The Jeopardy Room

"The Jeopardy Room"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no. Season 5
Episode 29
Directed by Richard Donner
Written by Rod Serling
Production code 2639
Original air date April 17, 1964
Guest appearance(s)

"The Jeopardy Room" is episode 149 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, which originally aired on April 17, 1964 on CBS. It was one of only two Twilight Zone episodes (the other being season two's "The Silence") to feature a story without any supernatural or science fiction elements. It does, however, contain one of the series' signature twist endings.

Opening narration

Plot

Trying to defect, former KGB Major Ivan Kuchenko (Martin Landau) is trapped inside a hotel room. Commissar Vassiloff (John van Dreelen), a hitman; and Boris (Robert Kelljan), his assistant, are watching him from a room across the street. Seeking relief from the monotony of killing defectors, Vassiloff orchestrates an imaginative death for Kuchenko. First, he tricks Kuchenko into drinking a sleeping drug. Kuchenko wakens to find a tape from Vassiloff saying he has booby trapped an object in the room, and if Ivan finds and disarms it within three hours, he will be allowed to live. If he tries to leave the room before then or block off their surveillance, he will be shot by Boris, who has a gun trained on him at all times.

Vassiloff has hidden the bomb in the telephone, but it will be triggered only by picking up an incoming call. Thus, when Kuchenko picks up the phone and nothing happens, he is misdirected into thinking the trap is not in the phone. Ten minutes before Kuchenko's time has run out, Vassiloff places a call to his room. Kuchenko puts his hand on the receiver but hesitates. When Vassiloff tries to call him a second time, Kuchenko bolts out of the hotel room, narrowly escaping a spray of bullets from Boris. Later, Vassiloff and Boris enter the room to clean up the scene. The phone rings, and Boris unthinkingly picks it up; the bomb goes off, killing him and Vassiloff. On the other end of the phone line is Ivan Kuchenko at the airport. As the loudspeaker announces that his plane is about to depart he walks to his freedom.

Closing Narration

References

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