A Stop at Willoughby

"A Stop at Willoughby"
The Twilight Zone episode
James Daly in "A Stop at Willoughby"
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 30
Directed by	Robert Parrish
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Nathan Scott
Production code	173-3629
Original air date	May 6, 1960
Guest stars
James Daly: Gart Williams Howard Smith: Mr. Misrell Patricia Donahue: Jane Williams Jason Wingreen: Train conductor Mavis Neal Palmer: Helen
Episode chronology
← Previous "Nightmare as a Child" Next → "The Chaser"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

"A Stop at Willoughby" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling cited this as his favorite story from the first season of the series.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Production notes 3 In popular culture 4 See also 5 References 6 Further readings 7 External links

Plot

Gart Williams is an overstressed New York advertising executive who has grown exasperated with his career. His overbearing boss, Oliver Misrell, angered by the loss of a major account, lectures him about this "push-push-push" business. Unable to sleep properly at home, he drifts off for a short nap on the train during his daily commute through the November snow.

He wakes to find the train stopped and changed into an 1880s railcoach, deserted except for himself. The sun is bright outside and as he looks out the window, he discovers that the train is in Willoughby and that it's July 1888. He learns that this is a "peaceful, restful place, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure." Being jerked back awake in the real world, he asks the conductor if he has ever heard of a town called Willoughby, but the conductor replies, "Not on this run . . . no Willoughby on the line."

That night, he has one more argument with his shrewish wife, Jane. Selfish, cold and uncaring, she makes him see that he is only a money machine to her. He tells her about his dream and about Willoughby, only to have her ridicule him as being "born too late," declaring it her "miserable tragic error" to have married a man "whose big dream in life is to be Huckleberry Finn."

The next week, Williams again dozes off on the train and returns to Willoughby where everything is the same as before. As he is about to get off the train carrying his briefcase, it begins to roll, returning him to the present. Williams promises himself to get off the next time he is in the village.

Experiencing a breakdown at work, he calls his wife, who abandons him in his time of need. On his way home, once again he falls asleep to find himself in Willoughby. This time, the conductor warmly beckons him to the door and Williams discards his briefcase.

Getting off the train, he is greeted by name by various of the inhabitants, who welcome him while he tells them that he's glad to be there and plans to stay and join their idyllic life.

The swinging pendulum of the station clock fades into the swinging lantern of a train engineer, standing over Williams' body. The modern-day conductor explains that Williams "shouted something about Willoughby", just before jumping off of the train and was killed instantly. "Poor fellah", the engineer mumbles, as the conductor nods in agreement. Williams's body is loaded into a hearse and as the back door closes, we see that it was sent by the Willoughby & Son Funeral Home.

Production notes

The 2000 TV movie For All Time starring Mark Harmon was based on this episode.^[1]

The "Stamford" and the "Westport/Saugatuck" stops called out by the conductor in the episode exist in real life – Metro-North Railroad stops in Fairfield County, Connecticut include Stamford, Connecticut and the Westport station serves the town of Westport, Connecticut where series creator Rod Serling once lived.

Gart Williams' home phone number of CApital 7-9899 is also a legitimate telephone exchange in Westport.

In popular culture

An episode of the Nickelodeon show Rugrats makes reference to this episode. In "Family Reunion/Grandpa's Date" (February 23, 1992) the family boards a train where Willoughby is repeatedly mentioned. More references to "A Stop at Willoughby" come up throughout that portion of the episode.

In the "It's a Good Life" segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, Helen Foley stops at a gasoline station looking for directions to Willoughby.

An episode of thirtysomething is entitled "A Stop at Willoughby" and has a roughly similar premise.

Each year Willoughby, Ohio celebrates the Twilight Zone episode with an annual event called "Last Stop Willoughby," a community event with trains.

See also

• List of The Twilight Zone episodes

References

Further readings

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

• "A Stop at Willoughby" at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com episode page

Twilight Zone (1959) episodes Season 1 "Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgement Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own" Season 2 "King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble With Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man" Season 3 "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" Season 4 "In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard" Season 5 "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"