Person or Persons Unknown

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The Twilight Zone original series Season three (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1961 – Summer 1962 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: 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

“Person or Persons Unknown” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 92
Season: 3
Production code: 4529
Original air date: March 23, 1962
Writer: Charles Beaumont
Director: John Brahm
Producer: Buck Houghton
Music: Stock

[edit] Cast

David Gurney: Richard Long
Dr. Koslenko: Frank Silvera
Wilma #1: Shirley Ballard
Wilma #2: Julie van Zandt
Woman Clerk: Betty Harford
Sam Baker: Ed Glover
Policeman: Michael Keep
Bank Guard: Joe Higgins
Mr. Cooper: John Newton

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

David Gurney wakes up to find that nobody knows him, and all evidence of his identity had disappeared. He is placed in an insane asylum; however, he manages to escape. He finds a photograph of himself and his wife together. However, when the police arrive with a psychiatrist, the picture has somehow changed and portrays Gurney alone. He throws himself to the ground and wakes up in his bed. The whole adventure was a bad dream. His wife gets up from the bed and talks to him from the bathroom, where she removes cream from her face. When she emerges, Gurney is horrified to discover that, even though she acts and talks the same way, his wife does not look at all like the wife he knows.

[edit] Trivia

The premise of this episode is remarkably similar to the 1995 UPN series Nowhere Man. In that series, Thomas Veil (Bruce Greenwood) also discovers that his identity has mysteriously been taken away from him, and even his wife claims not to recognize him. Veil spends the series trying to track down proof of his identity, and on several occasions he thinks he has proof but then it is mysteriously "erased". While we never learn what is behind Gurney's troubles, Nowhere Man does offer an explanation of sorts for Veil's dilemma.