- Death Ship (The Twilight Zone)
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"Death Ship" The Twilight Zone episode
Cruiser E-89 about to landEpisode no. Season 4
Episode 108Directed by Don Medford Written by Richard Matheson (From his short story.) Featured music Stock Production code 4850 Original air date February 7, 1963 Guest stars Jack Klugman: Capt. Paul Ross
Ross Martin: Lt. Ted Mason
Mary Webster: Ruth Mason
Tammy Marihugh: Jeannie Mason
Frederick Beir: Lt. Mike Carter
Sara Taft: Mrs. Nolan
Ross Elliott: KramerEpisode chronology ← Previous
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"Jess-Belle"List of Twilight Zone episodes "Death Ship" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Contents
Synopsis
The Space Cruiser E-89, crewed by Captain Paul Ross, Lt. Ted Mason and Lt. Mike Carter, is on a mission to analyze new worlds and discover if they are suitable for colonization by Earth. Their mission has thus far been routine, but while investigating an uninhabited world, Mason sees a metallic glint in the landscape. He excitedly conjectures that this might be a sign of alien life, but the pragmatic Captain Ross disagrees. Nevertheless, the Cruiser prepares to land next to the mysterious object.
After landing, the men are astounded to see that the gleaming comes from the wreck of a ship exactly like their own. Ross urges caution and restraint but is ignored; the trio heads over to the wreck to investigate it. They soon see that it is indeed the same model of ship as the E-89. Making their way into the interior of the craft, they discover their own lifeless bodies in the wreckage. Mason and Carter are numb with shock as Ross furiously struggles for a logical explanation. He finally decides that they have bent time in such a way as to get a glimpse of the future. All they have to do to avoid their grisly fate is stay on the ground and keep from going back up into space, therefore avoiding the accident. Mason is skeptical and Carter seems disoriented, but they agree with Ross' assessment.
Soon, Carter seemingly finds himself transported back to a pleasant country lane on Earth. There he encounters figures from his past who are dead. He runs to the house that he and his wife shared, and finds it empty except for a telegram notifying Mary Carter that her husband has died in the line of duty.
Carter is wrenched from his vision by Ross, who says he is suffering a delusion. If so, it is a delusion Mason shares. He has just had an emotional reunion with his dead wife and child. When Ross pulls him back to reality, Mason strikes his Captain in rage. Ross, though, now has a new theory of what is going on: He believes the planet is inhabited by telepathic aliens who are using the humans' fear of death to keep them away from their world. Ross says that if they take the E-89 back up to space, that should break the spell.
The men take E-89 back in orbit without a hitch. Mason and Carter grudgingly admit that Ross may have been right about the aliens, but are stunned when Ross says they are going to land the craft again to gather foreign samples to bring back to Earth. After all, now that they know what is going on, what is there left to fear?
The crew lands again, only to discover the wreck of their craft is still present. Confused and fearful, Mason and Carter come to the one and only conclusion left: that they have crashed and are dead. Ross refuses to accept the truth, his stubborn will holding sway over the troubled crew. Ross exclaims that they will go over it again and again until he figures it out. Suddenly, the episode cuts back to Mason's discovery of the glinting object on the planet. "I don't see anything", Ross shrugs.
Production notes
The model of the hovering spaceship is that of a C-57D Starcruiser, a leftover prop from MGM's 1956 film Forbidden Planet. The crashed ship was a realistically painted model/set.[1]
Cast
- Jack Klugman - as Capt. Paul Ross
- Ross Martin - as Lt. Ted Mason
- Fred Beir (as Fredrick Beir) - as Lt. Mike Carter
- Mary Webster - as Ruth Mason
- Ross Elliott - as Kramer
- Sara Taft - as Mrs. Nolan
- Tammy Marihugh - as Jeannie Mason
References
- ^ Zicree, Marc Scott (1982). The Twilight Zone Companion (second ed.). Silman-James.
- DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
- Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090
External links
Twilight Zone (1959) episodes Season 1 - "Where Is Everybody?"
- "One for the Angels"
- "Mr. Denton on Doomsday"
- "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine"
- "Walking Distance"
- "Escape Clause"
- "The Lonely"
- "Time Enough at Last"
- "Perchance to Dream"
- "Judgement Night"
- "And When the Sky Was Opened"
- "What You Need"
- "The Four of Us Are Dying"
- "Third from the Sun"
- "I Shot an Arrow into the Air"
- "The Hitch-Hiker"
- "The Fever"
- "The Last Flight"
- "The Purple Testament"
- "Elegy"
- "Mirror Image"
- "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"
- "A World of Difference"
- "Long Live Walter Jameson"
- "People Are Alike All Over"
- "Execution"
- "The Big Tall Wish"
- "A Nice Place to Visit"
- "Nightmare as a Child"
- "A Stop at Willoughby"
- "The Chaser"
- "A Passage for Trumpet"
- "Mr. Bevis"
- "The After Hours"
- "The Mighty Casey"
- "A World of His Own"
Season 2 - "King Nine Will Not Return"
- "The Man in the Bottle"
- "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room"
- "A Thing About Machines"
- "The Howling Man"
- "The Eye of the Beholder"
- "Nick of Time"
- "The Lateness of the Hour"
- "The Trouble With Templeton"
- "A Most Unusual Camera"
- "The Night of the Meek"
- "Dust"
- "Back There"
- "The Whole Truth"
- "The Invaders"
- "A Penny for Your Thoughts"
- "Twenty Two"
- "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
- "Mr. Dingle, the Strong"
- "Static"
- "The Prime Mover"
- "Long Distance Call"
- "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim"
- "The Rip Van Winkle Caper"
- "The Silence"
- "Shadow Play"
- "The Mind and the Matter"
- "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
- "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3 - "Two"
- "The Arrival"
- "The Shelter"
- "The Passersby"
- "A Game of Pool"
- "The Mirror"
- "The Grave"
- "It's a Good Life"
- "Deaths-Head Revisited"
- "The Midnight Sun"
- "Still Valley"
- "The Jungle"
- "Once Upon a Time"
- "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"
- "A Quality of Mercy"
- "Nothing in the Dark"
- "One More Pallbearer"
- "Dead Man's Shoes"
- "The Hunt"
- "Showdown with Rance McGrew"
- "Kick the Can"
- "A Piano in the House"
- "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank"
- "To Serve Man"
- "The Fugitive"
- "Little Girl Lost"
- "Person or Persons Unknown"
- "The Little People"
- "Four O'Clock"
- "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby"
- "The Trade-Ins"
- "The Gift"
- "The Dummy"
- "Young Man's Fancy"
- "I Sing the Body Electric"
- "Cavender Is Coming"
- "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4 - "In His Image"
- "The Thirty-Fathom Grave"
- "Valley of the Shadow"
- "He's Alive"
- "Mute"
- "Death Ship"
- "Jess-Belle"
- "Miniature"
- "Printer's Devil"
- "No Time Like the Past"
- "The Parallel"
- "I Dream of Genie"
- "The New Exhibit"
- "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville"
- "The Incredible World of Horace Ford"
- "On Thursday We Leave for Home"
- "Passage on the Lady Anne"
- "The Bard"
Season 5 - "In Praise of Pip"
- "Steel"
- "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
- "A Kind of a Stopwatch"
- "The Last Night of a Jockey"
- "Living Doll"
- "The Old Man in the Cave"
- "Uncle Simon"
- "Probe 7, Over and Out"
- "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms"
- "A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain"
- "Ninety Years Without Slumbering"
- "Ring-a-Ding Girl"
- "You Drive"
- "The Long Morrow"
- "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross"
- "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"
- "Black Leather Jackets"
- "Night Call"
- "From Agnes—With Love"
- "Spur of the Moment"
- "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
- "Queen of the Nile"
- "What's in the Box"
- "The Masks"
- "I Am the Night—Color Me Black"
- "Sounds and Silences"
- "Caesar and Me"
- "The Jeopardy Room"
- "Stopover in a Quiet Town"
- "The Encounter"
- "Mr. Garrity and the Graves"
- "The Brain Center at Whipple's"
- "Come Wander With Me"
- "The Fear"
- "The Bewitchin' Pool"
Categories:- 1963 television episodes
- Adaptations of works by Richard Matheson
- Screenplays by Richard Matheson
- The Twilight Zone episodes
- Television programs based on short fiction
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