Death Ship (7 Feb. 1963)
"The Twilight Zone" Death Ship (original title)

An interplanetary expedition from earth finds an exact duplicate of their ship and themselves crashed on the planet they were surveying. Should they stay or risk taking off and crashing?

Director:

Don Medford

Writers:

Richard Matheson, Rod Serling (creator)

Stars:

Jack Klugman, Ross Martin, Fred Beir

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Jack Klugman	...	Capt. Paul Ross
Ross Martin	...	Lt. Ted Mason
Fred Beir	...	Lt. Mike Carter (as Fredrick Beir)
Mary Webster	...	Ruth Mason
Ross Elliott	...	Kramer
Sara Taft	...	Mrs. Nolan
Tammy Marihugh	...	Jeannie Mason

Storyline

An interplanetary expedition from earth finds an exact duplicate of their ship and themselves crashed on the planet they were surveying. Should they stay or risk taking off and crashing?

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Plot Keywords:

planet | spaceship | vision of the future | based on short story | astronaut | 

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Genres:

Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 February 1963 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cayuga Productions, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

51 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The spaceship E-89, is of a version of the saucer-shaped United Planets Cruiser C-57D, from _Forbidden Planet (1956)_.

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Quotes

Narrator: [Closing Narration] Picture of a man who will not see anything he does not choose to see - including his own death. A man of such indomitable will that even the two men beneath his command are not allowed to see the truth; which truth is, that they are no longer among the living, that the movements they make and the words they speak have all been made and spoken countless times before - and will be made and spoken countless times again, perhaps even into eternity. Picture of a latter day Flying ...

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Connections

Referenced in Atop the Fourth Wall: Twilight Zone #9 (2011)

User Reviews

Very good, though I would have preferred a more ambiguous ending...

"Death Ship" is a very successful one hour episode in that the show did not seemed padded and was able to use the time slot well. This is a com0plaint I have with some of the hour-long shows, but not this one.

It begins with a ufo-like spacecraft from Earth exploring for habitable planets. I thought it was rather funny that this interplanetary ship was supposedly traveling in the futuristic year 1997! When the ship lands, however, things get very, very confusing The three astronauts (Jack Klugman, Ross Martin and Fred Beir) are very confused to say the least. There is a crashed ship next to them...and it looks exactly like their ship! The Captain (Klugman) is very rigid and insists they cannot jump to conclusions. But, when they investigate the wreck and find themselves dead in the wreckage, what conclusions are they to draw?! Is this REALLY them? If so, how can they be looking at their dead selves?! Overall, this is a really good episode. My only problem with it is that there are multiple possibilities as to what is happening. It could be that residents of the planet are causing this and many other hallucinations in order to either scare them off or cause them to destroy themselves. It could be that they are dead and are seeing themselves but cannot accept it. Or, there could be another excellent possibility. I loved the ambiguity of this and was very disappointed when, at the end, the narrator makes it very clear exactly what has occurred. This seemed unnecessary and like over-kill. Still, a fascinating show and one that shows that season four's one-hour format could work.