Season 1, Episode 26
Written by Rod Serling (based on a short story by George Clayton Johnson) – Directed by David Orrick McDearmon – Starring Albert Salmi, Russell Johnson, and Than Wyenn
An execution in 1880 is interrupted when a condemned murderer inexplicably finds himself transported to Manhattan in 1960.
This is an interesting premise, but I’m not entirely sure what the episode wants to do with it.
A violent and completely unrepentant outlaw is moments away from being hanged when he’s suddenly pulled out of 1880 and dropped into modern-day Manhattan. There are obvious ideas here about justice, redemption, and second chances, but the episode never seems particularly interested in digging deeply into any of them.
Instead, much of the story is fascinated by the simple idea of a man from the Old West encountering 1960. A telephone ringing, a jukebox, a cigarette lighter — ordinary pieces of modern life become completely alien to someone ripped out of his own time.
Albert Salmi makes those moments work. There’s a physicality to his performance that sells the confusion and sensory overload. He’s frightened and increasingly desperate, but Salmi also remains dangerous. This isn’t an innocent man overwhelmed by the future. He’s someone capable of violence who suddenly finds himself in a world he doesn’t understand.
It’s also probably the most violent episode so far. Nothing is particularly graphic by modern standards, but the imagery of hanging and the physical brutality give it a noticeably harsher edge than anything I’ve seen from the series up to this point.
That’s an interesting character to drop into this situation, but the episode spends so much time on his reactions to modern life that I kept waiting for the premise to develop into something more. There are hints of a story about whether someone can escape the consequences of who they are, but they never quite come together into a larger idea.
There are entertaining moments, and Salmi gives the episode plenty of energy, but compared with some of the more thoughtful stories this season, this one feels surprisingly thin.
Twilight Zone Verdict: Didn’t Land
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