Season 1, Episode 30
Written by Rod Serling – Directed by Robert Parrish – Starring James Daly, Howard Smith, and Patricia Donahue
An advertising executive miserable with his work and home life begins dreaming that his commuter train is stopping in an idyllic town called Willoughby.
I’m starting to notice how often The Twilight Zone uses its fantastic premises to examine parts of modern life that seem to trouble Rod Serling. “A Stop at Willoughby” turns its attention toward corporate America, ambition, and the constant pressure to achieve more.
Gart Williams is an advertising executive with a good job and a comfortable home, but he’s completely miserable. His workplace is defined by pressure and competition, with a boss who seems to believe the answer to everything is to push harder. At home, Gart finds little relief. The life he’s built around conventional ideas of success has left him exhausted and desperate for an escape.
That escape appears during his commute home. Gart awakens on his train and discovers that it has stopped at Willoughby, an idyllic little town seemingly untouched by the pressures of modern life. It’s warm, peaceful, and inviting—everything Gart’s actual life isn’t.
Willoughby becomes more than a mysterious place. It represents the possibility of stepping outside the endless pursuit of money, status, and professional success and simply enjoying your life.
The episode does become repetitive. We spend a lot of time watching Gart become frustrated with his life, return to the train, encounter Willoughby, and then find himself back in his own life. Once the central idea is established, there isn’t much development beyond watching his desperation grow.
But the ending gives the episode a considerable boost. Without giving away where it goes, Serling finds a way to make Gart’s search for Willoughby both darker and more poignant than the nostalgic fantasy initially suggests.
“A Stop at Willoughby” takes a fairly simple idea and turns it into a critique of a version of success that leaves no room for happiness. I wish the journey had offered a little more variety, but the destination makes the trip considerably more memorable.
Twilight Zone Verdict: Okay
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