The genesis of this show, (beyond the 1957 "Studio One" pilot), was Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men, also done on Studio One in 1954 and made into a well-remembered movie in 1957. In it, a jury examines and debates the guilt or innocence of the accused and their personalities, prejudices and backgrounds influence their viewpoints
Another famous movie of the 1950's was the Japanese film Rashomon, (1950), in which three travelers give different versions of a tragedy in which a man, traveling with his wife is supposedly murdered by a bandit. In one version the bandit wins a fight with the husband, in another the wife stabs her husband and in the third the husband committed suicide because of his wife's infidelity with the bandit. We are left to decide what really happened - but we don't know. Are we really adequate to judge the actions of others?
In this episode, Viveca Lindflors is accused to shooting Inga Swensen in the presence of her husband, Zachery Scott. Their story is that she thought there might be prowler in a neighborhood where there had been some crimes recently and shot at someone in a darkened room. No one else knows what really happened. We see the crime re-enacted as various jury members imagine it. The wife is cruel and dominating, she's drunk, she's jealous and angry. The husband is conniving. He's weak. he's rebellious against her domination. The girlfriend is sweet and innocent. She's drunk. She's a gold-digger. The wife shoots her. The husband shoots her. She shoots herself. We never find out what really happened.
After the verdict, Kenneth Preston asks his father what he thinks actually happened. After much prodding, he says he doesn't want to know and didn't want to, as it would not have changed his defense.
