The 25 Best Twilight Zone Episodes...#6 - "On Thursday We Leave for Home"

"This is William Benteen, who officiates on a disintegrating outpost in space. The people are a remnant society who left the Earth looking for a millennium - a place without war, without jeopardy, without fear - and what they found was a lonely, barren place whose only industry was survival. And this is what they've done for three decades: survive, until the memory of the Earth they came from has become an indistinct and shadowed recollection of another time and another place. One month ago, a signal from Earth announced that a ship would be coming to pick them up and take them home. In just a moment, we'll hear more of that ship, more of that home and what it takes out of mind and body to reach it. This is the Twilight Zone." - - Rod Serling

In yet another distinctive pass at an allegory about the human spirit, its foibles and resourcefulness, Rod Serling authored "On Thursday We Leave For Home," #6 on the list of the 25 best Twilight Zone episodes based on writing, performance, and compelling subject matter as judged by a group of 250 people in the New York metropolitan area. This survey and compilation celebrates the program's 50^th anniversary.

All those intimately familiar with the Twilight Zone know that the fourth season was comprised of hour-long episodes, many of which suffered from the longer format. Though the stories told in these programs were often quite good..."Death Ship" with Jack Klugman, "Miniature" with Robert Duvall, and "Passage of the Lady Anne," were prime examples...it always seemed some padding was necessary to urge the scripts home.

"On Thursday We Leave for Home," which stars a brilliant James Whitmore as William Benteen, is the only hour-long episode on this top 25 list, and it fills the hour beautifully. It also has Rod Serling's vote as the best of his one-hour offerings.

It is sometimes startling to observe Serling's view of the future from his early '60's perch. Early in this episode, we are privy to a sign on a tablet drafted by one of the 113 people stranded on planet V-Gamma for the last 30 years. It is reminiscent of those etched signs you'll see carved in trees indicating someone was there on a particular date. Here the sign validating their presence ends with the year 1991. Wow! Here we are, viewing this masterpiece nearly 20 years after Serling thought we might be advanced enough to reach a planet that far away.

Armed with what were then fairly recent events featuring dictators and their grisly reigns (Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin et al), Serling presents Benteen as the self-appointed leader of a group of people who left Earth to escape the growing potential of nuclear war and colonize a new world. We know he's self-appointed because he mentions during one scene that he was 15 years old when he arrived. It's safe to assume he didn't board the ship as captain at that age. Benteen is characterized as many megalomaniac leaders are...though murky undertones of gray. Would these people have survived without his leadership all those years? It appears not. The group is portrayed as slightly fraying around the edges, but a reasonably tight-knit community considering several overwhelming factors: the environment was treacherous with blinding heat from two suns; living quarters were sparse, buried in the relative coolness of caves; water was scarce; and, hope had to have faded for many that they would ever be rescued. But his resolve as leader was matched by his arrogance. They were allowed to survive, as long as he was the reason.

Then, as we're told by Mr. Serling in the opening narration, a signal from Earth is caught in the webbing of their makeshift communications devices, and they learn a rescue ship is on the way. At first, Benteen is effusive. Unmentioned, but clear, this is the crowning achievement of his "reign." He has led them through survival to the ultimate end result. His mood turns, however, rather suddenly and ominously after the ship arrives. He realizes his "people" have found a new hero, and it's Colonel Sloane, long-time character actor Tim O'Connor, who is in charge of the rescue expedition. Sloane's officers have up-to-date medical supplies, usurping Benteen's role as community doctor. Sloane has real-time news of Earth, replacing Benteen's role as featured story-teller. Sloane has a ship in which to travel home, usurping Benteen's role as savior.

Whitmore's handling of this transition is riveting. Seeing the grip on his leadership position loosening, he tries to convince all they'd be better able to survive on Earth if they remain together in a commune after they land. After 30 years of isolation, no one was having any of that. The "captain," who famously extolled the virtues of Earth regularly to his stranded neighbors, then completely reverses field claiming they should not return to the planet from whence they came at all. It's too late for them, he proclaims. They're children and need the structured environment he's provided all these years.

Ultimately, he resists appeals to board the ship and is left behind. Coming almost immediately to his senses, he realizes he is now in charge of only himself. His unchecked position of authority, self-charged with the responsibility of addressing abject isolation for so long, has resulted in the ultimate isolation. No ship will return for him. It is he, and he alone, forever.

"William Benteen, who had prerogatives; he could lead, he could direct, dictate, judge, legislate. It became a habit, then a pattern, and finally a necessity. William Benteen; once a god, now a population of one."