The 25 Best Twilight Zone Episodes...#7 - "The Changing of the Guard"

Yet, one of the most powerful Twilight Zone episodes calls on all of those qualities, shines a bright light on them, and leaves us all contemplative. "The Changing of the Guard" featured Donald Pleasance as Ellis Fowler, an educator of young men for generations at a prestigious learning institution that appears to be summarily defined by its legacy and tradition. When that stalwart mission ceases to extend to its legendary, aging Professor Fowler, it presents an upheaval of emotion and the ultimate turning point in a life well spent.

"The Changing of the Guard" is one of Rod Serling's masterpiece scripts, and this installment is #7 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.

"Professor Ellis Fowler, a gentle, bookish guide to the young," Mr. Serling narrates, "who is about to discover that life still has certain surprises, and that the campus of the Rock Springs School for Boys lies on a direct path to another institution, commonly referred to as the Twilight Zone."

There are so many highlights, peacefully and passionately presented, in this impactful episode. As is typical of a Serling script, his insight into the human condition...the fears, anxieties and emotions of man...is flawless. Even more special in "The Changing of the Guard" is the sensitivity he displays concerning subject matter of which he could have only visceral knowledge. He was only in his mid-"30's when he penned this opus extolling the virtues of life-long achievement, and the pain at the moment it abruptly comes to an end at the hands of a youth movement.

The performance of Donald Pleasence in his first American role as an accomplished man about to be forced into retirement, put out to pasture as it were, is endearing and authentic. Every sentiment rings true. Professor Fowler has become so much a fixture, he cannot see the end approaching. Can any of us? Life slips along at a dizzying pace, but age creeps up at a more measured tempo. When he is summoned by the headmaster at Christmas break, and informed of the "changing of the guard" and that "youth must be served," he is shocked and dismayed. After teaching generations of students, and registering indelible memories, he wonders whether his life's work has had impact. After all, if it had, wouldn't he have been too valuable to discard simply to make way for a younger teacher?

Pleasence plays Fowler as a person like many of us, seemingly defined by what we do rather than who we are, simply because we spend so much time at our appointed tasks. He considers suicide at the depth of his depression, and is further weakened by a Horace Mann quotation: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Feeling lost and ashamed and ready to pull the trigger, he is awakened from his emotional malaise by the tolling of school bells. Ringing at this improbable hour compels him to walk to the school building to investigate. Finding nothing, he sits behind his desk in the classroom and is besieged my memories, and then suddenly, his saviors. There they are, first in apparition form, and then seemingly in flesh and blood, a sampling of his most successful and heroic students. One by one, they thank Professor Fowler for the impact he has had on their very important lives. It is the elixir everyone in their later years should be fortunate enough to have...that moment or moments where everything comes full circle and everyone acknowledges your critical role in their life. It is that "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario when everyone George Bailey has ever known comes to his rescue. Here, it takes place rather quietly on a cold wintry night, in a deserted classroom building on a campus tranquil and isolated by a student body departed for home to celebrate the holidays.

You've had that feeling, haven't you? You're standing in a familiar setting normally bustling with activity, but now empty except for you and your thoughts. You can almost hear your past talking to you. In "The Changing of the Guard," those thoughts manifest themselves into a reality that saves Professor Fowler's life, helps him immediately address his enormously altered circumstances, and allows him to move on to the next stage.

Subtly, you can also observe Serling's respect for the teaching profession, a role he eventually played himself in Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. Professors hold court for many years and while the students change consistently, the lessons and the settings mostly do not. It is not uncommon for them to wonder if anyone has heard their endless lecturing, if anyone looks back favorably on the role their teachers had in a life replete with accomplishment.

Clearly Serling did, and in a nod to educators everywhere, he actually uses the word "perspicacious" in a conversation between the headmaster and Professor Fowler. You probably haven't heard that word anywhere else on television in the last 50 years.

"Professor Ellis Fowler, teacher, who discovered rather belatedly something of his own value. A very small scholastic lesson, from the campus of the Twilight Zone."