Twenty Two (The Twilight Zone)

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“Twenty Two”
The Twilight Zone episode

Jonathan Harris in “Twenty Two”
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 53
Written by Rod Serling
Directed by Jack Smight
Guest stars Barbara Nichols : Liz Powell
Jonathan Harris : The Doctor
Fredd Wayne : Barney Kamener
Arline Sax : The nurse in the morgue
Mary Adams : Day Nurse
Norma Connolly : Night Nurse (Miss Jameson)
Wesley Lau : Airline Agent
Angus Duncan : Ticket Clerk
Jay Overholts : Public address system announcer (voice) (uncredited)
Joseph Sargent : Uniformed clerk (uncredited)
Featured music none credited
Production no. 173-3664
Original airdate February 10, 1961
Episode chronology
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"A Penny for Your Thoughts" "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

"Twenty Two" is an episode of the American television series The Twilight Zone.

Contents

[edit] Opening narration

In one uninterrupted shot, Liz Powell runs through the corridor of the hospital basement, pushes the elevator button and, as the doors open, lurches into the elevator and, in long view, faces us as the doors slide shut and the camera slowly pans to the left to reveal Rod Serling standing and speaking in front of the entrance to Room 22, the morgue:

“ This is Miss Liz Powell. She's a professional dancer and she's in the hospital as a result of overwork and nervous fatigue. And at this moment we have just finished walking with her in a nightmare. In a moment she'll wake up and we'll remain at her side. The problem here is that both Miss Powell and you will reach a point where it might be difficult to decide which is reality and which is nightmare, a problem uncommon perhaps, but rather peculiar.... to the Twilight Zone. ”

[edit] Synopsis

While in a hospital, recuperating from stress, Liz Powell, whom her agent, Barney, describes as "the best little stripper- dancer that ever came down the pike", has a strange nightmare. Every night, she awakens at midnight. She turns and breaks a drinking glass full of water, and then hears strange footsteps outside her door. It is always the same person: A nurse who beckons Liz to follow her. When Liz does, she goes down into an elevator and nervously approaches Room Twenty-Two.

The strange nurse then emerges from the dark shadows of the room and, smiling wickedly, gives a message: "Room for one more, honey." Liz screams and runs back to her room, where she falls back to sleep. Her doctor claims that the dream is impossible, as there is no nurse who resembles the woman in the dream working in the hospital. The doctor then suggests that Liz change her actions in the dream, such as not to reach for the glass of water. Liz does this that night, and is happy to hear no footsteps, but when she turns to sleep, her blanket shatters the glass. The dream goes on in the same way, but this time Liz realizes that the room is a morgue.

The next morning, the doctor is shocked: Liz has never been downstairs to the morgue, and yet she described it with remarkable accuracy. The episode then goes to the airport, where Liz is preparing to go home. While nervously twitching in the terminal, she bumps into a woman carrying a vase. It falls, making the same noise as the drinking glass in the dream. Liz's flight is then announced as "Flight 22", leaving immediately. In a long, slow shot, Liz walks up the runway, climbs the stairs, and approaches the plane.... and a stewardess who looks just like the dream-nurse appears, intoning her same terrifying message: "Room for one more, honey".

Screaming, Liz runs back down the stairs and into the airport, falling to the ground. As the plane takes off, an insert shot reveals the stewardess shrugging, baffled by Liz Powell's behavior. A moment later, as the concerned airport staff rush towards the hysterical Liz, a twist is revealed: The plane explodes immediately after takeoff, killing everyone aboard. Liz's dream has saved her life.

[edit] Closing narration

“ Miss Elizabeth Powell, profession: Dancer. Hospital diagnosis: Acute anxiety brought on by overwork and fatigue. Prognosis: With rest and care, she'll probably recover. But the cure to some nightmares is not to be found in known medical journals. You look for it under 'potions for bad dreams', to be found in the Twilight Zone. ”

[edit] Episode notes

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

As the Twilight Zone's second season began, the production was informed by CBS that, at about $65,000 per episode, the show was exceeding its budget. By November 1960, 16 episodes, more than half of the projected 29, were already filmed, and five of those had been broadcast. It was decided that six consecutive episodes would be videotaped at CBS Television City in the manner of a live drama and then transferred to 16-millimeter film for TV transmission. Eventual savings amounted to only about $30,000 for all six entries, which was judged to be insufficient to offset the loss of depth of visual perspective that, at the time, only film could offer. The shows wound up looking little better than set-bound soap operas and, as a result, the experiment was deemed a failure and never tried again.

Even though the six shows were taped in a row, through November and into mid-December, their broadcast dates were out of order and varied widely, with this, the fifth one, shown on February 10, 1961 as episode 17. The first, "The Lateness of the Hour", was seen on December 2, 1960 as episode 8; the second, "Static" appeared on March 10, 1961 as episode 20; the third, "The Whole Truth" was broadcast on January 20, 1961 as episode 14; the fourth was the Christmas show, "The Night of the Meek", shown as the 11th episode on December 23, 1960; and the last one, "Long Distance Call", was transmitted on March 3, 1961 as episode 22.

  • The title of this episode, frequently seen hyphenated ("Twenty-Two"), appears on-screen as "Twenty Two".
  • Jonathan Harris, a legendary personality in the sci-fi genre for his iconic role as Dr. Zachary Smith on TV's Lost in Space, appeared in two TZ episodes. Here, he is his familiar, somewhat patronizing and supercilious, self as Liz Powell's hospital physician. His other appearance came less than three months later, in the same season's "The Silence", where he is a member of a men's club, observing the battle of wills between Franchot Tone and Liam Sullivan.
  • Fredd Wayne (born 1923), who appeared in scores of TV episodes during the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s, was in two TZs, playing his usual overly-friendly characters. In "Twenty Two", he's Liz Powell's distressed, but still glad-handing agent, and in third season's second episode, "The Arrival" he's the airline's public relations man, perplexed over the landing of an empty plane.
  • Arline Sax, an exotic-looking, familiar face from the 1960s, 70s and 80s who, from the mid-60s onward, performed as Arlene Martel, played the sinister nurse-turned-stewardess in this episode, with her single, but crucial line, heard three times, "room for one more, honey". Sax had one other (minor) TZ appearance—in first season's "What You Need".
  • Wesley Lau (1921–1984) was a hard-working, primarily small-part actor, whose main claim to recognition comes from his four years (1961-65) as Lt. Anderson on the 1957-66 Perry Mason. In this TZ episode, he has the uniquely staged scene in which, as the airline official, he looks directly into the camera and speaks to the Liz Powell character as if he were addressing us, the audience. In his other (third season) TZ episode, he's one of two humanoid aliens come to Earth to retrieve "The Fugitive" J. Pat O'Malley.
  • A bit player, whose entire acting career only extends over the 1959-62 three-year period, Jay Overholts (1922–1966) managed eight appearances, a TZ record. All were very brief, some were unbilled, and the first two were, appropriately enough, in the show's first two broadcast episodes, "Where Is Everybody?" (one of the reporters) and "One for the Angels" (a physician). During the second season, in addition to this one, the remaining three were in "A Thing About Machines" (an intern attending to the late Bartlett Finchley), "The Odyssey of Flight 33" (one of the airplane passengers) and "Static", where he is difficult to spot as an extra. Overholts' final two appearances came in the third season—"The Jungle" (as John Dehner's taxi driver) and, as a cowboy, in the Western spoof "Showdown with Rance McGrew".
  • This episode is very similar to many stories, usually found in horror anthologies. In it, a dreamer is met with some menacing figure, usually driving a hearse that is full of people rather than a coffin. The driver, always noted as having a "queer face", calls out some variant of the phrase, "Room for one more". The next day, the dreamer encounters another place full of people, such as a bus or elevator. When the driver or elevator operator turns, he is revealed to be the hearse-driver, calling out his same message. The dreamer declines passage, which always culminates in a crash of total fatality.
  • This episode has a place inside Disney's Twilight Zone Tower of Terror as the hotel's front desk room. Also, it is not uncommon for a cast member to call out "Room for one more!" when asking for a single rider to fill a space on an elevator.

[edit] External links

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