The Jeopardy Room

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Jeopardy Room
Series = The Twilight Zone


Caption = Martin Landau as Ivan Kuchenko
Season = 5
Episode = 149
Airdate = April 17, 1964
Production =2639
Writer = Rod Serling
Director = Richard Donner
Guests = Martin Landau : Major Ivan Kuchenko
John van Dreelen : Commissar Vassiloff
Robert Kelljan : Boris
Music =
Episode list = List of Twilight Zone episodes
Prev = Caesar and Me
Next = Stopover in a Quiet Town

"The Jeopardy Room" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Opening Narration

ynopsis

Trying to defect, former KGB Major Ivan Kuchenko is trapped inside a hotel room. Commissar Vassiloff, a hitman, and Boris, his assistant, are watching him from a room across the street. Vassiloff is a sadistic killer who has tricked Kuchenko into drinking a sleeping draught in the hotel room after pretending to surrender to Kuchenko. Kuchenko wakens to find that Vassiloff has planted a bomb in the room: Ivan must find it within three hours, or he will be shot by Vassiloff and Boris, who have a gun trained on him at all times. Vassiloff has hidden the bomb in the room’s telephone, where it will be triggered by an incoming call. Ivan manages to escape and avoid being shot. Later, Vassiloff and Boris enter the room and try to figure out what went wrong. The phone rings, and Boris - without thinking - picks it up, causing an explosion which kills him and Vassiloff. On the other end of the phone line is Ivan Kuchenko, who makes it to freedom.

Closing Narration

Preview for Next Week's Story

Trivia

*Coincidently, John van Dreelen had escaped from a Nazi Concentration Camp in World War II.

*This was the second-to-last episode written by Rod Serling to be produced, before "Mr. Garrity and the Graves."

*This was an unusual entry in the series as it contains no supernatural or science-fiction elements. Other such episodes include “Where Is Everybody?”, “The Silence” and “The Shelter," this one being the only one to not even include "strange" elements, dealing only with a complex assassination plot.

*On September 18, 1964 this became the final "Twilight Zone" to be broadcast (as a rerun) in its original Friday night timeslot on CBS. The following week saw the debut of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. in "Twilight Zone’s" place.

*To the modern viewer, the tape scene has a déjà-vu flavour: it is similar to the beginning of the episodes, a TV series that Martin Landau, who plays Major Kuchenko in this episode, was to feature from 1966.

*Mel Gibson's movie Payback copies the ending exactly.

References

*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
*Zicree, Marc Scott: "The Twilight Zone Companion". Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

*imdb title|id=0734649|title=The Jeopardy Room
* [http://www.tv.com/the-twilight-zone/the-jeopardy-room/episode/12735/summary.html TV.com episode page]

Twilight Zone links

*The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
*Episode List
*Season 5