★★★★★ December 11, 1959 Season 1 Episode 11
If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.
This is one of my favorites. Rod Taylor from the Time Machine drives this episode. I won’t give out 5 star ratings on just anything but this one does it for me. Each character goes through the same situation and there is no way they can explain it to anyone else. There is a little…just a little of “It’s A Wonderful Life” in this one. When George Bailey goes to his mother’s door and she said she didn’t know him…because he didn’t exist. What would happen if a friend you have known for years was wiped out of existence in everyone’s memory but yours?
Halfway through, you get an idea of what is going to happen but that doesn’t matter. You can feel the desperation in Lieutenant Colonel Clegg Forbes (Rod Taylor) as he tries to put together what happened to his friend and why no one else knows…and then it starts happening to him.
Also (Spoiler!) the character Major William Gart quickly vanished at the end. Rod Serling explained in a lecture that without his fellow astronauts to anchor him to this world, he had no way of holding on. It furthered the idea that Rod Taylor’s Forbes’s denial kept him in the world longer, and having heard the story of Harrington’s disappearance and seeing Forbes taken out, he had no way of denying the possibility.
Look for Miss. Landers (Sue Randall) from Leave it to Beaver as the Nurse.
This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Her name: X-20. Her type: an experimental interceptor. Recent history: a crash landing in the Mojave Desert after a thirty-one hour flight nine hundred miles into space. Incidental data: the ship, with the men who flew her, disappeared from the radar screen for twenty-four hours…But the shrouds that cover mysteries are not always made out of a tarpaulin, as this man will soon find out on the other side of a hospital door.
Summary
The X-20 experimental spacecraft recently returned after venturing into a 900 mile orbit around the Earth. At one point, the craft disappeared for about 20 seconds and then suddenly reappeared before crashing in the Mojave desert. One of the crew, Maj. William Gart broke his leg on reentry but is recovering. Another of the astronauts, Lt. Col. Clegg Forbes, visits him but is obviously quite shaken. His recollection is there were 3 astronauts in the craft but the newspaper accounts mention only two. The third was Col. Ed Harrington but Gart says he never heard of him. As Forbes remembers it, he and Harrington went out the night before and Harrington begins to have a sense of not belonging. He then vanishes. As he searches for his friend, he can find no one who ever met the man.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Once upon a time, there was a man named Harrington, a man named Forbes, a man named Gart. They used to exist, but don’t any longer. Someone – or something – took them somewhere. At least they are no longer a part of the memory of man. And as to the X-20 supposed to be housed here in this hangar, this, too, does not exist. And if any of you have any questions concerning an aircraft and three men who flew her, speak softly of them – and only in – The Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Rod Taylor … Lieutenant Colonel Clegg Forbes
Jim Hutton … Major William Gart (as James Hutton)
Charles Aidman … Colonel Ed Harrington
Maxine Cooper … Amy
Paul Bryar … Bartender
Sue Randall … Nurse
Joe Bassett … Medical Officer
Lisabeth Field … Nurse (uncredited)
Logan Field … Investigator (uncredited)
John Launer … Mr. Harrington (uncredited)
Oliver McGowan … Officer (uncredited)
Gloria Pall … Girl in Bar (uncredited)
Bernard Sell … Bar Patron (uncredited)
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 
An outstanding one- I might give it a 4 1/2 but I can’t argue with a 5 either. Yes- Miss Landers! .. another episode with great acting. Really enjoying this series.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I went back and forth with 5 and 4 1/2… I know…Mrs Landers right! It is a great episode.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes really love this one as well. Can’t argue with your rating either. To me it has a bit of a X-Files vibe to it. I could see expanding this episode to an hour and having Mulder and Scully trying to figure out what’s going on with these astronauts. And then the cigarette smoking man lurking around in the background to give you the sense that maybe the authorities know more than they’re letting on.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I was wondering if the 5 stars was a fair rating…I simply love this one and you are spot on about the X-Files…it would be a perfect episode!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think 5 stars is defensible. I also like that initially you think the guy might be going insane all in his head and then he disappears and the remaining guy is like oh ###**!!!
LikeLike
The episode looks really good, but I found that narrator very annoying.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh you mean the reviewer…Jim it’s hard to get a clip of the Twilight Zone…it’s like Jimi Hendrix and Don Henley songs…they are guarded and taken down quickly. I’ve had to replace 3 already within a few days because they take them down.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m enjoying your series about the Twilight Zone, Max, and I think I’m beginning to understand why you’re such a fan of the series. This surely looks like an intriguing episode.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a good episode to start off on…Christian, frankly I thought I might lose some readers doing it but if anything I’ve gained a few…it’s a show that so many people know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t remember this one but it looks good. A more recent movie, “Interstellar” has a similar aspect to it. There have been so many good actors on TZ!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rod Taylor was a great actor…and Miss Landers!
I really liked Interstellar…went to the theater to see that one.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like a good one, I’ll try to look it up. Your reviews are great for me because I usually don’t have a lot of time to watch these endlessly and if I have time to fit in one or two episodes, you’re giving me a better idea of what to look for first.
the premise of someone being erased from every memory but one is kind of what they did on that ‘Yesterday’ movie recently, wasn’t it, only instead of a person it was the Beatles collectively.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes it is similiar to that in a way. Someone commented about it being like a X-Files episode…and it is…or the other way around lol.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think Chris Carter probably had a good background in watching The Twilight Zone when he came up with the X -files
LikeLiked by 1 person
No doubt…some X-Files would have made good Twilight Zones
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Love and Love Alone.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That episode really creeped me out.
LikeLike