The Arrival (The Twilight Zone)
| "The Arrival" | |
|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 2 |
| Directed by | Boris Sagal |
| Written by | Rod Serling |
| Featured music | Stock |
| Production code | 4814 |
| Original air date | September 22, 1961 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
|
|
"The Arrival" is the second episode to the third season and 67th overall episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
This object, should any of you have lived underground for the better parts of your lives and never had occasion to look toward the sky, is an airplane, its official designation a DC-3. We offer this rather obvious comment because this particular airplane, the one you're looking at, is a freak. Now, most airplanes take off and land as per scheduled. On rare occasions they crash. But all airplanes can be counted on doing one or the other. Now, yesterday morning this particular airplane ceased to be just a commercial carrier. As of its arrival it became an enigma, a seven-ton puzzle made out of aluminum, steel, wire and a few thousand other component parts, none of which add up to the right thing. In just a moment, we're going to show you the tail end of its history. We're going to give you ninety percent of the jigsaw pieces and you and Mr. Sheckly here of the Federal Aviation Agency will assume the problem of putting them together along with finding the missing pieces. This we offer as an evening's hobby, a little extracurricular diversion which is really the national pastime in the Twilight Zone.
After flight 107 from Buffalo lands safely with no crew or passengers on board, the FAA sends Grant Sheckly, an inspector with 22 years of experience and a flawless record of solving cases, to investigate the matter. He is assisted by the airport staff—Vice President Bengston, PR man Malloy, mechanic Robbins, and ramp attendant Cousins—but despite their combined efforts, no one can explain how an empty plane could safely land and taxi to a stop.
The investigation continues to prove fruitless until Robbins remarks about the plane's blue seats, which puzzles Sheckly since he remembers them as being brown when he entered the plane. Bengston says they were red. When they examine the plane's tail and each see different registration numbers, Sheckly comes to a conclusion: the plane is not real, but merely an illusion.
To prove his theory, as well as to break the illusion, Sheckly proposes a simple but potentially fatal test: he will put his arm in the path of the plane's running propeller. Despite the objections, he convinces the staff to go along with it, and Robbins starts the plane's engines. After some hesitation, Sheckly places his arm directly into the path of the spinning propeller; just as he predicted, his arm remains completely intact, and the plane vanishes. However, when Sheckly turns to reassure the others, he is met only with silence, as they each disappear just as the plane did.
...
Wikipedia