"The Twilight Zone" The Lonely (1959)

User Rating:

8.4/10   

Director:

Jack Smight

Writer:

Rod Serling (writer)

TV Series:

"The Twilight Zone" (1959)

Original Air Date:

13 November 1959 (Season 1, Episode 7)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

A convict, living alone in an asteroid, receives from the police a realistic woman-robot. |

Plot Keywords:

Convict | Asteroid | Futuristic | Shot In The Face | Loneliness

Cast

Rod Serling	...	Narrator (voice)
Jack Warden	...	James A. Corry
John Dehner	...	Captain Allenby
Jean Marsh	...	Alicia

Runtime:

25 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Filming Locations:

Desolation Canyon, Death Valley National Park, California, USA

Company:

Cayuga Productions

Trivia:

The first of many episodes (including "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air", "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" and "The Rip Van Winkle Caper") to be filmed on location in Death Valley. Unprepared for the terrible conditions they would face, the crew suffered extreme dehydration and heat exhaustion and director of photography George T. Clemens even collapsed, falling from a camera crane while filming continued.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Corey is in solitary confinement on an asteroid. However, asteroids are neither large enough nor stable enough to hold an atmosphere.

Quotes:

James A. Corry: Alicia and I will climb into that ship of yours and we'll look out the port and we'll give it all a big kiss good-bye.
Adams: Who, Corry?
Captain Allenby: Oh, my dear God, I forgot her.
Adams: He's out of his mind. Who's Alicia?
Captain Allenby: A robot.
James A. Corry: She's a woman.
Captain Allenby: Corry, she's a robot.
James A. Corry: *She’s a woman*. She's gentle and kind. Allenby, she kept me alive. Why if it wasn't for her I'd have been finished. I'd have given up.

Very good episode...though a tad creepy

This is a science fiction episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE and is set some time in the future. In this future, space travel is more routine and the government back on Earth is rather despotic--sentencing prisoners so live out long sentences on barren planets or asteroids as punishment. This story is about one of these prisoners.

The film begins with a space ship landing to bring supplies to the prisoner. It seems that they arrive every few years to bring supplies to this desert prison. Some of the crew members are very hostile towards the prisoner, but the commander feels sorry for the man and brings him a present which is ONLY to be opened after the ship departs. It turns out this present is a robotic lady who loves the prisoner and wants to be his wife, though naturally the prisoner is creeped out by the prospect of making love to a machine! How this all is resolved is both oddly sad yet romantic. I'd say more, but I don't want to spoil it. See this one--it's a keeper.