Tag: In His Image

★★★★1/2 January 3, 1963 Season 4 Episode 1

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

In His Image is a great sci-fi episode that has more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose. George Grizzard plays both title characters and does a great job of going through a book of emotions. You get a shock to start out the episode and the changes keep coming at you. It explores a familiar theme in the Twilight Zone of “no one knows who I am.” The difference is this time, with the hour format, it is fully explored.

This episode is one of the best of the 4th season. It takes a little time to get accustomed to the hour long format. You need to watch the fourth season with a different frame of mind. This episode would have been almost impossible for the 30 minute format. In His Image keeps you guessing on what is going on. I would like to expand on this but I would give it away.

In His Image is exciting, suspenseful and thought-provoking. If this was to be a representative example of the hour-long shows, the series had nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, such was not the case.

First of 4th series episodes, airing from January to May 1963. These episodes were one hour in length. CBS executives decided to switch the show’s time, and for this single season, the longer timeslot allowed for hour-long episodes

This show was written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn’t – it’s the beginning. Although Alan Talbot doesn’t know it, he’s about to enter a strange new world, too incredible to be real, too real to be a dream. It’s called The Twilight Zone.

Summary

A young man grapples with an urge to kill and confusion about his origins. After a shocking scene on a subway platform he goes to his fiancé’s apartment and  takes her and visit his old home town. When they get there nothing is the same and he is not known.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

In a way, it can be said that Walter Ryder succeeded in his life’s ambition, even though the man he created was, after all, himself. There may be easier ways to self-improvement, but sometimes it happens that the shortest distance between two points is a crooked line – through the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
George Grizzard … Alan Talbot / Walter Ryder, Jr.
Gail Kobe Gail Kobe … Jessica Connelly
Katherine Squire … The Old Woman (as Katharine Squire)
Wallace Rooney … Man
George Petrie … Driver
James Seay … Sheriff
Jamie Forster … Hotel Clerk
Sherry Granato … Girl