Valley of the Shadow
| "Valley of the Shadow" | |
|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 3 |
| Directed by | Perry Lafferty |
| Written by | Charles Beaumont |
| Featured music | Stock from A Hundred Yards Over the Rim |
| Production code | 4861 |
| Original air date | January 17, 1963 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
|
Ed Nelson: Philip Redfield |
|
Ed Nelson: Philip Redfield
Natalie Trundy: Ellen Marshall
David Opatoshu: Dorn
Dabbs Greer: Evans
Jacques Aubuchon: Connelly
James Doohan: Johnson
Morgan Brittany (as "Suzanne Cupito"): Cissie Johnson
Sandy Kenyon: Fredericks (Gas Station Attendant)
Henry Beckman: Townsperson
Bart Burns: Townsperson
King Calder: Townsperson
Pat O'Hara: Townsperson
"Valley of the Shadow" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
A reporter named Philip Redfield (Ed Nelson) gets lost while driving with his dog on unfamiliar back roads, and stops in Peaceful Valley, New Mexico, to get directions and gasoline. He soon finds himself forbidden to leave the small, isolated town when he accidentally witnesses a secret mechanical device which can control and rearrange atoms, making things appear and disappear, assemble and reassemble; a small girl uses the device on Redfield's dog when the dog chases the girl's cat. The town refuses to share this and other amazing technology that had been given to them by a "great man of science" from an unknown land and planet (implying super intelligence from an alien world) until "men learn the ways of peace."
The town elders tell Redfield that their law states that he has either the choice of staying forever in Peaceful Valley as a citizen, where all of his needs and wants will be met and where he will live in constant harmony, or he must be executed to preserve the town's secrets. He ultimately chooses to stay in the town, or what he describes as a prison, and yearns for the freedom of his old life and the glory of curing all sickness, ending hunger, and essentially saving the world. Redfield becomes romantically involved with Ellen, who appears to be the town's only adult his age. She convinces him that she wants to be with him even if it means leaving Peaceful Valley. The backwater confinement chafes, and Redfield decides to make a break for it one evening. Knowing that the elders will try to stop him, he uses the technology to make a revolver.
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