Tag: 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

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