The Twilight Zone 1.18

The Last Flight

starring Kenneth Haigh, Alexander Scourby, Simon Scott

written by Richard Matheson

directed by William F. Claxton

Lieutenant William Terrance Decker (Kenneth Haigh) of the Royal Flying Corps passes through a cloud and finds himself transported from 1917 to 1959. He doesn't understand what happened, nor do the US Air Force officers who question him, Major Wilson (Simon Scott) and Brigadier General Harper (Alexander Scourby).

Decker doesn't admit it at first (in front of the general) but later he tells Major Wilson that he's a coward. Just before he arrived in 1959 in abandoned a comrade when they faced overwhelming odds in an aerial fight. Based on some information that Decker gets from Wilson about Mackaye, the comrade he abandoned in 1917, Decker decides that he must go back.

Thoughts

This was an interesting episode. I like the twist. It probably could have been handled better but I enjoyed the episode. I would say that it is middle of the road. It isn't great. I wouldn't put it on a list of favorite episodes but there's something to it that satisfied me. It didn't make me roll my eyes or sigh heavily.

I can see parallels between this episode and an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, 3.15 Yesterday's Enterprise. I have to wonder if this episode might have influenced the writers of that episode.

Episode 76 of the Quiet, Please! radio drama, titled One for the Book is cited as being similar to this episode. That episode can be found online in a few places. It precedes this episode by a dozen years. The only similarity that I found is that it involves someone time traveling by accident but in the case of the radio drama it is about a man who meets a future version of himself who has accidentally traveled backwards in time. "One for the books" is a line from Yesterday's Enterprise but there is no mention of either the episode of Quiet, Please! or The Last Flight in the pages for Yesterday's Enterprise on Memory Alpha and Wikipedia.

Notes

This is the only episode of this show in which Kenneth Haigh appeared. He also appeared in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

This is the only episode of this show in which Alexander Scourby appeared. He had an uncredited part in one episode of The Phil Silvers Show, 3.31 Bilko's Pilot. He was in one episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

This is the only episode of this show in which Simon Scott appeared. He was in three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and three episodes of The Invaders, the first of which was 1.13 Storm. He was in one of the Six Million Dollar Man TV movies, Wine, Woman and Song (1973) and two episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man TV show; the first of which was 1.03 Operation Firefly.

This is the third of 16 episodes of this show that Richard Matheson had a hand in writing. He had a hand in writing three episodes of Amazing Stories, in addition to movies and episodes of some other shows which I summarized in my notes about the previous of this show that he wrote, 1.14 Third from the Sun.

This is the first of four episodes of this show that William F. Claxton directed.