Season 2, Episode 1

Written by Richard Matheson — Directed by Buzz Kulik — Starring Robert Cummings and Gene Lyons

A World War II bomber pilot searches the desert for his missing crew, with no explanation for their disappearance.

The eyeball opening is gone, and Season 2 begins with a pretty striking image: an open, seemingly endless desert.

King Nine has crashed, and Captain James Embry sees no sign of his crew. The moment is eerie, and I feel it could have been much more effective if they’d skipped the voiceover and let the quiet set the mood.

The episode does a good job establishing Embry’s growing panic as reality and time start to feel increasingly unreliable. He doesn’t know what’s happening or whether he can trust what he’s seeing. Unfortunately, much of the middle section becomes a lot of Robert Cummings shouting and unraveling, and I didn’t find that particularly effective.

The final five minutes, though, bring the episode into sharper focus. The story becomes more compelling as it explores survivor’s guilt, particularly the kind of guilt that can follow the horrors of war. It gives the episode an emotional weight that the earlier sections struggle to establish.

“King Nine Will Not Return” is an uneven episode, and I struggled with parts of it. But the final minutes bring the story into focus, giving it an emotional weight that makes the journey worthwhile.

Twilight Zone Verdict: Okay