Twilight Zone – Mirror Image

★★★1/2  February  26, 1960 Season 1 Episode 21

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is an odd one…but odd translates to good in the Twilight Zone. This one has no bad or good people…just an odd bus station where it all happens. What would you do if you looked across the room and saw yourself? That person not only looked just like but also carried a suitcase or bag just like you. 

Vera Miles plays Millicent Barnes who swears she has seen herself. She starts to get paranoid and tells Paul Grinstead (Martin Milner) this and she starts to break down…then Grinstead,  who obviously likes her and then starts to pity her does what he thinks is best…or so he thought. It could have ended a bit better. I just felt it never resolved itself. A good Twilight Zone and not a failure but not as good as some of the better ones. 

A stand out character actor in this one is Joseph Hamilton playing the grumpy put upon Ticket Agent.

The reason I remember this episode so well is because of Martin Milner . He would start filming Route 66 after this and became a star…later on he would become a bigger star known to the world as Pete Malloy on Adam 12. 

The cities mentioned in this episode (Cortland, Syracuse, Tully, and Binghamton) all lie along Hwy. 11 in central upstate New York. The use of these places is an homage by Rod Serling to his childhood. He was born in Syracuse and lived in Binghamton until he graduated high school. Even when he lived in Hollywood during his heyday, he maintained a home in Binghamton.

It was after filming this story that Martin Milner went to film the pilot episode of Route 66 (1960), which made him a star.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Millicent Barnes, age twenty-five, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes: not given to undue anxiety, or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fantasy. Like most young career women, she has a generic classification as a, quote, girl with a head on her shoulders, end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Miss Barnes’ shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who, in one minute, will wonder if she’s going mad.

Summary

Millicent Barnes is waiting in the bus station waiting for her bus to Cortland to arrive. The weather outside is dreadful and the bus is over half an hour late already. When she inquires the station clerk chides her for constantly asking when it will arrive. The only thing is (she thinks) it’s the first time she’s asked him anything. When she goes to the ladies room the cleaning lady suggests she was just in there, she begins to worry that she’s going mad. A good Samaritan, Paul Grinstead, tries to help her out but soon realizes that there may be an explanation for what is happening after all.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Obscure and metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomenon. Reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it ‘parallel planes’ or just ‘insanity’. Whatever it is, you’ll find it in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Vera Miles … Millicent Barnes
Martin Milner … Paul Grinstead
Joseph Hamilton … Ticket Agent (as Joe Hamilton)
Naomi Stevens … Washroom Attendant
Therese Lyon … Old Woman (as Terese Lyon)
Ferris Taylor … Passenger
Edwin Rand … Bus Driver

…

Advertisement

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

61 thoughts on “Twilight Zone – Mirror Image”

  3. Yes great dilemma- is she going insane? Or are the folks in the station trying to drive her crazy. Like you said ending not super satisfying in my mind.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  4. I knew I recognized the guy who helps her – Martin Milner – Adam 12 is one of the first TV shows I remember watching. There was another show on so about that time – focused on a rescue squad – ER51 or something?

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  6. I’m of 2 minds to watch them on netflix. I don’t think I’ll get spooked but I’m not 100% sure, which is what is keeping me from watching them on there. This looks good and you’re right that station agent is really entertaining.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Jennifer now has gotten over the spooked part after I showed her the easy ones at first…I let her in gently… now she is pretty good. Once you get use to them they are fine.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      5. Lisa… I will tell you the one I started Jen on. It was written by our friend Earl Hamner Jr… it’s in the 3rd season and episode 19… it’s a good one

        Liked by 2 people

      9. I also read Pet Cemetery. I will never forget the first chapter (I believe…🤔) where he describes the relationship between little Gage & his older sibling. Gage was babbling about Sleepy Hollow & called Ichabod Crane “Ichybod Brain.” I have no idea why that passage has stuck with me after all these years. I can’t hear or watch anything about Sleepy Hollow without “Ichybod Brain” in my head. 😆

        Liked by 3 people

      10. The thing about King I don’t like is his description of everything…he will take up pages describing why a crack is in a sidewalk…that is the scary part of his writing to me lol.

        Liked by 1 person

      11. 🤣 He writes for visual cues. It works for me since I am so detail oriented. The downside of that is, movie adaptions are lacking. I learned my lesson about what Hollyweird “can’t” do with his material when Firestarter came out. What a disappointment. Pet Cemetery (Sematary) was even worse. That’s why his stuff is better in a mini-series. I’ve never read IT but, clearly, it needed to be a mini-series (original) and two movies (remake). The mini-series scared the s*** outta me. I couldn’t watch the remake movies. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a year. 😳😖😵

        Liked by 2 people

      12. I get detail oriented but…let me paraphrase King… Mike looked down and saw the familiar crack in the sidewalk. In 1942 Joe McDuff was working the late night shift and he dropped his quarter in the wet cement…and on and on and on…and that crack has NO place in the story lol.

        I love IT though…I love the book but they can have everything else. HBO needs to do a series with IT. IT is basically a retelling of Stand By Me with an alien clown running amok.

        Liked by 1 person

      13. He does throw in irrelevant minutia…hence my “Ichybod Brain” memory. It had nothing what so ever to do with the main plot. I think he may have a touch of mental Tourette’s Syndrome..random s*** just blurts out and he writes it down. 😂

        Knowing Hollyweird, they may indeed make it a series. More money…

        Liked by 2 people

      16. LOL…yes he did. That gave Saint Bernards terrible reputations…but then the movie Beethoven did the opposite and started a Saint Bernard craze that left many of the dogs up for adoption when people realized…yep they are big.

        Liked by 1 person

      18. We need to socialize her more…she will be great and then start staring at your feet and nipping at them. She watches with excitement while we put our shoes on…she knows that means outside.

        Liked by 1 person

      22. It only happens at certain times…she is obviously playing and there is no malice but it drives us bananas.

        Liked by 1 person

      26. We looked for trainers and they are crazy high. She is good no doubt but if we got that solved we would be good.

        Liked by 1 person

      29. Hey…Lisa and Vic…I just reblogged a post by John Bengtson…I bought one his books in the 90s…he writes about the Silent Movie era and he is having a webinar next Sunday that is free…check it out if you can.

        Liked by 3 people

    1. It’s good… I’ve never attempted to rate things before because it’s so subjective… but a good Twilight Zone beats a great episode of some other shows

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      2. Yes I do! I have a post about them that I haven’t published. Mark loves collecting and he got the projector view master recently…

        Liked by 1 person

      4. It’s really cool… they have the national parks and everything…it’s really cool…
        Oh did you like the pictures I sent you? Those shadow box Virgil Thrasher ones?

        Liked by 1 person

      9. Some people liked him in the 70s…she bought 3 for 75 dollars…I’ve seen some of them worth up to 1200 and some that I have worth 200 each…but I’d never sell them…they are pure seventies looking

        Liked by 2 people

  9. Pingback: Twilight Zone Season 1 Review – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

  10. Rod Serling did NOT maintain a home in Binghamton after he went to California. He had a summer home on Cayuga Lake in the middle of New York State, but each summer, according to his daughter, he made a “pilgrimage” to Binghamton to look around.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: