The Twilight Zone (1959) s04e11 Episode Script

You unlock this door with the key of imagination.
Beyond it is another dimension- a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.
You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.
You've just crossed over into the twilight zone.
Okay, and thank you for calling.
Yeah.
We'll be watching.
That was colonel connacher, honey.
He says daddy is just fine.
Will he will he be going up soon? In just about an hour.
That's what colonel connacher said.
Do you want to go back to sleep? I don't blame you.
I can't sleep either.
I'll tell you what.
I'll make some coffee for me and some cocoa for you.
And you wash your face and hands and comb your hair.
And then we'll turn on the television set, okay? Okay.
Be safe, bob.
Be safe, darling.
And come back.
In the vernacular of space this is t minus one hour- named major robert gaines is lifted off from the mother earth and rocketed into the sky farther and longer than any man ahead of him.
Call this one of the first faltering steps of man to sever the umbilical cord of gravity and stretch out a fingertip toward an unknown.
Shortly, we'll join this astronaut named gaines and embark on an adventure, because the environs overhead- the stars, the sky, the infinite space- are all part of a vast question mark known as the twilight zone.
Huh.
Pulse normal? Reasonable.
Someplace between nonchalance and panic.
I know the feeling.
I called helen.
She's fine.
Says to tell you they'll be waiting.
Bless you for that.
Do you have any messages for the angels? Hmm give them a kiss for me- any that you meet.
On my last orbit, i'll lasso a pair of gossamer wings and ship them down to you air express- collect.
Kind of an odd feeling, knowing i'll be moving around the earth for a week.
That's progress.
Gus grissom went 302 miles, glenn made three orbits, schirra handled six.
And you, bobby boy, are going to go round and round.
And, when you come back down, maybe we'll be that much closer to filing a claim on some more sky.
Good luck, buddy.
Thanks, bill.
Thanks a lot.
This is capcom.
Time is now at t minus one minute and counting.
Better hurry.
This is capcom.
The mx ten countdown is now t minus T minus 20 seconds ten nine eight seven six five four three two one zero.
Go ahead, ten.
We read you loud and clear.
Zero g, and i feel fine.
Spacecraft is beginning to turn now.
Roger.
Turnaround has started.
Spacecraft is almost over.
I can see the booster just a couple of yards behind me.
It's quite a sight.
Roger, ten.
We still read you loud and clear.
Next transmission, bermuda.
Roger.
Understand next transmission, bermuda.
Phebus ten, bermuda.
Capcom tech on hm.
Phebus ten, this is zanzibar captech.
We have solid telemetry contact.
Phebus ten.
Capcom calling phebus ten.
We now have i.
o.
s.
, over.
Phebus ten, your voice transmissions are starting to fade very badly.
Capcom, capcom, this is phebus ten.
I've lost contact with you.
I've lost radar here! I've lost radar! We don't have contact here, either.
No contact at all.
Capcom tech calling phebus ten.
Capcom, capcom, this is phebus ten.
Open the blinds, nurse.
Yes, doctor.
Well, how about it, gaines? Can you talk? Sure.
Sure, i can talk.
Hey, billy.
What happened? Well, we were waiting for you to wake up to tell us, bob.
Tell you? I can't tell you anything, i blacked out.
We lost you on radar and radio.
Absolutely no contact.
It boils down to this, gaines- you're the only one who can explain it.
I can't explain anything.
I had an odd sensation.
Last thing i remember is the 15th orbit.
After that, i don't remember anything except this bed.
I couldn't reach the cape at all.
I kept trying.
Why don't you let him get some sleep? I think he'll feel a little clearer later on.
I won't be any clearer than i am right now.
How could you lose me on radar? Bill, do you mean to tell me every single tracking station blacked out? Really, gentlemen, i just one last question, please.
Bob, there's only one way you could head back toward earth.
That's just to spiral in, and then head for water.
Your spacecraft was found, intact, you were launched.
Intact, bob, on the ground.
There was no evidence of any damage, not even a dent.
Somehow, some way, you brought that spacecraft in, and you landed her.
Tell me how.
Would you please explain to me how you performed an absolutely impossible act? I didn't.
I had nothing to do with it.
I blacked out, general.
I simply blacked out.
There was some factor up there, something which i had no control over, something which must have must have taken over for me.
Hmm.
Okay, uh we'll talk about it later.
This whole thing is temporarily classified- i mean everything about it.
We'll simply make the statement that he regained entry and he landed.
He's shaken up but not seriously hurt.
And that's the feed.
No extensions, no enlargements beyond that simple statement.
After we've been able to probe this thing a little while, we might be able to come up with something we can let go.
But, in the meantime, it's a one-line release.
"He got back down.
" unquote.
You get some rest, bob.
Talk to you later.
Yeah, you, uh sleep it off.
There's an explanation for everything.
Well, don't worry about it now.
You're, uh, all doped up, and you're also dead tired.
You sleep it off, and i'll see what i can do about getting you a leave to get on home.
So rest easy, pal.
Bill? All along, i thought there was some kind of malfunction up there- fuel or propulsion or just communication.
Maybe the malfunction was closer to home.
Maybe it was right up here between my ears.
Maybe astronaut robert gaines went off the tracks.
Maybe he couldn't cut the mustard.
Look, you talk like that- you think like that- and you'll come around to believing it.
And that's stupid, bob.
We're dealing with nine natural laws plus a whole string of imponderables.
And reasons are going to come out- legitimate, rational reasons.
Now, you just lie there and breathe through your nose.
I'll call helen again and tell her you're resting and you'll be home soon.
Will i? Will i be home? Yeah.
Unless you persuade all the people around here that you need an attendant.
Dream good.
I'll see you later.
Well? Oh, it'll all come out in the wash.
Will it? Let me tell you something, colonel a man is sent up into space, and then he orbits.
There are only three ways he can break off contact.
One is ionization, and that didn't occur.
The other is sunspots, and that didn't occur.
The third is the man's death, and he's lying there on that bed breathing five by five.
All right, i'm waiting for a fresh alternative, one i can take without flinching.
One maybe i can repeat to the president without worrying about him sticking me in a rubber room.
What happened to gaines? Where was he for six solid hours when nobody in the world could find him? How did he make a reentry without burning up into a flake? Sometime we'll have to ask him.
Give her my love.
Thanks for services rendered.
I'll talk to you later.
No question about it.
Home, james.
Welcome home.
What's the matter, bob? Is that what you did for therapy while i was gone- put up that fence? What do you mean? That fence wasn't there when i left last week.
Are you kidding me? That fence was there when we bought the house.
Outer space does things to memories, doesn't it? Yeah.
Yeah, so it appears.
America's latest manned orbital spaceflight ends on a note of mystery today.
With a cloak of secrecy being placed over the entire project.
Millions were watching the orbital flight on television when, suddenly, the pictures were interrupted with a terse announcement that no further coverage would be forthcoming.
General stanley eaton announced late this afternoon that further information would be forthcoming at a later date but that, for the moment, all aspects of astronaut gaines' flight would continue to be top secret pending further investigation of data.
You got any more coffee out there? I'm making some.
It'll be better in a minute.
I'm going upstairs and put on a bathrobe.
I'll be right back.
Do you want maggie to go get it for you? Both you and maggie have been treating me like a cross between an eccentric millionaire and a piece of fragile dresden.
I'll get my own bathrobe, woman.
Be right back.
That's funny.
Some chicken colonel back at the base is going to be running home in his undershirt.
Bob, your coffee's ready.
You want us to bring you up a cup? No, honey.
I'll be right down.
Want to hear something funny? I ran off with somebody's shirt- a full colonel's, no less.
Bob? What? Are you all right? Helen without trying to scare you, and without trying to make you wonder whether i've still got all my marbles, i'd like to ask you a question.
What is it? When i left- when i walked out of here- what was my rank? Your rank? What was my rank? What do you mean? Wasn't i a major? Haven't i been a major for 13 months? Are you serious? No, i'm playing games with you.
Helen, i want you to tell me.
You're a colonel, bob.
You're a full colonel.
You've been a colonel since last march.
Last march? Last march.
I want to say something to you now.
I, um i don't know what happened up there.
I have no idea.
But, uh i know you don't want to talk about it- that's why we haven't said anything- but, uh something must have happened, bob.
Some delusions.
Some distortions.
Like that fence outside the house.
I don't remember it.
And yet you said it had been there when we bought the house.
And that business with bill connacher.
He told me he called you before the flight.
He made it a point to tell me.
And then, afterward afterward, he said there'd been no such phone conversation.
It's unimportant.
It's insignificant, really.
And yet and yet it all seems to be part of some sort of crazy pattern.
Something is very wrong, because he did tell me he called.
That fence wasn't there, and those eagles have never been on my collar before because, when i left here, i was a major.
You, um you told me once that there are whole areas of space medicine that we know practically nothing about.
Phenomena and reaction patterns that can only be guessed at.
I'm sure this is one of them.
I'm sure there's nothing wrong with you but a couple of fixations that are going to go away with time.
Now let's go downstairs and have a cup of coffee.
And don't let a white fence and a promotion end the world for you.
If that's as far as it goes, i'll try not to.
But what if what if other things? Um i'd like colonel william connacher, please.
I was, uh i was just, uh going to call bill connacher to ask him if he'd like to like to what? Come over for dinner.
Bob, i, uh i just called bill to have him give me some reassurance.
I remember that that he said once that there are some aspects to prolonged weightlessness that makes look, really, like i said, i'm all right.
It's you people i'm worried about.
Now, where's my coffee? I'll get it for you.
Don't break any more saucers, mother's helper.
I'll try not to.
Helen? Helen, i think it'd be a whole lot better- a whole lot better- if we dropped all the pretenses.
If you think there's something wrong with me, just say so.
And honey, i'd consider it a real favor- a major favor- if you wouldn't walk past me on tiptoe with forced smiles and "there's nothing wrong with you" dialogue.
All right? All right.
Ahh! I helped mommy make the pie.
You know, someday, i'm going to lose you to a navy ensign who'll marry you for your father's money and your cooking.
Now, honey, you know i don't take sugar.
Maggie honey, what's the matter? Nothing.
Nothing's the matter.
Maggie, here.
Tell daddy what's the matter.
Daddy daddy, you're different.
Well, how, honey? How am i different? I don't know.
I don't know, but you are.
Youaredifferent.
You're very different.
There there's something wrong.
Maggie! What does she mean? I don't know.
What does she mean? What does she mean, i'm different? Well, am i? Am i, helen? Have i changed somehow between now and when i left? I can't i can't explain it to you.
I don't know how.
I have changed, haven't i? There is something different about me.
The child sensed it.
You have, too.
You have, haven't you? Yes, i have.
How? I i don't know.
I i just don't know.
It's it's just that you're you're not the same somehow.
You didn't have to call bill connacher.
That wasn't necessary.
Tomorrow i'll turn myself in for psychiatric help.
I don't know what it is that happened.
Something did.
Something is tearing us all apart.
Something so remote, we can't even put it into words.
Something something, until we find out what it is, it's going to wreck us, helen.
Ivan, there was nothing he could tell you that occurred in space that could give us some key or something to all this? Nothing that he could relate to me.
I wouldn't recommend that he remain here, however.
For the time being, i'd like to treat him as an outpatient.
Have him come in at intervals, but in no way suggest to him that he's in an aberrant condition requiring psychological treatment.
This is one of those instances where the psychology of the situation requires very careful handling.
We're right back where we started, then.
Uh mrs.
Gaines, i don't mean to sound callous.
He's an exceptional gentleman, that husband of yours.
I think he'll be out of the woods in no time.
My concern happens to be, very specifically, a space project, not a man.
I understand, sir.
Mrs.
Gaines, what about that fence? It was there when we bought the house.
And when did he seem surprised that it was there? The moment that he came home yesterday morning.
Really a very strange collection of delusions.
A white picket fence a story his own rank and the last thing he said was he doubted very much if president kennedy would pin any medals on him.
President who? Kennedy.
Someone named john kennedy.
Who's john kennedy? Someone who colonel gaines has decided is president of the united states.
And i share your bewilderment.
I never heard of him either.
Twilight zonewill continue after station identification.
It isn't easy to say.
Well if it isn't easy to say, then it's better said, so get it out.
Maggie's noticed it, too.
Noticed what? That there's something there's something differentabout him.
It's something i can't put my finger on, but there's some there's something different.
Suggesting what? Suggesting nothing.
Something or everything.
What can it suggest? Simply that there's a man in my house who a man in your house who what? The question is, a man in my house whoiswhat? Better, a man in my house who is who? I think you just overshot me, unless i'm reading you very wrong.
No, maybe you're reading me very right.
Reassure me, bill.
Tell me that, uh this thing my daughter and i have this ice-cold feeling about is way off.
Tell us that we're just being carried away by his problem.
Tell us tell us tell us that the man in this house is bob gaines.
Hello, bill.
How are you? Fine.
I just dropped over to see how you were.
Me? Well, that depends.
Depends on just what are the current standards for sanity- the acceptable outer limits.
I've been going over a set of encyclopedias up there, and jotting down some notes.
I've uncovered some very revealing items.
There are some pretty basic historical facts that simply don't jibe.
For example, it talks about a man named anderson who was sent by the united states government to supervise the construction of the panama canal.
So? So, i never heard of anyone named anderson.
It happened to be a man named goethals.
It also talks about an american ace named eddie rickenbacker from world war i who was lost on a raft in the next war and never found.
That's right.
He crashed, and that was the end of it.
But that wasn't the end of it.
The raft was found.
Rickenbacker was saved.
He became the president of an airlines company.
I've got dozens of items like that.
Men talked about who never existed.
Men who existed and not even mentioned.
Historical events that i know happened a certain way somehow, according to the encyclopedia, didn't happen, or happened another way.
The things i remember are not delusions.
They're the legitimate recollections of things as i remember them.
But somehow, some way, this world seems to have turned upside down for me.
Well, not in every way, you understand.
Uh by and large, the people are the same.
The names, the streets, the mutual recollections we all have of people and events.
It's as if there were there were another world parallel to mine.
As if this world were almost a twin, except for some minor differences that happened somewhere along the line of evolution.
Bob, for the love of heaven do you want to follow that line of reasoning? Because, if you do, there are a couple of built-in conditions that go along with it.
Conditions that i don't think you or anyone else wants to admit.
First and foremost, they happen to be that if all this is true- if you suddenly uncovered a theory that there are two earths, two sets of people, two histories- and you somehow, inexplicably, crossed over to the other dimension- then you're not who we think you are.
And we're not who you think we are.
Maggie? Bob! Let's get it out, shall we? I'm so sick of tiptoeing and whispers.
Maggie! Come down here, baby.
Come down right away.
Honey think this over before you answer but answer.
Who am i, honey? Tell mommy and colonel connacher who i am.
Bob, please.
No.
Now, sweetheart you say whatever's on your mind.
Tell them who i am.
I don't know who you are.
Maggie, this is your daddy.
This is your daddy.
He's not my daddy.
I don't know who he is.
Oh, that wasn't fair.
You've taken a little child, impressionable- you've superimposed on her your own doubts.
I've done nothing of the sort.
I merely let her say out loud what helen's been thinking all along.
And, heaven help me, what i've been thinking.
What you've just told me is fantastic.
How can you possibly? It's incredible.
Incredible.
I helped build that spacecraft.
I know it very well.
And this one is not the same one we sent off.
It's almost a twin to it, down to the very last nut and bolt, but it's simply not the same spacecraft.
It's a different vehicle.
It's almost as if it came out of the same mold, but every now and then- in the wiring, in the control panel and in the structure- there's a tiny insignificant alteration.
You add them all up and you come up with one very irrevocable fact: Colonel gaines went up in one spacecraft, but he's obviously come back in another.
That leaves us with two alternatives.
Colonel gaines actually blacked out and has no knowledge of what occurred.
Or two: Colonel gaines is not who we think he is.
Colonel i want you to examine this vehicle carefully.
I want you to be able to say to me, without a single shred of doubt, that this is the spacecraft you were sent up in, and the spacecraft you came down in.
This is of the essence now.
Phebus ten, bermuda.
Capcom tech m.
h.
m.
You understand me? What? What's the matter with you? Bob, what the general is trying to get at is that there are delusions that a man can suffer under stress.
Now, all we want to do now is try to retrace the chronology from the blastoff through the orbits.
And we want you to check over this capsule.
I am talking about a microscopic check, now, bob.
We want to make absolutely certain that we can separate what is delusion from what might conceivably be an incredible series of events.
The weather in the recovery are is excellent.
Bob, what's the matter with you? Three-foot waves, only one-tenth cloud coverage, ten miles visibility.
Don't you hear that voice? Phebus ten, phebus ten capcom tech, do you read me? Don't you hear that voice? What are you talking about? What voice are you talking about? Leave the retro package on through the entire reentry.
Gaines will have to override that voice.
to 0.
05 that voice! Retract the scope.
Do you read? Don't you hear that voice? Recommend you go to reentry attitude and we'll give you the countdown on retro-sequence time, bob.
You're looking good.
We have only 50 seconds to retrograde.
Over.
I'll give you a mark.
mark.
I am on 8scs now, and backing it up manually.
Capcom, this is phebus ten.
The retro warning is on.
Roger, bob.
Leave your retro pack on through your pass over texas.
Do you read? Roger.
Five four three two one fire.
Retros are firing.
I'm starting my reentry now.
I'm going to fly by wire.
I'm down to 15% on manual.
Capcom, this is phebus ten.
It's a real fireball out there.
How are you doing? What's your general condition? How are you feeling? I'm feeling i'm feeling fine.
Condition is good.
There's an awful lot of fire out there.
Capcom one last question: Go ahead, bob.
Go ahead.
Who's the president of the united states? Say again, would you, bob? We don't think we got that.
Say again.
Who is the president of the united states? It sounds like you're asking who the president is.
That's precisely the question.
I hope you said kennedy.
I hope you said kennedy.
Open the blinds, nurse.
Yes, doctor.
Our wandering boy is awake.
Bill.
Right here, buddy.
How you feeling, gaines? That depends.
Did you hear that last question i asked up there? Just before reentry? You asked who the president is.
Was that some sort of a gag? I didn't hear the answer.
It was no gag.
President kennedy.
You were only gone two days, major, not two years.
What happened on that second morning, gaines, about your 15th orbit? We lost all contact with you for a period of almost six hours.
No radar, no contact at all.
We couldn't find out what was wrong here.
And we asked you that question several times after we picked you up again, but you ignored it.
Six hours? That's how long it took.
Then you came back in loud and clear.
I think later, sir.
Right now, i think he should rest.
Bill something something happened.
I know you're not going to believe this.
I'm not absolutely certain that i believe it myself.
There's another dimension.
I don't know how it exists or where it exists.
But there's another world, parallel to ours- the same people, the same places, most of the same chronology of events.
Except, now and then, there's something a little bit different.
How do you know all this? Because i was there, general.
I was there for almost a week.
That's impossible.
We only lost you for about six hours.
We had contact with you all the rest of the time.
I can't help that, sir.
During that six hours, i lived out a week.
Doing what? Looking at our counterparts.
Looking at us.
Us? Us, as we exist in a parallel world.
One that exists alongside, but which we can't see.
The world i stumbled into.
I don't know how.
Some kind of space-time continuum, some warpage.
There's a doorway up there somewhere into it.
It exists.
Every now and then, i think it's possible for somebody to fall through it, and i did.
How did you get back, bob? I don't even know that.
All i can remember is running toward the spacecraft.
Then i was up there again and then i was back here.
Well bob, i think, uh sleep on this for a little while, will you? Why? Because i think, uh this may just be a delusion.
Delusion? Bill, i can recount to you every minute and everything that happened.
Every line of dialogue, every person that i met.
I could recall to you the streets, the places, everything.
This was no delusion.
It was no dream.
I have no proof.
I've told you that.
Mm-hmm.
Well, um, okay, major we'll talk about it later.
Did anybody phone helen? She, uh asked what you wanted for supper.
Will i be able to leave? At least for an overnight.
Mm-hmm.
I want you back first thing in the morning for some critique.
I want to have a look at those psychiatrists' faces when you start talking to them about parallel dimensions.
Meanwhile, get some rest, major.
One last question.
Be my guest.
If we each have a counterpart, and you saw them, where was yours, bob? I don't know, but he was a colonel.
A full colonel.
I hope he got back, 'cause he has a very beautiful wife and a very lovely little daughter.
I hope he got back.
What do you think? Uh-uh.
I don't think.
Not on this one, sir.
What kind of trauma? Something to set him tilt like that? I can we call it "tilt," sir? Oh, what else? Another dimension? Another world parallel to ours? Call that rational? Up there, who knows what's rational and what isn't? We don't even know the rules, sir, let alone the facts.
We're we're like little ants that have just made it to the desert.
Now we say we've conquered the sahara and we haven't conquered anything.
We're only starting to find the mysteries, general.
We haven't even begun to solve them.
We're going to do a lot of groping through a lot of dark nights, through a lot of dark space, before we find the clues, let alone the answers.
We've got a long way to go, sir.
Okay.
General? There's a message from capcom, sir.
I'll give it to you as we got it.
It doesn't make much sense.
Let me be the judge of that.
What's the message? Capcom reports telemetry with an unidentified space vehicle.
What? Yes, sir.
They had voice communication for about a minute and a half.
The spacecraft identified itself asastro seven, and the person in it said- what'd he say? What'd he say? He identified himself as a colonel robert gaines.
He asked for reentry data.
Colonelrobert gaines? Yes, sir.
Then we got some garbled stuff, and then nothing.
And then what? And then nothing, sir.
We lost the visual sighting.
We lost all voice.
The thing just disappeared.
Get a transcript of everything that was said.
Have it brought to my office.
And keep trying to raise, uh whoever it was.
Yes, sir.
We're still trying.
Good.
Uh you keep me in touch.
Yes, sir.
Well, bill you certainly were right when you said we haven't even begun.
We don't have all the answers.
We've got a long way to go.
What's on your mind? One thing.
I'd like to tell astronaut gaines that his proof just showed up on a radar screen, however briefly.
Yeah.
Be my guest.
Do me a favor, would you, honey? Tell me who i am.
What, daddy? Thank you, honey.
That's all i need to know.
Welcome home.
It's good to be home.
Major robert gaines, a latter-day voyager just returned from an adventure.
Submitted to you without any recommendations as to belief or disbelief.
You can accept or reject.
You pays your money, and you takes your choice.
But credulous or incredulous, don't bother to ask anyone for proof that it could happen.
The obligation's a reverse challenge- prove that itcouldn't.
This happens to be the twilight zone.
A new author joins the ranks of thetwilight zonecrew when john furia jr.
Gives us several stunningly new twists to a classic character in "i dream of genie.
" Join howard morris, patrica barry and loring smith as they take their trip into the twilight zone.
Who who who? Who were you expecting? Who? I'm a genie in a lamp.
That's who.
Aladdin, magic, the whole bit.
If if you are the genie, then i must be the master of the lamp.
Big deal.
Master of the lamp.
All right, you got yourself a free wish.
I can't believe it.
Anything i want in the whole world.
Anything.
But only one wish.