The Fear (The Twilight Zone)

"The Fear"

The Twilight Zone episode

Scene from "The Fear"

Episode no.

Season 5
Episode 155

Directed by

Ted Post

Written by

Rod Serling

Featured music

Stock (including cues from Fred Steiner's "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim")

Production code

2633

Original air date

May 29, 1964

Guest stars

Peter Mark Richman (as "Mark Richman"): Trooper Robert Franklin
Hazel Court: Charlotte Scott

Episode chronology

← Previous
"Come Wander With Me"

Next →
"The Bewitchin' Pool"

List of Twilight Zone episodes

"The Fear" is the penultimate episode of the American television series The Twilight Zone.

Synopsis

Highway Patrol trooper Robert Franklin and brooding New York socialite Charlotte Scott (recuperating from a nervous breakdown) find themselves trapped in Scott's remote cabin as unexplained occurrences indicate the presence of a mysterious force. Bright flashes of light are seen, strange craters appear, and the trooper's car moves - on its own. Back inside, Charlotte hears strange noises on the roof; when Robert goes outside to investigate, he finds nothing, but notices that his car is back in place-covered in gigantic fingerprints. The two sleep nervously, and go out into the woods the next morning, seeking the giant monster. They find an enormous footprint, leading the socialite to run away. She soon stumbles and falls directly into the path of a 500-foot-tall "Martian" with one eye. Realizing that no one will believe their story, the pair is left to stand against the beast. Robert shoots it...and it deflates, revealing itself to be an enormous balloon. The true source of the problem is a small alien spacecraft, containing two aliens no bigger than a man's thumb. They reveal that all of their trickery has been foiled by "man's inability to be afraid", beg their superiors to allow them to depart (or, in their eyes, face being crushed), and finally flee. Robert grins and wishes them luck- "maybe the next place they land, they can be the giants." Charlotte asks what will happen if they are invaded by other alien giants; Robert informs her that "I think you'd spit in their eye." She smiles and the camera tilts to the skyline as Serling's voiceover comes on.

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links

"The Fear" at the Internet Movie Database

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"