationship, and

261
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:41.000
maybe that would have been a bit
more palatable for some people. But I

262
00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:45.200
think that there's other things to balance
here, because I don't think them having

263
00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:52.440
a longer relationship actually makes this more
believable for me. There needed to be

264
00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:59.000
an element of uncertainty about things.
The relationship needed to be something new enough

265
00:25:59.559 --> 00:26:04.759
that it wasn't something that Stansfield would
abandon the mission for, because even though

266
00:26:04.759 --> 00:26:10.160
their hearts were telling them that they
were right for each other, their heads

267
00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:14.640
would be telling them. But we've
only been together for a month, and

268
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:18.720
this mission has been in the works
for six months. That are numerous people

269
00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:26.119
relying on this mission. We can't
abandon it for something so new, even

270
00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:30.839
if we want to so. The
shortness of the relationship I think is actually

271
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:38.799
quite important because had Stansfield maybe been
married to Sandra already, they never would

272
00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:45.279
have given him that mission. Had
he gotten together with Miss Horn five months

273
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:49.079
earlier when he first got the mission, and they spent those five months blissfully

274
00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:53.799
fallen in love, at some point
during those five months, he might have

275
00:26:53.880 --> 00:26:57.559
said, well, I can't go
now because I don't want to leave you.

276
00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:03.960
But haven't the relationship be quite short? Puts this conflict within the characters.

277
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:08.880
Even though these two are so in
love with each other, they can't

278
00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:14.599
get past the logic of the situation. But we've only been together a month,

279
00:27:15.559 --> 00:27:18.960
so I don't actually feel that this
is unbelievable at all. Let's go

280
00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:26.240
back to that slightly snarky synopsis on
Wikipedia, where it says they meet that

281
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:30.319
night after only three and a half
hours, they declare their love for each

282
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:37.240
other and lament the fact that when
Stansfield returns, Sandra will be an old

283
00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:44.079
woman. So let's listen to what
is actually said. A month from now,

284
00:27:44.119 --> 00:27:49.640
you'll be off to space by the
time you come back down again.

285
00:27:56.279 --> 00:28:03.000
You want to talk about that now? Only for the following absurd reason.

286
00:28:06.319 --> 00:28:11.039
I've known you for exactly three and
a half hours. That's what it's been,

287
00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:19.480
three and a half hours, A
long dinner, a short dance,

288
00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:37.319
and already already already what samon already
I feel a sense of loss. So

289
00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:42.960
clearly the Wikipedia entry is wrong,
and I question what is so unbelievable about

290
00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:48.920
that. They don't actually say I
love you to each other. They are

291
00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:55.359
sharing a very tender moment, but
they don't say that. Sandra is verbializing

292
00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:59.440
that she's in a bit of a
state of disbelief herself. Have U known

293
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:03.880
her for such a short time.
She feels a sense of loss that he's

294
00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:08.680
going And if you look at Stansfield's
face, you can tell that he's troubled

295
00:29:10.279 --> 00:29:17.000
because he agrees what's happened here isn't
unbelievable to me at all. It's two

296
00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:21.880
people who have found a connection.
Now, we come across people who we

297
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:27.039
might find attractive in various ways all
the time, sometimes even to the point

298
00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:33.720
that we form relationships with them.
But then occasionally that are the people who

299
00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:40.559
are even more than nah because they
fit us in so many different ways.

300
00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:45.240
And that's going to be different for
different people. For me, it might

301
00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:49.400
be a woman who loves the Twilight
Zone, old horror movies and planners of

302
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:55.480
the Apes just as much as me. But there are also the intangible factors

303
00:29:55.519 --> 00:30:00.720
too that you can't explain. Sometimes
someone just fits you. And the point

304
00:30:00.759 --> 00:30:07.400
of this is that the characters have
to have a certain level of disbelief that

305
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:11.839
they're falling in love so fast as
well, because they can't believe who they've

306
00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:17.599
found. Now I don't need to
be privy to what has happened during their

307
00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:26.240
date, because the sincerity with which
Marriott Hartley delivers these lines is just achingly

308
00:30:26.359 --> 00:30:32.559
beautiful, and the troubled look on
Stansfield's face is feeding into what is one

309
00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:37.160
of the themes of this episode for
me, the battle between the head and

310
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:42.680
the heart. Specifically, fallen in
love with someone when maybe it isn't the

311
00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:48.599
most sensible thing to do. You
know that your future together is either highly

312
00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:56.079
improbable or impossible, But when you
are together, the moments are so perfect

313
00:30:56.240 --> 00:31:02.279
that you're just willing to bury your
head in the sand to enjoy them and

314
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:07.359
take every second of happiness that you
can, even when you know that it

315
00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:11.000
will make things all the more painful
in the future. So no, the

316
00:31:11.079 --> 00:31:15.759
length of time that these two know
each other for isn't a problem for me

317
00:31:15.799 --> 00:31:21.279
at all, because people take this
very short scene of them together on this

318
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:27.519
date as the entirety of their relationship
and then call it unbelievable and then ask

319
00:31:27.559 --> 00:31:32.200
the question why would they do what
they end up doing later on in the

320
00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:37.480
episode after just three and a half
hours. But the thing is, they

321
00:31:37.559 --> 00:31:41.519
don't. We see a glimpse of
their night, but they more than likely

322
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:47.119
end up spending the rest of that
night together. And it's a month until

323
00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:52.079
the mission, so they probably see
each other every day in that month too,

324
00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:57.480
And I personally feel that a month
is more than enough time to fall

325
00:31:57.559 --> 00:32:04.880
head over heels and completely in love
with someone. In fact, it's probably

326
00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:10.279
one of the most intense times in
a relationship overall. So I suppose I've

327
00:32:10.279 --> 00:32:15.000
made my point. But to cap
it off, I think the episode makes

328
00:32:15.039 --> 00:32:21.440
it very clear who Stansfield is.
He's a man who a few months ago

329
00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:27.240
was relishing the thought of going into
space on his own, a man for

330
00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:34.000
whom duty and career were paramount,
a man who had accepted that his life

331
00:32:34.599 --> 00:32:38.359
would be a life spent alone and
By the time Sandra Horn came into it,

332
00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:45.119
he had enough time to fall completely
in love with her. He had

333
00:32:45.160 --> 00:32:50.799
a whole month, but not enough
time to back out of the duties that

334
00:32:50.920 --> 00:32:54.079
he already had in his life.
Now I ever been space. It had

335
00:32:54.119 --> 00:32:59.000
been missions, projects and expeditions.
There had been no time for intrusions that

336
00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:02.680
took the form of all one's face, a voice, a short month,

337
00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:07.319
of a man and a woman drawing
together, becoming a part of one another,

338
00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:15.480
reaching tentatively into that strange and a
mysterious pond of love, and watching

339
00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:22.720
the ripples that came from it.
But now I think of these things.

340
00:33:23.079 --> 00:33:27.400
Now they come to mind. Now
in the darkness and the cold, the

341
00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:36.359
solitude, the stillness, the loneliness, Now there comes a feeling of warmth.

342
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:43.480
Sandy. Where are you now,
Sandy across the void? So while

343
00:33:43.559 --> 00:33:49.799
Stansfield prepares for his mission, let's
meet the man who played them. Commander

344
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:54.240
Douglas. Stansfield is played by Robert
Lansing and He was born in nineteen twenty

345
00:33:54.279 --> 00:33:59.880
eight in San Diego, California,
and from an early age he had show

346
00:34:00.039 --> 00:34:05.079
business in his blood. He played
the drums in various bands, but it

347
00:34:05.160 --> 00:34:09.119
was working on plays in high school
that gave him the acting Book, and

348
00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:14.400
after a couple of years of military
service, he headed for the Big Apple

349
00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:17.840
to try and make it as an
actor. But of course he then found

350
00:34:17.880 --> 00:34:24.960
himself as one of the many people
attending audition after audition to try and get

351
00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:30.800
parts and having to do jobs on
the side to make ends meet. And

352
00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:36.559
while he did have some success on
stage, it wasn't quite the kind of

353
00:34:36.639 --> 00:34:42.199
success that made him an established star
who could put food on the table full

354
00:34:42.280 --> 00:34:46.920
time from his profession. So he
made the decision to go to California to

355
00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:52.360
try and make it in the movies. So we meet Robert Lansing here.

356
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:58.039
After about a decade of working pretty
steadily in television, he did his time

357
00:34:58.079 --> 00:35:04.679
on anthology shows, One Step Beyond
and Craft Television theater, and while he

358
00:35:04.719 --> 00:35:08.960
did have parts in movies, it
seems that he wasn't destined for ongoing big

359
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:15.719
screen success, but instead carried on
playing his trade in television for many decades,

360
00:35:16.519 --> 00:35:22.199
and nineteen sixty eight Sore and play
the scene stealing part of Gary seven

361
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:30.840
in the Star Trek episode Assignment Earth, a fan favorite character who has subsequently

362
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:36.599
been revisited time after time in other
Star Trek spin off media, and his

363
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:42.599
career carried on until the nineties,
with parts in shows like The Equalizer and

364
00:35:42.679 --> 00:35:47.119
Kung Fu. The legend continues,
But how is he in this? I

365
00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:54.199
think where Lancing excels in this for
me are those occasional moments where we see

366
00:35:54.239 --> 00:36:02.840
how troubled he is by the situation. Hartly delivers her lines beautifully to him,

367
00:36:04.119 --> 00:36:09.280
and it's his reactions to them that
captivate me the most. When Stansfield

368
00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:15.280
first meets Miss Horn, it's a
lovely meeting, but then when she walks

369
00:36:15.280 --> 00:36:22.039
away, the smile gradually leaves his
face as he realizes that however well this

370
00:36:22.199 --> 00:36:27.440
date goes, it can't go anywhere. Then later on, when they have

371
00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:31.440
their date and she's looking up at
them with such affection in her eyes,

372
00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:38.599
his eyes are troubled again because he
knows that he has found something beautiful that

373
00:36:38.719 --> 00:36:44.920
he can't keep. And then watch
them as he says goodbye to Miss Horn

374
00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:50.039
later on, and the movement in
his neck and the lower part of his

375
00:36:50.159 --> 00:36:57.360
face perfectly mimicking the movements of someone
trying not to cry. When it comes

376
00:36:57.440 --> 00:37:02.559
time for Commander Stansfield to go,
we come to the scene that they and

377
00:37:02.760 --> 00:37:08.559
we have been dreading, and it's
one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking scenes

378
00:37:08.599 --> 00:37:15.440
that Rod Sailing has ever written.
A scene that understands that when some people

379
00:37:15.559 --> 00:37:20.840
come into our lives, they bring
the color to it that maybe we didn't

380
00:37:20.920 --> 00:37:24.960
know was missing, and when they're
gone, the world seems to be a

381
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:30.239
gray and dull place that will never
be the same again. I couldn't let

382
00:37:30.239 --> 00:37:39.639
you leave, Doug, not without
saying goodbye, not without telling you I

383
00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:49.440
I loved you very much, and
I shall sorely miss you, and that

384
00:37:49.519 --> 00:37:59.719
my life, whatever there is left
of it, shall be a strangely meaningless,

385
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:10.159
dull and empty thing without you to
share it. It's very odd things

386
00:38:10.199 --> 00:38:15.079
Sunday when I get back, when
I touch this earth again, I know

387
00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:21.039
the first thing I'll have. I
know the first thing that I wanna see.

388
00:38:21.199 --> 00:38:36.559
I know the first thing that I
want to touch. I'll be the

389
00:38:36.559 --> 00:38:45.079
little old lady in the lace shawl, the one waving the welcome home side.

390
00:38:46.639 --> 00:39:00.760
So look for me, will you, Doug. When Sanjo walks away,

391
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:05.920
we are given the view of the
set that we've seen so often in

392
00:39:05.960 --> 00:39:12.199
this episode. The corridor and the
sets in the episode are very sparse.

393
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:17.639
Even the office that Stansfield speaks to
the doctor in doesn't even have any comfortable

394
00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:22.039
chairs in it. Now, it
might be that at this time it would

395
00:39:22.039 --> 00:39:28.840
have been costantly to build a science
fiction set with screens and blinking lights,

396
00:39:29.639 --> 00:39:35.320
so they decided to go for something
more stripped back and sparse. But if

397
00:39:35.360 --> 00:39:39.239
that's the case, I personally believe
that this is actually very helpful to the

398
00:39:39.320 --> 00:39:45.079
episode. It has more of an
impressionistic feel to it, similar to something

399
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:51.760
like the courtroom in shadow Play or
the sets in The Obsolete Man. But

400
00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:58.599
more than that, the fact that
Miss Horn and Commander Stansfield's interactions mainly take

401
00:39:58.679 --> 00:40:05.960
place in this corridor, I feel
is a perfect representation of life itself and

402
00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:10.199
the way that we meet people.
We're all walking down our own corridors,

403
00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:17.400
and sometimes we will meet people along
the way. Sometimes they will end up

404
00:40:17.599 --> 00:40:23.280
walking with us for a while,
even for the rest of our journey.

405
00:40:23.320 --> 00:40:30.880
But sometimes we will pass each other
by because we're going in different directions,

406
00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:38.320
and sometimes we will wish that someone
could keep walking in our direction, but

407
00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:44.519
they don't. So now that Stansfield
is in space, we see him in

408
00:40:44.519 --> 00:40:50.519
a suspended animation chamber, but Obviously, at the end we learn that he

409
00:40:50.599 --> 00:40:54.800
won't remain there, but at this
time we don't quite know that yet.

410
00:40:55.559 --> 00:41:02.320
They're saving that revelation for the twist. But strangely, that wasn't always going

411
00:41:02.360 --> 00:41:07.679
to be the case. And in
Unlocking the Door to a television Classic,

412
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:13.519
Martin Graham's Junior describes a scene that
was in the first draft of the script

413
00:41:14.119 --> 00:41:19.440
but didn't make it to the second
draft. So obviously, Rod Sailing also

414
00:41:19.559 --> 00:41:23.920
thought it was important to hold back
some of these details until the end,

415
00:41:24.960 --> 00:41:37.239
But if the scene had made it, it would have went something like this.

416
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:43.840
This is a pre recorded time check
and periodic duty reminder. Repeat.

417
00:41:44.079 --> 00:41:49.840
This is a periodic time check and
duty reminder. You have been in space

418
00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:54.519
for exactly one month, eleven days, thirteen hours, twenty two minutes.

419
00:41:55.440 --> 00:42:00.440
This is one of one hundred and
thirty one interval moments when, of course,

420
00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:24.679
speed, temperature must all be manually
checked. HM. Okay. If

421
00:42:24.719 --> 00:42:29.440
you return to your pod, the
closing of the lid will automatically put you

422
00:42:29.480 --> 00:42:34.719
back into suspension. Repeat. If
you return to your pod, the closing

423
00:42:34.760 --> 00:42:40.760
of the lid will automatically put you
back into suspension. This is sola to

424
00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:55.840
probe calling gas who commanded bract You're
not going to You're obviously hearing me,

425
00:42:55.960 --> 00:43:00.840
but I'm too far away to receive
you. I'll make an assumption that I'm

426
00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:07.599
coming through clearly enough to be understood. The following information should be relayed to

427
00:43:07.639 --> 00:43:16.559
my base and to doctor Bixler,
in charge of our project. I'm I'm

428
00:43:16.639 --> 00:43:22.760
not going back into the receptacle.
I'm going to I'm going to try and

429
00:43:22.800 --> 00:43:29.280
stay alive and awake. I've got
food stores here on the ship, the

430
00:43:29.320 --> 00:43:34.440
ones that were put here in case
my freezing compartment broke down. I'll keep

431
00:43:34.440 --> 00:43:37.760
making my checks until I reach my
destination and on the way back, but

432
00:43:37.840 --> 00:43:51.039
I'm not going back in that chamber. In fact, h I'll sleep eight

433
00:43:51.079 --> 00:43:55.679
hours at a time, thank you, eight hours at a time. And

434
00:43:55.800 --> 00:44:01.159
if I age, I age,
and if I starve, I starve,

435
00:44:04.199 --> 00:44:10.760
and if I die of loneliness,
so beer, so beer, Sandy,

436
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:17.559
my dear, if you're the old
woman in the lace shawl, I'll be

437
00:44:17.639 --> 00:44:24.639
the old man in the worn spacesuit. God willing, I'll be the old

438
00:44:24.719 --> 00:44:32.840
man. Now. I personally feel
that Rod Sailing made the right choice taking

439
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:38.639
this scene out of the script because
it does telegraph the ending maybe a little

440
00:44:38.639 --> 00:44:45.239
bit too much, but as Martin
Graham's junior does mention, at the least

441
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:51.599
it explains why Stansfield was out of
the animation pot, because in the version

442
00:44:51.679 --> 00:44:55.360
we do get, there's no real
explanation for that. If you go into

443
00:44:55.400 --> 00:45:00.960
suspended animation, then you're in suspended
animation. And when would you be able

444
00:45:01.440 --> 00:45:06.639
to make that decision to leave?
In general? Wahlers Space contact, Sir,

445
00:45:06.760 --> 00:45:09.480
A cross spurling in. All right, let's hear the report. An

446
00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:15.360
expedition called Stansfield's Mount Everest matted by
a Douglas Stansfield. What was the date

447
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:19.199
of departure? This one's one of
the old jobs, sir. Departure of

448
00:45:19.239 --> 00:45:22.679
December thirty first, nineteen eighty seven. Oh, just putting it mildly.

449
00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:28.920
Well, check it out in your
report. Let me know, this one's

450
00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:34.000
one of the pioneers in a space
forty years. This voice communication we've had

451
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:38.000
been tracked on radar. This communications
must have malfunctioned a few hours after you

452
00:45:38.079 --> 00:45:45.559
left the atmosphere. Here's a funny
one, how's that, sir? Well,

453
00:45:45.559 --> 00:45:50.679
there's an insertion from a man named
Bixler. He was one of the

454
00:45:50.719 --> 00:45:53.760
project people years and years ago.
So I recall him, says, where

455
00:45:53.760 --> 00:46:02.880
to contact a girl named Sandra Horne? Who Miss Sandra Horn a friend of

456
00:46:04.280 --> 00:46:07.320
Maunder Stancefield. Where would we find
her, sir, old ladies home.

457
00:46:09.199 --> 00:46:15.400
Now you'll find her in a hibernation
room. You'll find her a young woman

458
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:22.639
of twenty six years of age.
I hope you'll find her alive. So

459
00:46:22.760 --> 00:46:30.239
now the episode brings us to several
heartbreaking revelations. We learn that Stansfield's mission

460
00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:37.039
became obsolete while he was on it. In the meantime, technology has advanced

461
00:46:37.039 --> 00:46:44.480
to the point that any discoveries that
his mission made have already been made.

462
00:46:44.559 --> 00:46:49.119
And we also learn that miss Horn
is not the little old lady in the

463
00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:55.360
shawl that we expected. She has
spent this time in suspended Animation two so

464
00:46:55.400 --> 00:47:00.800
that she could be the same age
that she was when stance left. But

465
00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:07.320
unfortunately, the communications on the ship
were out, and just as Stancefield couldn't

466
00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:14.400
tell anyone he was out of suspended
animation, nobody could tell him that Miss

467
00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:20.280
Horn was in it. So while
she is still young, Stancefield is now

468
00:47:20.320 --> 00:47:24.400
an old man. And Robert Florrie
gives us a moment of true suspense,

469
00:47:25.559 --> 00:47:31.599
making the most of that corridor set
and Mary att Hartley's exceptional acting. We

470
00:47:31.719 --> 00:47:38.360
see Mary at Hartley trying to contain
a shock at what she sees, and

471
00:47:38.440 --> 00:47:45.119
what we see is one of the
most heartbreaking scenes in the Twilight Zone.

472
00:47:45.440 --> 00:47:54.760
I've spent I've spent forty here was
remembering him, Sandy, pinning a picture

473
00:47:54.800 --> 00:48:05.800
and said, may him listening to
your voice, thinking about your touch.

474
00:48:10.079 --> 00:48:22.280
I'm spent forty years surviving for you, Sandy. Oh it can still be

475
00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:35.079
that way where you are. The
way I am doesn't make any difference.

476
00:48:36.079 --> 00:48:39.760
Oh yeah, it makes a difference, Sanday, it's forty years difference.

477
00:48:39.800 --> 00:48:54.719
It's too much difference. You're still
beautiful, very beautiful. Well you go

478
00:48:55.119 --> 00:49:15.960
away, Oh Sandy, please go. Mark Zickre in the Twilight Zone Companion

479
00:49:15.119 --> 00:49:22.199
says, although the Long Morrow has
quite a memorable payoff, the episode also

480
00:49:22.360 --> 00:49:29.119
has its share of problems. Robert
Lancing and Marriott Hartley portray their characters with

481
00:49:29.280 --> 00:49:35.559
sincerity, but the lines they are
forced to speak are often uncomfortably PayPal.

482
00:49:36.599 --> 00:49:42.400
Additionally, the age makeup applied to
Lancing, crucial to the plausibility of the

483
00:49:42.559 --> 00:49:49.920
ending, is embarrassingly bad. I
disagree with Mark zickre on all these counts.

484
00:49:50.039 --> 00:49:53.519
I think the makeup is actually pretty
effective, one of the better age

485
00:49:53.559 --> 00:50:00.440
makeups in the show. No Mark
cause the dialogue uncomfortably pair or so.

486
00:50:00.639 --> 00:50:07.239
He's referring to paurple prose being overwritten, and again I couldn't disagree with that

487
00:50:07.400 --> 00:50:13.119
more either. I very much value
the Twilight's Own Companion, but it was

488
00:50:13.199 --> 00:50:17.760
written by a very young man,
and while I don't want to suppose anything

489
00:50:17.840 --> 00:50:23.559
about his life, I do wonder
whether he'd experience this kind of loss yet,

490
00:50:24.280 --> 00:50:30.480
because if he had, these words
wouldn't seem overwritten at all. Breakups

491
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:37.840
are hard and painful, but there
is a certain unique pain reserved for those

492
00:50:37.880 --> 00:50:43.760
who can't stay together, not because
they don't want to, but because something

493
00:50:43.880 --> 00:50:51.320
stops them from doing so. Rod
Sailing uses the age difference between Commander Stansfield

494
00:50:51.320 --> 00:50:55.280
and Miss Horn in the story,
but really this is a space age allegory

495
00:50:57.199 --> 00:51:01.719
for whatever that thing is. The
key two people who love each other apart,

496
00:51:04.079 --> 00:51:10.519
whether it's distance, age, fear, uncertainty, or any of a

497
00:51:10.639 --> 00:51:17.239
number of other things, this episode
is talking about one of them and all

498
00:51:17.280 --> 00:51:23.960
of them, but also the love
of a person for another who cannot live

499
00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:30.280
with the sacrifices that that other person
would make for them, even though they

500
00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:37.679
make those sacrifices of their own free
will. I cannot think of a Twilight

501
00:51:37.760 --> 00:51:43.480
Zone at this moment that has such
a deep emotional resonance as this one.

502
00:51:43.760 --> 00:51:49.880
This one shatters me. When The
Twilight Zone was turned into a stage play

503
00:51:49.880 --> 00:51:54.719
in London, this was one of
the stories that was adapted and it was

504
00:51:54.800 --> 00:52:02.079
played as part of a tapestry of
tales together so that we would get glimpses

505
00:52:02.119 --> 00:52:08.760
of it throughout the play as it
advanced a scene here, a moment there.

506
00:52:09.719 --> 00:52:15.159
And it was played with much fewer
words than this because it didn't need

507
00:52:15.159 --> 00:52:20.599
the words. It played like a
piece of music. It was the ballad

508
00:52:20.840 --> 00:52:25.239
of the woman who would wait forever
and a man who would go to the

509
00:52:25.239 --> 00:52:31.519
galaxy's edge and back with only one
wishing as heart to be able to say

510
00:52:32.719 --> 00:52:38.639
I love you, miss Horn and
I miss you every second. And while

511
00:52:38.679 --> 00:52:44.440
this episode might not work for some
people, I think the ones it does

512
00:52:44.519 --> 00:52:49.760
work for might have found that they
will have been one or the other in

513
00:52:49.800 --> 00:52:55.119
this situation. People who have had
to walk away down that corridor or be

514
00:52:55.239 --> 00:53:00.280
the one to watch someone walk away. And if that is the case,

515
00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:07.159
then my sincere wish for you is
that I hope this isn't the end,

516
00:53:07.199 --> 00:53:12.440
and I hope that maybe something can
be salvaged. But if it can't be

517
00:53:12.559 --> 00:53:19.000
salvaged, then I hope that one
day the memories you bury now because they're

518
00:53:19.039 --> 00:53:24.559
too painful to recall will become less
painful and that you can once again look

519
00:53:24.599 --> 00:53:30.880
back on them with fondness. And
I hope that the gifts that were chosen

520
00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:36.000
for you by someone who couldn't wait
to see the smile on your face as

521
00:53:36.039 --> 00:53:43.320
you open them can be brought out
again and enjoyed and held as they would

522
00:53:43.400 --> 00:53:47.760
want them to be. And the
souvenirs of the perfect moments that you did

523
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:54.079
spend together, the ticket stubs from
that fierce movie that you saw, or

524
00:53:54.159 --> 00:54:01.199
the single leaf of ivy picked up
from the forest floor during the best trip

525
00:54:01.239 --> 00:54:06.880
that you ever took in your life
because you always wanted to remember it.

526
00:54:07.199 --> 00:54:13.880
Maybe these can be looked upon too, as a reminder that sometimes beautiful things

527
00:54:13.960 --> 00:54:20.360
don't last forever in the real world, but maybe in our hearts and minds

528
00:54:20.400 --> 00:54:28.840
they can, or maybe in another
dimension. So this is top tier Twilight

529
00:54:28.960 --> 00:54:34.239
Zone for me and proof to even
at this point when some say that the

530
00:54:34.280 --> 00:54:39.280
show was on the wane, Rod
Sailing could still pull a classic out of

531
00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:45.079
his pocket. This is not an
episode with the Twilight Zone set out to

532
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:52.119
punish someone, because nobody deserves the
unhappiness that we see here. But it's

533
00:54:52.159 --> 00:54:59.400
an episode that has us bear witness
to one of the sad, unfair realities

534
00:54:59.440 --> 00:55:07.360
of life, that taps into the
experiences of people all over and shows that

535
00:55:07.480 --> 00:55:15.280
sometimes the exact right person is out
there for you, but just not necessarily

536
00:55:15.079 --> 00:55:22.239
in the right place at the right
time. And it's an episode that also

537
00:55:22.360 --> 00:55:30.320
understands the heartbreaking truth that the only
thing more lonely than being alone is being

538
00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:37.079
alone and knowing that the person you
love and who loved you is still out

539
00:55:37.119 --> 00:55:49.519
there in the world, but you
can't be with them. Commander Douglas Stansfield

540
00:55:50.360 --> 00:55:54.079
one of the forgotten pioneers of the
Space Age. He's been pushed aside by

541
00:55:54.119 --> 00:55:59.760
the flow of progress and the passage
of yours and the ferocious travesty of faith.

542
00:56:00.559 --> 00:56:07.679
Tonight's Tale of the Ionosphere and Irony
delivered from the Twilight On. Hello

543
00:56:07.719 --> 00:56:15.400
everyone, this is future Tom interrupting
the podcast for a moment, because sometimes

544
00:56:16.599 --> 00:56:22.599
I go through these episodes and I
come to terms with my own thoughts on

545
00:56:22.679 --> 00:56:28.239
it. And this is an episode
where you know, when you listen to

546
00:56:28.320 --> 00:56:31.079
the people from the After Hours Club
in a moment, you know they've got

547
00:56:31.119 --> 00:56:37.320
some great thoughts and takes on it, and you know, discussions on how

548
00:56:37.360 --> 00:56:42.559
it works for them or it doesn't
work for them. But sometimes I will

549
00:56:43.480 --> 00:56:47.679
spend a lot of time on the
episode and then it's only later on that

550
00:56:47.760 --> 00:56:52.280
you start to think some more about
it, and other things come into your

551
00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:55.559
mind and you think, I really
wish you'd have said that. So I

552
00:56:55.599 --> 00:57:00.639
thought I would take this opportunity while
I'm kind of doing the re edits on

553
00:57:00.719 --> 00:57:05.119
it, because over in the After
Hours Club, I do a kind of

554
00:57:05.239 --> 00:57:09.079
rough cut that I put out to
the board of directors over there, which

555
00:57:09.159 --> 00:57:14.000
I put out of them about a
week ago, and then if there's anything

556
00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:15.719
that I want to trim down for
the main show, then I do it.

557
00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:21.280
Or I was just thinking about this
one, because this one does give

558
00:57:21.360 --> 00:57:27.800
me a lot of thought, and
I suppose I do think there is this

559
00:57:27.920 --> 00:57:36.119
theme there of meeting the right person
at the wrong time, which is absolutely

560
00:57:36.159 --> 00:57:42.679
tragic in real life and in terms
of the episode. But I think there's

561
00:57:42.719 --> 00:57:50.480
a detail here in the episode as
well, where Stansfield's discoveries it turns out

562
00:57:50.559 --> 00:57:55.320
there they were all for nothing anyway, And I don't think maybe I focused

563
00:57:55.320 --> 00:58:00.760
on that when I was formulating my
thoughts on this one, because it is

564
00:58:00.840 --> 00:58:07.400
potentially quite an important detail. Because
while I do maintain that it's not the

565
00:58:07.480 --> 00:58:14.000
Twilight, don't punishing anyone, maybe
it is a bit more of a cautionary

566
00:58:14.119 --> 00:58:22.280
tale than I first thought, because
what it's really telling us is that Stansfield

567
00:58:22.400 --> 00:58:25.159
had a chance for happiness, He
had a chance to spend the rest of

568
00:58:25.159 --> 00:58:31.639
his life with the woman that he
loved, but he had this duty.

569
00:58:32.079 --> 00:58:37.719
He had this duty to the you
know, the Space Agency or whatever it

570
00:58:37.840 --> 00:58:43.880
is, to go on this mission, and ultimately that mission turned out to

571
00:58:43.880 --> 00:58:49.000
be pointless, you know. So
perhaps what it's also telling us is that

572
00:58:50.559 --> 00:58:54.000
we can always think of reasons not
to do something, or not to be

573
00:58:54.159 --> 00:59:02.280
with someone, or put duty number
of things, putting our head above our

574
00:59:02.360 --> 00:59:10.079
heart. But ultimately, where did
that get Commander Stansfield. It just left

575
00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:20.360
him as an old man alone because
he put his duties above everything else.

576
00:59:21.440 --> 00:59:24.679
Now, obviously I think it's perfectly
valid what I did say, you know,

577
00:59:24.760 --> 00:59:30.679
this indecision about well, we've only
known each other a month, can

578
00:59:30.679 --> 00:59:35.000
we really? Can I really just
you know, not go on this mission

579
00:59:35.320 --> 00:59:39.239
because of something so new, and
that's that's always going to be the battle.

580
00:59:40.079 --> 00:59:46.239
But I think then, ultimately,
where did putting his duty over the

581
00:59:46.320 --> 00:59:52.519
potential for love leave and just a
sad and lonely old man. So so

582
00:59:52.639 --> 00:59:55.639
you know, maybe that's what Rod
was trying to tell us as well,

583
00:59:55.719 --> 01:00:02.440
that just think very carefully about what
your priorities actually are and is it worth

584
01:00:02.519 --> 01:00:09.760
sacrificing your happiness for them? Okay, just some ponderings, you know.

585
01:00:10.639 --> 01:00:14.360
I think there's a lot of this
episode, a lot to think about.

586
01:00:15.039 --> 01:00:19.519
But I will hand you back over
to past Tom and I will catch you

587
01:00:19.599 --> 01:00:24.039
soon. My thanks to my good
friend Brandy Jakala for stepping in at the

588
01:00:24.079 --> 01:00:30.559
last moment to do the voice in
that little recreation that we did. Thank

589
01:00:30.599 --> 01:00:36.800
you, Brandy. So that is
the long Morrow, And as we know,

590
01:00:37.159 --> 01:00:43.519
I go over to my friends at
the After Hours Club to gauge what

591
01:00:43.559 --> 01:00:50.079
their thoughts are about every episode that
we talk about here on the podcast and

592
01:00:50.159 --> 01:00:53.119
with the long Morrow. When I
asked them whether it was top tier,

593
01:00:53.239 --> 01:01:00.480
middle tier, or bottom tier,
the results were that fifteen percent said it

594
01:01:00.559 --> 01:01:06.519
was bottom tier, seventy percent said
it was middle tier, and fifteen percent

595
01:01:06.639 --> 01:01:13.519
said it was top tier. So
I guess a very kind of middling vote

596
01:01:13.559 --> 01:01:17.159
on that one. So let's hear
what people have got to say about here.

597
01:01:19.039 --> 01:01:23.679
My good friend uncommon NASA said upper
upper mid tier. I guess we're

598
01:01:23.679 --> 01:01:30.159
getting pretty fancy with the tears here, he said, maybe even lower top

599
01:01:30.199 --> 01:01:32.960
tier. This is a hidden gem. I just wish they could have gotten

600
01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:38.480
out of The hallway. Set was
limiting, but the dialogue, concept and

601
01:01:38.639 --> 01:01:44.760
surprisingly the makeup were all top notch. It's been a while since I've seen

602
01:01:44.800 --> 01:01:49.679
this one and need to dig it
up. Thank you, NASA. My

603
01:01:49.760 --> 01:01:54.280
friend Jason Schwartz from the Twilight Zone
Sandbox says this is not a favorite of

604
01:01:54.320 --> 01:01:59.800
mine. It's a lower tier for
me. He makes this assumption that she

605
01:01:59.880 --> 01:02:04.679
is just going to fall apart without
him and become a cat lady or an

606
01:02:04.679 --> 01:02:07.599
old maid. He's like, I'll
become old and we can be together,

607
01:02:07.679 --> 01:02:13.639
because there's no way she'll have married
or moved on or have a life apart

608
01:02:13.639 --> 01:02:17.159
from longing for me for forty years. The end of this episode should be

609
01:02:17.199 --> 01:02:22.360
a warning for couples that communication is
the key to a relationship because you don't

610
01:02:22.360 --> 01:02:27.199
want to end up like these two. I do like the acting and the

611
01:02:27.239 --> 01:02:30.559
feel of the episode, it's just
a nonsensical twist that kills the whole thing

612
01:02:30.599 --> 01:02:35.239
for me. Thank you, Jason. Well, obviously I'm going to disagree

613
01:02:35.280 --> 01:02:37.760
with you on that one, but
that's fine. That's the way it goes

614
01:02:37.800 --> 01:02:43.320
sometimes, but thank you for your
thoughts. Tim Stratford says one of the

615
01:02:43.320 --> 01:02:50.119
better season five entries. Mariette Hartley
and Robert Lansing give amazing performances and the

616
01:02:50.239 --> 01:02:54.880
ending can bring you to tears,
possibly the most romantic twilight Zone that Rod

617
01:02:54.960 --> 01:03:00.880
wrote. An episode worth coming back
to every so often. Thank you,

618
01:03:00.960 --> 01:03:05.519
Tim, And I think it is
every so often because you know, if

619
01:03:06.039 --> 01:03:09.519
if it does work for you,
then it kind of hits you right in

620
01:03:09.599 --> 01:03:15.079
the heart. So it is kind
of a hard one to watch. Our

621
01:03:15.119 --> 01:03:20.320
friend Jordan Dallak says, it's nice
to have another sweet or rather bittersweet episode,

622
01:03:20.840 --> 01:03:23.599
but I have some difficulty with the
over the top, well wind romance

623
01:03:23.639 --> 01:03:29.239
aspect of it. What it reminds
me of is any number of pulp sci

624
01:03:29.239 --> 01:03:32.800
fi comics of the fifties. As
nice as it is, I don't have

625
01:03:32.920 --> 01:03:38.800
much interest in retaining to it,
Thank you, Jordan. I mean,

626
01:03:39.280 --> 01:03:45.840
I guess I explained my thoughts on
the well Wind romance aspect of it myself.

627
01:03:45.960 --> 01:03:50.880
I think a month is, you
know, more than enough to kind

628
01:03:50.920 --> 01:03:55.360
of get really deep feelings for someone
and fall in love with someone, And

629
01:03:55.880 --> 01:04:00.840
like I said, I kind of
feel that's when romances can be at their

630
01:04:00.880 --> 01:04:06.599
most intense. But also I kind
of feel that I've said in the past,

631
01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:15.320
I don't need a twilight zone to
be completely real world real all the

632
01:04:15.440 --> 01:04:21.280
time, because I feel that sometimes
it is presented to us like a fable,

633
01:04:23.320 --> 01:04:30.039
you know, where certain things are
idealized or simplified in order to tell

634
01:04:30.119 --> 01:04:33.800
us this fable. So on the
one hand, I don't really have a

635
01:04:33.840 --> 01:04:40.400
problem with the timescales involved, But
on the other hand, if it was

636
01:04:40.440 --> 01:04:45.039
a question for me, I think
that would be kind of quelled by the

637
01:04:45.079 --> 01:04:49.320
fact I do see it in this
kind of fable like way, and I

638
01:04:49.400 --> 01:04:56.440
think the sets and everything, the
way it's performed like a play in this

639
01:04:56.599 --> 01:05:03.599
kind of corridor where people are walking
to or from each other, as you

640
01:05:03.599 --> 01:05:06.199
know, like I say, it
could just be okay, we need a

641
01:05:06.320 --> 01:05:13.400
cheap set. But whether it's by
accident or design, this whole aspect of

642
01:05:14.159 --> 01:05:18.119
we're all walking our own corridors and
you know, we're passing each other or

643
01:05:18.159 --> 01:05:21.840
walking with each other, and just
how long are we walking with each other?

644
01:05:21.920 --> 01:05:29.079
For I think that's the thing.
For me, it sort of transcends

645
01:05:29.280 --> 01:05:33.920
just a kind of real situation or
I guess everyone's mileage on that is different.

646
01:05:34.039 --> 01:05:38.719
So thank you, Jordan, appreciate
it man. Okay, our old

647
01:05:38.719 --> 01:05:43.920
friend Kelly and molloy says the episode
stab At Romance is undone by the utterly

648
01:05:44.079 --> 01:05:48.679
unbelievable premise, with no supernatural shadings
to carry the viewer through the task of

649
01:05:48.719 --> 01:05:54.719
trying to ignore the show's absurdities.
At least, passage of a Lady Anne

650
01:05:55.159 --> 01:05:59.639
offered the hint that the ship itself
was a magical love boat that inspired love

651
01:05:59.840 --> 01:06:04.079
to couples. If you want romance
in the Twilight Zone, set sail to

652
01:06:04.159 --> 01:06:10.519
that season four episode instead. Well, I mean, I won't keep flogging

653
01:06:10.519 --> 01:06:14.800
a dead horse. Obviously I disagree
on that one killing, but thank you.

654
01:06:14.800 --> 01:06:17.280
You know, I'm sorry, this
one didn't work for you. Our

655
01:06:17.320 --> 01:06:21.440
friend Joe Mayer says, in today's
world, a climate where an act of

656
01:06:21.559 --> 01:06:28.280
kindness is often mistaken for a miracle, seeing a person who loves someone else

657
01:06:28.440 --> 01:06:33.719
enough to think only of that person's
continuing happiness is a theme that I simply

658
01:06:33.760 --> 01:06:41.239
cannot grow tired of. There are
microcosmic moments throughout our days when we can

659
01:06:41.320 --> 01:06:46.000
implement such a sacrifice for the happiness
of another, and it certainly does not

660
01:06:46.159 --> 01:06:50.480
need to be a romantic love.
It can simply be the love of our

661
01:06:50.519 --> 01:06:57.840
fellow man. This episode stands as
a wonderful little reminder of how love can

662
01:06:57.880 --> 01:07:04.440
often be interpreted as the willing expression
of sacrifice for the greater good of another.

663
01:07:05.880 --> 01:07:09.840
I think you've put that beautifully,
Joe, and it's something that I

664
01:07:09.920 --> 01:07:15.920
definitely agree with. One of the
many kind of underlying aspects of it is

665
01:07:16.280 --> 01:07:24.480
not only what you can sacrifice,
but how much you can live with yourself

666
01:07:24.599 --> 01:07:30.880
for what someone else is willing to
sacrifice for you. And the fact that

667
01:07:30.960 --> 01:07:39.199
Stansfield knew he was an old man
and only had so many years in front

668
01:07:39.239 --> 01:07:44.079
of him, and miss Horne was, you know, so young and beautiful

669
01:07:45.039 --> 01:07:49.119
with a whole life ahead of her. That's that's a lot to live with,

670
01:07:49.320 --> 01:07:55.760
even though it was something that she
said she would give willingly. So

671
01:07:56.079 --> 01:07:59.719
yeah, there's there's a few kind
of themes to this one, and I

672
01:07:59.760 --> 01:08:02.840
think that is one of them.
Thank you, Joe, that's some good

673
01:08:02.880 --> 01:08:10.480
stuff. My friend d Al Shardsman
says, Rod's Romeo and Juliet instead of

674
01:08:10.519 --> 01:08:15.880
warring families, you have the cold
equations of space and time. Breaks my

675
01:08:15.960 --> 01:08:19.760
heart every time I view it.
Top tier breaks mine too. I'll thank

676
01:08:19.840 --> 01:08:28.399
you. Our friend Cerebral p says
definitely top meddle tier lancing performance is stoic

677
01:08:28.560 --> 01:08:33.840
and tragic, despite the abundance of
stage makeup. I found the disjointed timeline

678
01:08:33.840 --> 01:08:40.479
of the story only added to its
inevitability, but never seemed to suggest the

679
01:08:40.560 --> 01:08:46.600
twist. Perhaps the reveal of Hartley's
encapsulation revealed the twist too early, but

680
01:08:46.720 --> 01:08:53.720
the tragedy of it all overcame any
premonition. I have always seen this episode

681
01:08:53.840 --> 01:09:00.279
as Sailing's interpretation of the gift of
the Magi. Beautifully acted. Always gets

682
01:09:00.319 --> 01:09:04.840
me in the fields. Me too, man, me too. Our old

683
01:09:04.880 --> 01:09:11.720
friend Josh Chambers says, while there
are fine performances, and some truly inspired

684
01:09:11.800 --> 01:09:17.079
directorial touches from the late great Robert
Florrie. The script, as mentioned by

685
01:09:17.119 --> 01:09:21.399
another member of the After Hours Club, does have the feel of an over

686
01:09:21.520 --> 01:09:28.039
used comic plot. I'm sure if
I rifled through my ecy sci fi collections,

687
01:09:28.600 --> 01:09:32.520
weird science, weird fantasy, I
could find a similar story. And

688
01:09:32.720 --> 01:09:38.479
sure, there are only seven basic
stories, and there is comfort in the

689
01:09:38.560 --> 01:09:45.880
familiar. But the circumstances surrounding Stansfield's
and Horn's relationship haven't aged very well,

690
01:09:45.479 --> 01:09:50.600
and the twist seems a little too
oh henry so for its production, design,

691
01:09:50.760 --> 01:09:55.720
cast, acting, and overall arc, I think this one deserves a

692
01:09:55.840 --> 01:10:00.239
very comfortable middle tier ranking. After
all, it I was directed by the

693
01:10:00.319 --> 01:10:05.159
man who gave us the Marx Brothers'
first film, Cheers. Cheers to You,

694
01:10:05.279 --> 01:10:10.840
Josh, Thank You. Our friend
Joe Brown says this is an interesting

695
01:10:10.920 --> 01:10:15.680
episode, a different kind of love
story that seemed rooted in irony. Much

696
01:10:15.880 --> 01:10:23.479
like The Silence, where the Silence
had physical devastating results, the Long Morrow

697
01:10:23.640 --> 01:10:29.560
had a love relationship devastated. I
did find it hard to grasp that Stansfield

698
01:10:29.640 --> 01:10:33.560
falls in love after an all too
brief encounter in a Hallway then spends the

699
01:10:33.600 --> 01:10:39.600
next forty years longing for this person. That premise seems like a stretch,

700
01:10:40.199 --> 01:10:43.520
but I think that it was needed
to get to the point of the episode,

701
01:10:44.119 --> 01:10:48.039
which is what will lovers do to
be with each other and the steps

702
01:10:48.039 --> 01:10:54.520
that they take to achieve it.
Sailing's dialogue is written like love sonnets for

703
01:10:54.600 --> 01:10:59.560
each character to share. It works, but maybe tries too hard to keep

704
01:10:59.600 --> 01:11:05.079
the brief encounter love relationship believable.
I rate it low mid tier. Thank

705
01:11:05.119 --> 01:11:10.600
you, Joe. I appreciate the
feedback. I mean I've said in the

706
01:11:10.680 --> 01:11:15.079
episode, I think it shows us
their initial meeting, and it shows us

707
01:11:15.119 --> 01:11:20.680
their fair date, but then they
have a whole month of being together before

708
01:11:23.119 --> 01:11:25.960
the ship takes off. We just
don't see it. But I do think

709
01:11:26.000 --> 01:11:31.520
the episode expects us to know that
that month has taken place, and I

710
01:11:31.560 --> 01:11:35.960
guess our milea John, whether a
month is enough or not will vary for

711
01:11:36.039 --> 01:11:40.800
me. I think it's absolutely fine, but you know, I get that

712
01:11:40.840 --> 01:11:45.039
we're all different on there, So
thank you, Joe. Our friend John

713
01:11:45.119 --> 01:11:49.359
Hayes says The Long Morrow is interesting
because it's a space story that doesn't need

714
01:11:49.399 --> 01:11:55.239
any space scenes, and a love
story that doesn't need any love scenes.

715
01:11:55.880 --> 01:12:00.640
It's what I would call a hallway
story some Twilight episodes, or hallway or

716
01:12:00.720 --> 01:12:06.079
room stories where the entire story takes
place in a hallway or room. Like

717
01:12:06.119 --> 01:12:12.119
a simple stage play. It depends
entirely on the great dialogue, which this

718
01:12:12.319 --> 01:12:16.880
has. You get the idea without
needing action. I think you're absolutely right,

719
01:12:16.960 --> 01:12:21.640
John, it it is like a
stage play and it could be performed

720
01:12:21.800 --> 01:12:27.560
very well on stage. As I
mentioned in the episode, it was performed

721
01:12:27.640 --> 01:12:32.600
in the London stage Play, both
runs of it, and it worked very

722
01:12:32.640 --> 01:12:36.960
well in a kind of cut down
form. And maybe you know, this

723
01:12:38.640 --> 01:12:44.840
time aspect of it seems to be
problematic for some people, but maybe it

724
01:12:44.920 --> 01:12:50.880
wouldn't in a stage kind of situation
because people would accept that it is kind

725
01:12:50.960 --> 01:12:58.279
of a fiction or a fable and
it's really more about getting the ideas across

726
01:12:59.119 --> 01:13:05.239
than being completely kind of mechanically accurate. So yeah, good observations, getting

727
01:13:05.239 --> 01:13:11.359
some good sorts of people this time
around. So our friend Roger Moore says,

728
01:13:11.880 --> 01:13:15.800
going through the season four episodes,
we were examining and concluding if the

729
01:13:15.840 --> 01:13:21.039
episodes could have been shortened to thirty
minutes or if they worked as our long

730
01:13:21.159 --> 01:13:27.279
episodes. I feel this episode would
have made an excellent season four episode.

731
01:13:27.960 --> 01:13:31.039
The one thing that I feel is
lacking with the thirty minute runtime is the

732
01:13:31.159 --> 01:13:36.920
relationship development between the main characters.
We only have a few brief scenes to

733
01:13:38.000 --> 01:13:45.640
truly cement Commander Stansfield and Sandra Horn's
relationship and make it believable. Also,

734
01:13:45.039 --> 01:13:49.159
I'm not sure if it was a
budget issue, casting issue, or purely

735
01:13:49.239 --> 01:13:55.399
Robert Florrie's decision, but the hallway
set is way too large and wide open

736
01:13:55.960 --> 01:14:00.039
for only two people to occupy in
my opinion, tear all the way.

737
01:14:01.039 --> 01:14:06.039
It's kind of fascinating how I don't
even think divisive is the word on this

738
01:14:06.119 --> 01:14:14.800
one, but how polar kind of
opposite or close to opposite things can be.

739
01:14:14.800 --> 01:14:17.319
Because I really like the sets on
this one. Like I say,

740
01:14:17.399 --> 01:14:23.560
maybe I'm looking into it too much, but that corridor is a kind of

741
01:14:24.279 --> 01:14:29.039
metaphor for our lives. I really
like that. But thank you, Roger.

742
01:14:29.119 --> 01:14:33.119
Appreciate the feedback. Man. Okay, my old friend Gus Hawad has

743
01:14:33.159 --> 01:14:40.840
said agree with NASA lower top tier. The performances are heartbreaking. If I

744
01:14:40.880 --> 01:14:45.399
ever need a good cry, I
can always rely on the Long Morrow to

745
01:14:45.479 --> 01:14:50.119
bring the Rain, This Lady Anne
and the Trade Ins or Twilight and Love

746
01:14:50.239 --> 01:14:56.880
Story is done right eagerly awaiting your
thoughts on this one, Tom Well,

747
01:14:57.319 --> 01:15:00.079
I think by now you know that
I agree with you, Gus, Thank

748
01:15:00.119 --> 01:15:03.399
you man. And then, last
but not least, my good friend Emmi,

749
01:15:03.880 --> 01:15:12.119
who I present a podcast on Patreon
with about Twilight Zone continuations called Twilight

750
01:15:12.199 --> 01:15:16.680
Zone Aftermath, as she has some
thoughts too. She says the Longmorrow is

751
01:15:16.720 --> 01:15:21.640
one of my favorites from season five, only having discovered it a few years

752
01:15:21.680 --> 01:15:27.680
ago. This and The Trade Ins
are the two episodes that remind us how

753
01:15:27.720 --> 01:15:32.119
well Sailing wrote relationships. I know
there is criticism of the sets in this

754
01:15:32.199 --> 01:15:36.479
one, and I do understand it, but I think having that huge empty

755
01:15:36.520 --> 01:15:43.319
corridor actually saves a papose. It
makes us think that Stansfield and Horn are

756
01:15:43.359 --> 01:15:46.720
the only two people in the world
at that moment, which is exactly how

757
01:15:46.720 --> 01:15:53.439
it feels to them. It also
allows them to showcase their growing affection without

758
01:15:53.479 --> 01:15:59.840
any set distraction, literally narrowing our
field of view, and their performances here

759
01:16:00.399 --> 01:16:04.960
are excellent, particularly considering how well
they are able to portray their growing affection

760
01:16:05.720 --> 01:16:12.920
in the thirty minute window it's entirely
believable and has us rooting for them.

761
01:16:13.239 --> 01:16:17.319
I absolutely agree. Emmy, thank
you. It's good to hear you chiming

762
01:16:17.399 --> 01:16:21.199
in on a regular episode, so
thank you. So if you want to

763
01:16:21.239 --> 01:16:26.920
be able to take part in that
vote and chime in on the next episode,

764
01:16:26.960 --> 01:16:32.439
then go to patreon dot com slash
twilight Zone podcast and it's all there

765
01:16:32.520 --> 01:16:39.199
for you. So I mentioned Sailing
Fest in our little update podcast that I

766
01:16:39.279 --> 01:16:42.720
did, so I won't mention it
again. Well I won't mention it again

767
01:16:42.840 --> 01:16:46.800
very much, but the data there
now. It is the thirteenth of September

768
01:16:46.880 --> 01:16:53.359
to the fifteenth of September, and
it would be absolutely wonderful to see you

769
01:16:53.520 --> 01:16:56.039
there. You know, I want
to meet as many of you as I

770
01:16:56.159 --> 01:17:00.399
can, so as we get closer
than I will, I will bring you

771
01:17:00.439 --> 01:17:04.640
more news about that. But what
I will say is if you are considering

772
01:17:04.760 --> 01:17:11.479
going, I would maybe start to
look at your accommodation now, because I

773
01:17:11.560 --> 01:17:17.199
have been looking at it myself obviously
for my trip and in terms of like

774
01:17:17.359 --> 01:17:23.680
airbnbs and so on. I was
quite surprised at how few they were compared

775
01:17:23.720 --> 01:17:28.239
to last time I was trying to
book a place in Binghamton, so you

776
01:17:28.359 --> 01:17:30.760
just don't want to leave these things
for chance. And there are it is

777
01:17:30.840 --> 01:17:35.000
quite well saved by hotels, but
not all of them are like in the

778
01:17:35.039 --> 01:17:41.560
center of town, you know,
walking distance to the theater where sailing Fest

779
01:17:41.640 --> 01:17:45.840
is going to take place, and
a recreation park. So it's worth trying

780
01:17:45.840 --> 01:17:50.319
to get your accommodation booked quite early. But that's all I'll say for now.

781
01:17:50.960 --> 01:17:57.039
So I was very pleased to get
a couple of pieces of audio feedback.

782
01:17:57.640 --> 01:18:00.760
Take it away, Hey, it's
on this as Guessinger in Minneapolis,

783
01:18:00.800 --> 01:18:09.239
Minnesota. I just wanted to congratulate
you on the incredibly well done episode of

784
01:18:10.079 --> 01:18:15.399
Nightmare at twenty thousand Feet. I
have been looking forward to you covering this

785
01:18:15.479 --> 01:18:20.520
one since I started listening to the
podcast because this was the first episode of

786
01:18:20.520 --> 01:18:25.560
the Twilight Zone I ever saw.
When I was a little kid and my

787
01:18:25.640 --> 01:18:32.760
three older siblings all gathered around me, and when Shatner opened up the curtain,

788
01:18:32.840 --> 01:18:36.800
they all screamed at once and it
scared the horse apples out of me,

789
01:18:38.840 --> 01:18:42.479
and it's stuck with me ever since. And it was that episode that

790
01:18:42.760 --> 01:18:50.640
really immediately had me glued to the
Twilight Zone and loving the Twilight Zone and

791
01:18:51.239 --> 01:18:58.640
to hear your excellent podcast on it
was just incredible. And then the twist

792
01:18:58.720 --> 01:19:04.840
at the end I think was just
awesome. I don't know if other people

793
01:19:04.880 --> 01:19:09.279
saw that coming or not. I
did not, and I thought that it

794
01:19:09.319 --> 01:19:13.880
was absolutely incredible, and so I
just wanted to say well done to you,

795
01:19:14.000 --> 01:19:17.720
sir, and I'm really excited to
see how you finish out the series

796
01:19:18.039 --> 01:19:23.359
and I'm really excited to see what
comes next because I'm not just a fan

797
01:19:23.399 --> 01:19:27.720
of the podcast, but I'm a
fan of yours, and I hope everything

798
01:19:28.079 --> 01:19:31.359
is going well and that there's lots
more to come. Take care, Hi,

799
01:19:31.479 --> 01:19:35.439
Tom, This is Josh from Suffall, South Dakota with some thoughts on

800
01:19:35.479 --> 01:19:41.479
the Longmorrow. For all of the
Twilight Zone episodes that I have seen,

801
01:19:41.880 --> 01:19:46.399
I find that I'm usually left with
either a sense of wonder or a sense

802
01:19:46.439 --> 01:19:53.239
of disappointment in some cases when the
episode doesn't live up to my expectations of

803
01:19:53.279 --> 01:19:58.760
the Twilight Zone. However, I
do recall that there were two episodes that

804
01:19:58.880 --> 01:20:04.520
left me feeling actually disturbed. One
was The Silence from season two and the

805
01:20:04.560 --> 01:20:12.720
other was The Longmorrow. That realization
baged the question why did this episode cause

806
01:20:12.800 --> 01:20:17.159
me to feel that way. So
I did some reflection on the episode and

807
01:20:17.279 --> 01:20:24.039
on myself, and I made these
observations. The first is that there's a

808
01:20:24.079 --> 01:20:30.119
theme here of hope and sacrifice.
Commander Stansfield has a hope, presumably to

809
01:20:30.199 --> 01:20:35.479
be reunited with his with the woman
that he loves, and to spend his

810
01:20:35.600 --> 01:20:41.520
final years with her, and he
makes a great sacrifice to that end.

811
01:20:42.680 --> 01:20:46.239
Now, as a child, I
adopted a religious belief system that is carried

812
01:20:46.279 --> 01:20:51.920
through to adulthood, so I'm pretty
familiar with the concept of sacrificing for a

813
01:20:53.000 --> 01:20:58.319
future hope. Within the belief system
that I adhere to, there's a call

814
01:20:58.479 --> 01:21:03.920
to continual so helplessness and a hope
of her reward to be largely realized in

815
01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:10.760
the afterlife. The reality, however, is that none of us truly knows

816
01:21:10.800 --> 01:21:14.920
what will take place on the other
side of this life. Regardless of any

817
01:21:15.000 --> 01:21:19.199
sacrifices that we make along the way, you know whether or not we achieve

818
01:21:19.279 --> 01:21:24.720
the thing that we hope for.
It's a mystery until we depart from this

819
01:21:24.880 --> 01:21:30.560
life, which means that our efforts, just like those of the astronomous story,

820
01:21:30.319 --> 01:21:36.600
might be in vain. And I
find that disturbing. But I think

821
01:21:36.600 --> 01:21:43.439
there's another theme in play in this
episode, a theme of aging. Commander

822
01:21:43.560 --> 01:21:50.800
Stansfield sacrifices half his lifetime, living
decades and complete seclusion on a journey that

823
01:21:50.840 --> 01:21:58.199
would later be revealed as unnecessary,
with I imagine, very limited means to

824
01:21:58.279 --> 01:22:04.680
make constructive use of his time.
There's a reminder here that once our years

825
01:22:04.680 --> 01:22:12.720
are lived, there's no going back
and changing things. Our lifetimes can only

826
01:22:12.760 --> 01:22:19.439
move forward, and I find that
disturbing. I also think that the context

827
01:22:19.479 --> 01:22:25.880
of this episode bears importance. This
one is a romance, and I think

828
01:22:25.880 --> 01:22:29.279
it's the case that I'm a bit
more of a romantic than I tend to

829
01:22:29.319 --> 01:22:34.399
think. I understand the strong desire
for companionship, and I even remember the

830
01:22:34.439 --> 01:22:40.359
feeling of young love, you know, when a fixation on one special person

831
01:22:40.640 --> 01:22:46.800
seems to occupy your thoughts continually.
So I understand the potency of his adoration

832
01:22:46.920 --> 01:22:54.399
of Sandra, and I empathize highly
with the devastation that he would have experienced

833
01:22:54.439 --> 01:22:59.680
when he let her go in the
end to lose a future with that special

834
01:22:59.680 --> 01:23:05.600
sum one. I find that disturbing. So in the end, which of

835
01:23:05.640 --> 01:23:11.520
these reasons, you know, was
the reason that I felt disturbed. Well,

836
01:23:12.159 --> 01:23:15.960
I still can't quite pinpoint it.
I'll say this about this episode though

837
01:23:16.640 --> 01:23:21.880
it doesn't make my top list of
Twilight Zone episodes, but it will remain

838
01:23:21.920 --> 01:23:29.159
etched in my memory because of the
feelings that it aroused in me. Tom.

839
01:23:29.239 --> 01:23:33.359
Thank you for this podcast. It
allows me to re experience the wonder

840
01:23:33.720 --> 01:23:41.680
of the Twilight Zone. Well,
hello Tom, day from Germany, and

841
01:23:41.720 --> 01:23:48.239
I'm here to share my thoughts on
the Longmorrow you drive and what was the

842
01:23:48.239 --> 01:23:53.920
other one? Again? Hang on
ring it in go? That's right?

843
01:23:53.960 --> 01:24:01.279
How could I forget quite an enjoyable
episode? This one doesn't feel too Twilight

844
01:24:01.399 --> 01:24:09.399
Zone, but it's a classic tale
well told. I wouldn't put in the

845
01:24:09.439 --> 01:24:13.760
top tier, would just as I
put it in middle tier, as in

846
01:24:14.000 --> 01:24:24.000
derivative but quite enjoyable, well told
with that warm humanity that the Twilight Zone

847
01:24:24.039 --> 01:24:32.680
is known for. Also, the
actor playing the old man I forgot his

848
01:24:32.800 --> 01:24:40.520
name. He pops up again in
a later episode near the end of the

849
01:24:40.560 --> 01:24:45.560
show, which is my favorite episode
to come wander with me. I'm really

850
01:24:45.600 --> 01:24:48.520
looking forward to hearing your thoughts on
that one, but I'm also dreading it

851
01:24:48.560 --> 01:24:53.960
because I mean, the podcast is
almost over and I don't want it to

852
01:24:54.119 --> 01:25:02.479
end, to be honest, because
it's been so consistently good early. Now

853
01:25:02.520 --> 01:25:08.840
on the topic of you Drive,
I really didn't like it on first much.

854
01:25:09.079 --> 01:25:15.520
Now I just don't care. It's
not it's not a very good episode,

855
01:25:15.520 --> 01:25:29.680
and that's it anyway for long borrow. I'm not sure Robert Lansing really

856
01:25:30.079 --> 01:25:39.880
sells this sells his performance here,
his character's emotions. I think he's a

857
01:25:39.880 --> 01:25:49.479
bit stiff, really a bit too
much of a rugged archetype in a role

858
01:25:49.560 --> 01:25:58.479
that requires perhaps a bit a softer, more sensitive approach. Also, I

859
01:25:58.560 --> 01:26:04.800
know this show is literal about sixty
years old by now this episode, but

860
01:26:05.000 --> 01:26:13.720
the uh aging makeup is terrible.
I know people have complained about the makeup

861
01:26:13.800 --> 01:26:19.960
in Changing Off the God, for
instance, but I think it's really not

862
01:26:20.079 --> 01:26:34.720
good here, especially bad anyway that's
often now. Honestly, I just want

863
01:26:34.800 --> 01:26:39.960
to get another comment in because it's
been so long and I've been trying to

864
01:26:39.960 --> 01:26:45.479
get myself to do it, and
you know, time is running, so

865
01:26:45.880 --> 01:26:51.640
uh yeah, not a bad episode, not a great episode, just somewhere

866
01:26:51.680 --> 01:27:00.520
in the middle. Honestly, anyway, I hope you're doing well, and

867
01:27:00.560 --> 01:27:06.159
I just want to say once more
that I really enjoy your podcasts. I

868
01:27:06.199 --> 01:27:15.760
think it bears repeating, and just
keep on doing what you're doing, and

869
01:27:15.840 --> 01:27:25.399
I remain your faithful listener. Dave
from Germany to the next time see Rod

870
01:27:25.439 --> 01:27:30.560
Sling, creator of the Twilight zon
We'll tell you about next week's story after

871
01:27:30.680 --> 01:27:34.000
this message. If you want to
get your thoughts onto the show, then

872
01:27:34.079 --> 01:27:39.680
send a clip of about five minutes
or less to Tom at the Twilight Zone

873
01:27:39.680 --> 01:27:45.680
podcast dot com about an episode that
we've covered or the next episode that we're

874
01:27:45.720 --> 01:27:49.000
going to be covering. And let's
go over to Rod Sailing to find out

875
01:27:49.039 --> 01:27:54.359
what that is. And now,
mister Sling, next time out on the

876
01:27:54.399 --> 01:27:58.039
Twilight Zone. An unusual little item
from the Kind of Jerry McNeely, based

877
01:27:58.039 --> 01:28:01.119
on a story by Henry Slazar and
called, intriguingly enough, the Self Improvement

878
01:28:01.159 --> 01:28:04.479
of salvon Or Russ. This one
poses a question, if you don't like

879
01:28:04.560 --> 01:28:09.039
what you are, how do you
go about changing. Don Gordon portrays a

880
01:28:09.039 --> 01:28:11.800
man who really goes to the root
when it comes to some basic changing,

881
01:28:12.039 --> 01:28:13.920
and the results are most unexpected.