And When the Sky Was Opened
(Season 1, Episode 11)
“Her name: X-20. Her type: an experimental interceptor. Recent history: a crash landing in the Mojave Desert after a thirty-one hour flight nine hundred miles into space. Incidental data: the ship, with the men who flew her, disappeared from the radar screen for twenty-four hours. But the shrouds that cover mysteries are not always made out of a tarpaulin, as this man will soon find out on the other side of a hospital door.”
A simple premise well executed was the reason an anthology show like The Twilight Zone was created. In just 30 minutes, they had the ability to send that icy chill down your back with a premise, a twist, and an ambiguous ending. “And When the Sky Was Opened” is one of the simplest premises Rod Serling ever wrote; three astronauts go into space and when they crash-land back on Earth, they are slowly pulled out of existence. At the time, the fear of venturing into the great unknown probably enhanced the chill factor of this episode…what Pandora’s box were we opening up? But even watching after the space race, this episode still managed to freak me out. In terms of being a well-executed episode, I can’t say enough good things about this one. Serling’s writing is crisp, the narrative twist of telling the story in a flashback is quite original for the time, and it features three excellent character actors (Rod Taylor, Charles Aidman and Jim Hutton) whose urban styles perfectly matched Serling’s dialogue. -Lesley Coffin
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