The Parallel
"The Parallel" | |||
---|---|---|---|
The Twilight Zone episode | |||
Episode no. |
Season 4 Episode 113 | ||
Directed by | Alan Crosland, Jr. | ||
Written by | Rod Serling | ||
Featured music | Stock | ||
Production code | 4859 | ||
Original air date | March 14, 1963 | ||
Guest actors | |||
Steve Forrest: Robert Gaines | |||
Episode chronology | |||
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List of Twilight Zone episodes |
"The Parallel" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Plot
An astronaut, Major Robert Gaines, is orbiting the Earth in his space capsule. Suddenly, his communication systems stop functioning and he blacks out, waking up on Earth with no memory of his return. He appears to be none the worse for his experiences and is released to the custody of his family.
However, inconsistencies quickly pop up. His daughter senses that he is not the same person. His house has a white picket fence that he's never seen, though his wife insists that it was there when they bought the house. Everyone calls him Colonel (confirmed by the rank insignia on his uniform) when he knows he's a Major, and he insists that the President of the United States is John F. Kennedy, a man no one else has heard of. Gaines concludes that he must have slipped into a parallel universe and tries to return to his space capsule, but blacks out again before he can do so.
He immediately finds himself back in orbit and lands his craft safely. He is prepared to write the whole thing off as a nightmare, but controllers on the ground subsequently receive another transmission — from Colonel Robert Gaines…
References
- Sander, Gordon F.:Serling: The Rise And Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
- 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