The Changing of the Guard (The Twilight Zone)
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| “The Changing of the Guard” | |||||||
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| The Twilight Zone episode | |||||||
 Scene from "The Changing of the Guard" |
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| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 102 |
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| Written by | Rod Serling | ||||||
| Directed by | Robert Ellis Miller | ||||||
| Guest stars | Donald Pleasence : Professor Ellis Fowler Liam Sullivan : Headmaster |
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| Featured music | Stock | ||||||
| Production no. | 4835 | ||||||
| Original airdate | June 1, 1962 | ||||||
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| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||||||
"The Changing of the Guard" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
- "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
- (Quotation which Professor Fowler reads, by Horrace Mann)
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[edit] Synopsis
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2008) |
Professor Ellis Fowler is an elderly teacher who is forced into retirement by his school. Looking through his old yearbooks and reminiscing about his former students, he becomes convinced that all of his lessons have been in vain and that he has accomplished nothing with his life. Deeply depressed, he returns to his school one last time intending to kill himself. Before he can commit suicide, the ghosts of former students reappear to prove that his teachings were very much appreciated.
[edit] Trivia
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- Donald Pleasence was heavily made-up in order to appear much older than his actual age of 42.
- The quote Professor Fowler reads on the statue's plinth, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity,” is the motto of Rod Serling’s alma mater Antioch College, and was said by its first president, Horace Mann. Serling accepted a teaching post there after completing this script.
[edit] Critical Response
Andrew Sarris, excerpt from Rod Serling: Viewed from Beyond the Twilight Zone:
| “ | It should be noted, however, that much of Serling’s fantasy and science fiction writing is somewhat genteel by today’s scary, paranoid standards. Although he has acknowledged Hemingway as an early stylistic influence, there are echoes in his recurringly pastoral nostalgia of such wistful authors as Thornton Wilder, Christopher Morley, Robert Nathan, and James Hilton. Indeed Hilton’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips could have served as the model for “The Changing of the Guard” with Donald Pleasence cast in the role of Professor Ellis Fowler, an old crock who is being retired after 51 years of service. Convinced that his life’s work has been a waste, he is reassured only by the testimony of ghosts of students past that his teachings have been applied and absorbed. This fantasy is so gentle, uncomplicated and sentimental that one is brought up short by the seeming absence of a disquieting twist in the plot, which one could suppose is that self-same twist. | ” |
[edit] References
- Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
