The Long Morrow

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The Twilight Zone original series Season five (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1963 – Summer 1964 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: In Praise of Pip Steel Nightmare at 20,000 Feet A Kind of a Stopwatch The Last Night of a Jockey Living Doll The Old Man in the Cave Uncle Simon Probe 7, Over and Out The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain Ninety Years Without Slumbering Ring-a-Ding Girl You Drive The Long Morrow The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross Number 12 Looks Just Like You Black Leather Jackets Night Call From Agnes—With Love Spur of the Moment An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Queen of the Nile What's in the Box The Masks I Am the Night—Color Me Black Sounds and Silences Caesar and Me The Jeopardy Room Stopover in a Quiet Town The Encounter Mr. Garrity and the Graves The Brain Center at Whipple's Come Wander With Me The Fear The Bewitchin' Pool

“The Long Morrow” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 135
Season: 5
Production code: 2624
Original air date: January 10, 1964
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Robert Florey
Producer: William Froug
Director of photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock

[edit] Cast

Commander Douglas Stansfield: Robert Lansing
Sandra Horn: Mariette Hartley
Dr. Bixler: George Macready
General Walters: Ed Binns
Technician: William Swan

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Stansfield, an astronaut, is sent to a planetary system 141 light-years from Earth. The ship he will be taking is able to make it to the system in 20 years, with a return trip of 20 years as well. To save him the horror of forty years of loneliness, he is to be placed in (newly-developed) suspended animation. Before leaving, he meets and is enchanted by colleague Horn. In just one evening they develop a mutual fondness. They wanted to wait for each other, but by the time he would come back, Horn would be 40 years older and Stansfield would still be young because of the suspended animation.

Stansfield goes on his mission and 40 years later he returns (sadly, the job he was sent to do already completed using technology developed since he left). He thus returns a forgotten pioneer. It is revealed on his arrival that he voluntarily disabled the suspended animation system about six months into his journey and so that he would be Horn's age. Shortly after he'd left, however, Horn had herself placed in suspended animation so that she would be his age. In the tragic end, Stansfield sadly urges Horn to live her new life without him.

[edit] References

The first episode of season 7 of the television show Gilmore Girls is titled, "The Long Morrow", and was originally broadcast September 26, 2006. In the episode, Rory questions why Logan gave her a two-foot rocket as a parting gift when he leaves for London to work for his father's company. After searching through Google, blogs, and chat rooms, she finds a rocket-geek who tells her that the rocket is a replica from this Twilight Zone episode. Rory goes back through her memory bank, and finally realizes that she and Logan had watched this episode in her grandparent's poolhouse in the earlier stages of their relationship. When they were watching the episode, Logan commented on it: "that is true love."