5 of the Best Twilight Zone Episodes Involving Time Travel

The Twilight Zone, which aired from 1959 to 1964, continues to rock. I grew up with the original series, but there are many reruns and "marathons" that continue to entertain viewers.

In my article, "5 Twilight Zone Episodes with Powerful Messages," we looked at some of the features that carried morals applicable to our lives today. We also explored "5 of the Scariest Twilight Zone Episodes."

Now, we will take a look at 5 provocative stories that focus on time travel.

1. No Time Like the Past

Dana Andrews travels back in time to a small town in Indiana. There, he settles into a boarding house where there were a couple of boisterous men who talked at the dinner table, expressing their views as armchair generals of the world.

Andrews proceeds to put them in their place, telling them they don't have real world experience and have no idea of the wars and horrors that will inevitably occur. This delighted the other people at the table, who were bored to tears constantly listening to those men. One of the people was a lady who took a liking to Andrews.

Tragedy strikes, however, when Andrews tries to prevent a school fire, but he winds up starting it. He finds that he cannot alter what is destined to happen.

2. The Last Flight

A World War 1 flyer in the British air force suddenly and mysteriously lands at a modern U.S. air base surrounded by jets. No one knows what is going on, but it turns out he had strayed from his squadron and one of the members turns out to be the general of base. He called him by his nickname and everyone is astounded. The flyer realized he could gain a second chance to save his squadron, so he overpowers everyone and then flies back in time to do so. It is later discovered that he succeed, at the cost of his own life.

3. A Hundred Yards Over the Rim

This episode starts with a wagon train and a man whose son becomes ill with a fever. The man wanders over a hill in the desert, to find the 20^th Century world. He stumbles into a café run by a man and his wife, to see modern machinery and technology, such as cars, a television, a telephone and a jukebox.

The man's old rifle appears to be a classic, in excellent condition. The people, when learning about his son, give him some medicine that will help. The man eventually crosses back over the hill to return to the previous century and to his son, and then he give him the medicine.

The rifle was later found by the couple lying on the ground, having aged 100 years.

4. The Odyssey of Flight 33

This is one of my favorites that I remember from when I was young, watching the originals. An airliner is traveling from London to New York, when weird things start to happen such as strange noises. Suddenly, it appears to break the sound barrier and then the crew in the cockpit looks down out of the windows and sees a barren New York, and then in a few more moments, dinosaurs roaming the Earth. They have the task of trying to explain to the passengers what has happened.

The pilot and co-pilot finally figure a plan to return to the 20^th Century, but then they only go back as far as 1939, seeing the World's Fair of that year below. They are able to communicate with the tower, but no one knows of jet aircraft and the more modern lingo.

Rod Serling then advises everyone that if they hear jet engines overhead, it could be flight Global 33, trying to find its way back from the Twilight Zone.

5. Walking Distance

There's something nice about this episode that touches many of us. IMDB.com describes it best:

"Perhaps the most richly artistic of all the TZ episodes. Gig Young's harassed advertising executive is undergoing a mid-life crisis when he finds himself next to the town he grew up in. Naturally, he's drawn back to the boyhood innocence of long ago as relief from the fast-paced pressures of an empty adult life. I suspect Serling reached deep within himself for this one. The half-hour is a near-perfect blend of script, atmosphere, and direction, with a subtly moving music score to deepen the mood of days gone by.

Young is transported back in time and the camera moves in for close-ups at the right emotional moment. The nighttime encounter bringing Young together with his father (Frank Conroy) is one of the most poignant in a series not known for highlighting such sensitive passages. It's also a moment of wonderfully understated high drama that I would think touches a near universal chord. There was always something deeply melancholic about Gig Young the person that comes through on the screen. Here he's perfectly cast and as a result adds greatly to the compelling mood. This may not be the creepiest, scariest, or most suspenseful entry, but it may be the most touching and artistically complete."

I urge everyone to go on enjoying this great entertainment and provide it for their children to experience today.

Source: IMDB.com