Season 4 begins its run of 18 one-hour episodes with a man suffering from an identity crisis. He hears strange sounds, and, sometimes, he wants to kill people! Sounds like an average New Yorker to me ...
The Twilight Zone, Episode #103: "In His Image" (original air date January 3, 1963)
The Plot: Alan Talbot (George Grizzard) stands on the platform of a subway station, where he's accosted by an older woman who's all riled up about something. He tries to be polite, but she rants onward, and starts to talk about the Devil, about how the Devil's all around us, and he can't get into us if we don't stand guard against him, that kind of thing. Then she shoves a religious pamphlet at him, "The Way of Salvation," and then a weird light shines on Alan's face, and he starts hearing weird, atonal sounds, and a strange fury sweeps over his face as he begins perspiring heavily. And then a train rolls into the station, and Alan pushes the woman in front of it.
The shocking turn of events is pushed to the side. Alan returns home, where he greets Jess (Gail Kobe), a woman he's known for just four days day, but who he is already planning to marry. First, though, he wants to take her to his hometown to meet his Aunt Mildred.
Once they arrive, Alan begins to notice that the town is not the same as when he left it, just one week before. Perplexingly, a familiar diner no longer exists, and other businesses are also out of business. He heads to his Aunt Mildred's home, only to discover another man living there, a man who insists that he has owned the house for nine years. Increasingly distraught, he visits the town's graveyard, and sees names on tombstones that shouldn't be there.
Finally, Alan comes face to face with ... himself, or at least someone who looks like he could be his identical twin. What is going on?
The Goods: The series was cancelled by CBS after its third season, and creator Rod Serling accepted a teaching post at his alma mater, Antioch College in Ohio for the school year that begin in the fall of 1962. CBS, however, decided to bring the show back as a mid-season replacement, and to fill the time slot, decreed that the running time should be doubled in length.
Charles Beaumont, one of three core writers in addition to Serling, ended up writing six of the 18 episodes of Season 4. Theoretically, the longer length would allow greater exploration of common themes, such as identity. Beaumont had tackled the subject just a few months before, in the Season 3 episode "Person or Persons Unknown," and he approaches it from a different angle here.
That opening sequence is strong, but the lengthy period spent exploring the town that is clearly not the one that Alan left behind spends too much time spinning its wheels, retreading familiar ground. And the denoument is also familiar. You can almost feel Beaumont, director Perry Lafferty, and new producer Herbert Hirschman, taking over after longtime producer Buck Houghton left the show, feeling their way through the longer length, and perhaps without as much direct involvement from Serling.
The Trivia: George Grizzard was noted for his stage work in the 1950s and then moved easily into television, making dozens of guest appearances, working steadily through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. He made his final appearance in Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers before passing away in 2007.
On the Next Episode: A U.S. Navy ship in the South Pacific detects muted hammering on metal undersea, emanating from a submarine on the ocean floor that supposedly sank with all hands on deck -- except for one survivor, who is on the Navy ship.
Catching up: Episodes covered by Twitch | Episodes covered by Film School Rejects
We're running through all 156 of the original Twilight Zone episodes, and we're not doing it alone! Our friends at Film School Rejects have entered the Zone as well, only on alternating weeks. So definitely tune in over at FSR and feel free to also follow along on Twitter accounts @ScreenAnarhcy and @rejectnation.