Death Ship (The Twilight Zone)

Last updated
"Death Ship"
The Twilight Zone episode
Death Ship.jpg
Cruiser E-89 about to land
Episode no.Season 4
Episode 6
Directed by Don Medford
Written by Richard Matheson
Based on"Death Ship"
by Richard Matheson
Featured musicStock
Production code4850
Original air dateFebruary 7, 1963 (1963-02-07)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
 Previous
"Mute"
Next 
"Jess-Belle"
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 4)
List of episodes

"Death Ship" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone , based on a 1953 short story with the same title by Richard Matheson. The story was inspired by the legend of the Flying Dutchman. In this episode, a spaceship crew discovers a wrecked replica of their ship with their own dead bodies inside.

Contents

Opening narration

Picture of the spaceship E-89, cruising above the 13th planet of star system 51, the year 1997. In a little while, supposedly, the ship will be landed and specimens taken: vegetable, mineral, and if any, animal. These will be brought back to overpopulated Earth, where technicians will evaluate them, and if everything is satisfactory, stamp their findings with the word 'inhabitable' and open up yet another planet for colonization. These are the things that are supposed to happen.

Picture of the crew of the spaceship E-89: Captain Ross, Lieutenant Mason, Lieutenant Carter. Three men who have just reached a place which is as far from home as they will ever be. Three men who in a matter of minutes will be plunged into the darkest nightmare reaches of the Twilight Zone.

Plot

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. While orbiting a planet, Mason sees a metallic glint in the landscape. He conjects 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 find that the gleaming comes from the wreck of a ship exactly like their own. Inside the craft, they discover their own lifeless bodies. Mason and Carter go numb with shock. Ross, struggling for an explanation, decides they have bent time in such a way as to get a glimpse of the future. He says to avoid their fate they must refrain from taking off again. Mason and Carter fiercely object to this plan, especially once they find that atmospheric interference prevents their contacting anyone for help, and that the frigid night-time temperatures of the planet will force them to rapidly exhaust the ship's energy reserves on heat. Ross pulls rank to make them comply.

While looking out the viewport, Carter is transported back to a country lane on Earth. There, he encounters people from his past. He runs to the house that his wife and he shared, and finds it empty except for a telegram notifying her that he has died in the line of duty. Carter is wrenched from his vision by Ross; as Carter describes what he has just experienced, he realizes that the people he encountered are dead. Ross insists it was a delusion. The two then find Mason has vanished. He is having an emotional reunion with his wife and child. When Ross pulls him back, Mason is enraged and wants to be allowed back, maintaining that his encounter with his family was real. From Mason's pocket, Ross pulls a newspaper clipping about the death of Mason's wife and child. The captain then posits a new theory about what is going on: The planet is inhabited by telepathic aliens who are using illusions to keep them from reporting back to Earth, thus averting colonization of their home. 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. Mason and Carter admit that Ross may have been right about the aliens. Ross then insists on landing the craft again to gather foreign samples to bring back to Earth. When they land again, the wreck of their craft is still present. The successive disproving of Ross's theories, combined with an intuitive knowledge of their condition, brings Mason and Carter to the realization that they already crashed and are dead. Their afterlife visits were real, and their current situation is the illusion. Ross refuses to accept this. He rejects his crew's pleas to be allowed to embrace their deaths and be reunited with their loved ones, and says that they will "go over it again and again" until he figures out an alternative explanation.

In compliance with Ross's order, the men are returned to the moment where Mason first spotted the E-89's wreckage, doomed to relive the past several hours of investigation over and over.

Closing narration

Picture of a man who will not see anything he does not choose to see, including his own death. A man of such indomitable will that even the two men beneath his command are not allowed to see the truth; which truth is, that they are no longer among the living, that the movements they make and the words they speak have all been made and spoken countless times before, and will be made and spoken countless times again, perhaps even unto eternity. Picture of a latter-day Flying Dutchman , sailing into the Twilight Zone.

Production notes

The model of the hovering spaceship is that of a C-57D Cruiser , a leftover prop from MGM's 1956 film Forbidden Planet . The crashed ship was a realistically painted model/set. [1] The prop was also used in the 1960 Twilight Zone episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Third from the Sun". [2] [3]

A crew member shirt, also used in the episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home", was offered at auction in late September 2015 by Profiles in History with an estimated value of $1,000 to $1,500, with a winning bid of $1,600 by Mathew G. Perrone, a private collector. [4] [5]

Cast

Related Research Articles

<i>Forbidden Planet</i> 1956 science fiction movie by Fred M. Wilcox

Forbidden Planet is a 1956 American science fiction film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack, and directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a script by Cyril Hume that was based on an original film story by Allen Adler and Irving Block. It stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope, it is considered one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s, a precursor of contemporary science fiction cinema. The characters and isolated setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the plot contains certain happenings analogous to the play, leading many to consider it a loose adaptation.

"The Lonely" is the seventh episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on November 13, 1959, on CBS.

"Judgment Night" is the tenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a passenger aboard a British cargo liner has no memory of how he came aboard, and is tormented by unexpected clues to his true identity and a sense that the ship is headed toward impending doom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Third from the Sun</span> 14th episode of the 1st season of The Twilight Zone

"Third from the Sun" is the fourteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It is based on a short story of the same name by Richard Matheson which first appeared in the first issue of the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction in October 1950.

"I Shot an Arrow into the Air" is the fifteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

"Elegy" is the twentieth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on February 19, 1960, on CBS. The episode was based on a short story by Charles Beaumont published in the February 1953 issue of Imagination: Stories of Science and Fantasy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street</span> 22nd episode of the 1st season of The Twilight Zone

"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is the 22nd episode in the first season of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. The episode was written by Rod Serling, the creator-narrator of the series. It originally aired on March 4, 1960, on CBS. In 2009, TIME named it one of the ten best Twilight Zone episodes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">People Are Alike All Over</span> 25th episode of the 1st season of The Twilight Zone

"People Are Alike All Over" is episode 25 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

"Eye of the Beholder" is episode 42 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on November 11, 1960, on CBS.

"Two" is the season 3 premiere and 66th episode overall of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. The episode stars Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery.

To Serve Man (<i>The Twilight Zone</i>) 24th episode of the 3rd season of The Twilight Zone

"To Serve Man" is the 24th episode of the third season of the anthology series The Twilight Zone, and the 89th overall. It originally aired on March 2, 1962, on CBS. Based on Damon Knight's 1950 short story of the same title, the episode was written by Rod Serling and directed by Richard L. Bare. It is considered one of the best episodes from the series, particularly for its final twist.

"The Brain Center at Whipple's" is episode 153 of the American television series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on May 15, 1964 on CBS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">In Praise of Pip</span> 1st episode of the 5th season of The Twilight Zone

"In Praise of Pip" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, after learning that his soldier son has suffered a mortal wound in an early phase of the Vietnam War, a crooked bookie encounters a childhood version of his son.

"Probe 7, Over and Out" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Its plot is a shaggy God story.

"On Thursday We Leave for Home" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a struggling colony on a distant planet awaits the arrival of a ship that will take them back to Earth. The story centers on the resulting cross-cultural encounter and the enduring ties to one's home planet, chiefly as seen through the eyes of the colony's leader, William Benteen.

"The Little People" is episode 93 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on March 30, 1962 on CBS.

"A Quality of Mercy" is episode 80 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, which originally aired on December 29, 1961. The title is taken from a notable speech in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, quoted in Serling's closing narration at the end of the episode.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hocus-Pocus and Frisby</span> 30th episode of the 3rd season of The Twilight Zone

"Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" is episode 95 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

<i>C-57D</i> Fictional spaceship

The United Planets Cruiser C-57D is a fictional starship featured in MGM's 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. The design used for the starship is a flying saucer, inspired by the spate of UFO sightings during the 1950s, and which itself inspired the look of the exterior saucer section and interior design of another iconic starship, Star Trek's USS Enterprise, as well as the Jupiter 2 space craft from the original 1965 TV series Lost in Space.

References

  1. Zicree, Marc Scott (1982). The Twilight Zone Companion (second ed.). Silman-James.
  2. "Rod Serling FAQ". Archived from the original on 2009-06-01. Retrieved 2013-10-03.
  3. VanDerWeff, Emily (2011-10-22). "The Twilight Zone: "The Four Of Us Are Dying"/"Third From The Sun"". The A.V. Club . Retrieved 2015-07-14.
  4. Hollywood Auction 74. California: Profiles in History. 2015. p. 358. Lot 1017. Shirt made for Forbidden Planet and used in Twilight Zone episodes. (CBS TV, 1959-1964) Vintage futuristic shirt consisting of an iridescent gray blue short sleeve shirt with zipper front closure, 2-breast pockets, and soft sculpture bright red fabric crescents attached to shoulders. Ultimately unused in Forbidden Planet, the shirt does appear in two episodes of The Twilight Zone; "Death Ship" and "On Thursday We Leave for Home". With minor fading and discoloration to some areas. In vintage very good to fine. $1,000 - $1,500. (Auction took place September 29, 30, October 1, 2015.)
  5. Mark Zicree, "Death Ship" audio commentary, The Twilight Zone DVD boxed set