Serling was a writer during the times when the cold war was at it's height, the 1950's and 1960's. It is no surprise that he wrote this Cold War type of plot to produce in 1964. While 30 minutes does not give us enough time to develop the plot details distinctly, this little story is a cat and mouse game that is just fine for the talent at hand.
Martin Landau is a very good actor by the time he did this. He had a great supporting role in Hitchcock's North By Northwest. Here he is a man marked for murder by a bold guy who decides to play his death like a game. This episode is only a short time before Landau would become a regular on the Impossible Missions team which would make him more famous than any of his other roles. His talent in playing this role is evident.
Richard Donner is getting his directing skills honed here. He would direct top episodes of a lot of television before his big movies later on. In the next years he would do one of the better Dr. Lovelass episodes on The Wild Wild West. He does a good job here with a small stage, a room, which is limited in what could be done. The script helps along with a great cast, but it is quite clear CBS was trying to keep costs down in production of this episode. CBS was on a series of prime time hit shows that would make them the number 1 network for the 1960's, and the kind of talent on this show is why.
Overall, the trap set which backfires is a great plot device. Serling has not lost any steps in writing this episode. What is amazing is with all this talent involved, the shows ratings were getting stale. It is not the fault of this episode, just an audience that was getting restless for more and newer ideas.
Martin Landau is a very good actor by the time he did this. He had a great supporting role in Hitchcock's North By Northwest. Here he is a man marked for murder by a bold guy who decides to play his death like a game. This episode is only a short time before Landau would become a regular on the Impossible Missions team which would make him more famous than any of his other roles. His talent in playing this role is evident.
Richard Donner is getting his directing skills honed here. He would direct top episodes of a lot of television before his big movies later on. In the next years he would do one of the better Dr. Lovelass episodes on The Wild Wild West. He does a good job here with a small stage, a room, which is limited in what could be done. The script helps along with a great cast, but it is quite clear CBS was trying to keep costs down in production of this episode. CBS was on a series of prime time hit shows that would make them the number 1 network for the 1960's, and the kind of talent on this show is why.
Overall, the trap set which backfires is a great plot device. Serling has not lost any steps in writing this episode. What is amazing is with all this talent involved, the shows ratings were getting stale. It is not the fault of this episode, just an audience that was getting restless for more and newer ideas.