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Back There

2022-02-16T17:12:51Z

217.180.200.39: update

{{no footnotes|date=March 2013}}
{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]
| image =
| caption =
| season = 2
| episode = 13
| airdate = {{Start date|1961|01|13}}
| production = 173-3648
| writer = [[Rod Serling]]
| director = David Orrick McDearmon
| guests = {{ubl|
|[[Russell Johnson]]
|[[Paul Hartman]]
|John Lasell
|[[Bartlett Robinson]]
|[[Nora Marlowe]]
|[[Raymond Bailey]]
|[[Raymond Greenleaf]]}}
| music = [[Jerry Goldsmith]]
| season_article = The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series, season 2)
| episode_list = List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes
| prev = [[Dust (The Twilight Zone)|Dust]]
| next = [[The Whole Truth (The Twilight Zone)|The Whole Truth]]
}}
"'''Back There'''" is episode 49 of the American television [[anthology series]] ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]''. It originally aired on January 13, 1961 on [[CBS]]. It involves time travel, and stars [[Russell Johnson]], who had appeared in [[Execution (The Twilight Zone)|another time-travel episode]] the previous season.

==Opening narration==
{{cquote|Witness a theoretical argument, Washington, D.C., the present. Four intelligent men talking about an improbable thing like going back in time. A friendly debate revolving around a simple issue: could a human being change what has happened before? Interesting and theoretical, because who ever heard of a man going back in time? Before tonight, that is, because this is—The Twilight Zone.}}

==Plot==
On April 14, 1961, young engineer Peter Corrigan (Russell Johnson) is involved in a discussion with colleagues at the elite Potomac Club on the question of whether events in history could be changed if time travel were possible. After bumping into William, a familiar attendant, on the way out, Peter feels faint. Confused by the gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages on the street, he notices that he's wearing clothes of a much older style and walks home. He finds that his home is now a boarding house. In discussion with the strangers he meets there, he discovers that he has been transported back in time to April 14, 1865, the date of the [[assassination of Abraham Lincoln]] by [[John Wilkes Booth]].

Corrigan rushes to [[Ford's Theatre]] to warn everyone but is arrested for [[Breach of the peace|disturbing the peace]]. The police presume him to be a Union soldier under emotional distress or drunk. One officer believes Corrigan, but is overruled by his superior. After he has been held in the [[police station]] a short time, a man who states he is a doctor with expertise in mental illness arrives. He introduces himself as John Wellington and persuades the police to release Corrigan into his custody.

Corrigan implores Wellington to do something to warn and protect the president. Wellington reassures Corrigan, and gives him a
drink, but it is drugged and Corrigan collapses. Wellington then leaves and locks the door. Later, the policeman who believed Corrigan arrives and rouses him, relating that he had tried unsuccessfully to convince anyone to take additional precautions.

The landlady identifies the tenant of the room as not John Wellington but [[John Wilkes Booth]], and the handkerchief left behind by "Wellington" bears the initials ''JWB''.

By now it is too late for Corrigan's mission to succeed: the crowd outside is spreading the news that the president has just been shot.

Corrigan pounds his fist on a window sill and finds he is back in 1961, pounding on the door of the Potomac Club. It seems the same, but there is no longer an attendant named William. Back at the table with his colleagues, he finds that the scholarly discussion has moved from time travel to money, and William is also at the table participating. William says that his money was inherited from his great-grandfather, a policeman who had made a name for himself by somehow predicting the assassination of Lincoln and trying to warn about it, becoming Chief of Police, then a councilman, and eventually become a millionaire through real estate.

Overwhelmed by all that has happened, Peter steps aside to wipe his brow with the handkerchief in his pocket and notices the initials: ''JWB''. He realizes he was able to change the past, but not in the way he had intended.

==Closing narration==
{{cquote|Mr. Peter Corrigan, lately returned from a place 'back there', a journey into time with highly questionable results, proving on one hand that the threads of history are woven tightly, and the skein of events cannot be undone, but on the other hand, there are small fragments of tapestry that can be altered. Tonight's thesis to be taken, as you will—in The Twilight Zone.}}

==Cast==
* [[Russell Johnson]] as Peter Corrigan
* [[Paul Hartman]] as Police Sergeant
* [[John Lasell]] as [[John Wilkes Booth|Jonathan Wellington]]
* [[Bartlett Robinson]] as William
* [[Nora Marlowe]] as Chambermaid
* [[Raymond Bailey]] as Millard
* [[Raymond Greenleaf]] as Jackson

==See also==
* [[Fatalism]]
* [[Predestination]]
* [[List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes|List of ''The Twilight Zone'' (1959 TV series) episodes]]
* [[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series, season 2)|Season 2]]
* [[The Twilight Zone (2002 TV series)]] (episode 32 "Memphis")

==References==
* DeVoe, Bill. (2008). ''Trivia from The Twilight Zone''. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. {{ISBN|978-1-59393-136-0}}
* Grams, Martin. (2008). ''The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic''. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. {{ISBN|978-0-9703310-9-0}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb episode|0734556}}
* [http://www.tv.com/the-twilight-zone/back-there/episode/12633/summary.html TV.com episode page]

{{The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes}}

[[Category:The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series season 2) episodes]]
[[Category:Fictional depictions of Abraham Lincoln in television]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of John Wilkes Booth]]
[[Category:Television episodes about assassinations]]
[[Category:Television episodes about time travel]]
[[Category:1961 American television episodes]]
[[Category:Television episodes written by Rod Serling]]
[[Category:Fiction set in 1865]]
[[Category:Fiction set in 1961]]
[[Category:Television episodes set in Washington, D.C.]]

A Most Unusual Camera

2022-02-16T17:07:36Z

217.180.200.39: update

{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]
| image =
| caption =
| season = 2
| episode = 10
| airdate = {{Start date|1960|12|16}}
| production = 173-3606
| writer = [[Rod Serling]]
| director = [[John Rich (director)|John Rich]]
| guests = {{ubl
|[[Fred Clark]] as Chester
|[[Jean Carson]] as Paula
|[[Adam Williams (actor)|Adam Williams]] as Woodward
|[[Marcel Hillaire]] as Waiter}}
| music =
| season_article = The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series, season 2)
| episode_list = List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes
| prev = [[The Trouble With Templeton]]
| next = [[The Night of the Meek (The Twilight Zone, 1959)|The Night of the Meek]]
}}
"'''A Most Unusual Camera'''" is episode 46 of the American television [[anthology series]] ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]''. It originally aired on December 16, 1960 on [[CBS]].

==Opening narration==
{{cquote|A hotel suite that, in this instance, serves as a den of crime, the aftermath of a rather minor event to be noted on a police blotter, an insurance claim, perhaps a three-inch box on page twelve of the evening paper. Small addenda to be added to the list of the loot: a camera, a most unimposing addition to the flotsam and jetsam that it came with, hardly worth mentioning really, because cameras are cameras, some expensive, some purchasable at five-and-dime stores. But this camera, this one's unusual because in just a moment we'll watch it inject itself into the destinies of three people. It happens to be a fact that the pictures that it takes can only be developed in The Twilight Zone.}}

==Plot==
Two thieves, husband and wife Chester and Paula Diedrich, have just robbed an antique shop and returned to the hotel suite they are using as a hideout. He dismisses most of the items they have stolen as junk, but finds a strange old [[box camera]] among them. When he takes a picture of Paula, it generates a [[instant camera|self-developing photo]] of her wearing a fur coat. After she finds one inside a stolen chest and puts it on, the pair realize that the camera's pictures show the immediate future of its subjects. Its next picture accurately predicts the arrival of Paula's brother Woodward, who had just escaped from prison.

A televised [[horse racing|horse race]] gives Chester the idea to take a picture of the blank winners' board at the local track before each of the day's races are run, then place bets based on the pictures' results. After winning thousands of dollars, they celebrate in their suite, where a waiter named Pierre takes notice of their camera and translates its [[French language|French]] inscription "''dix à la propriétaire''" as "ten to an owner". Once Chester ushers Pierre out, he determines that the trio have taken a total of eight pictures. As they struggle over the camera, arguing about how to use the final two, they accidentally take a picture that shows a terrified Paula. Chester and Woodward continue their fight, but fall out an open window to their deaths. Paula reacts as in the picture, but calms down once she realizes that she can now keep all the money for herself.

She snaps the tenth and final picture of the two bodies and prepares to leave, only to be interrupted by Pierre. Having learned of her status as a wanted criminal, he robs her and threatens to turn her in to the police if she calls them for help. Glancing at the picture, he remarks that it shows more than two bodies in the courtyard below. Paula rushes to the window to check, but trips on an electrical cord and falls out of it to her demise. Pierre counts the corpses in the picture, but notices that there are ''four'' instead of three. Shocked, he drops the camera and falls out the window as well.

==Closing narration==
{{cquote|Object known as a camera, vintage uncertain, origin unknown. But for the greedy, the avaricious, the fleet of foot, who can run a four-minute mile so long as they're chasing a fast buck, it makes believe that it's an ally, but it isn't at all. It's a beckoning come-on for a quick walk around the block—in The Twilight Zone.}}

==See also==
* [[List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes|List of ''The Twilight Zone'' (1959 TV series) episodes]]
* The ''[[Goosebumps]]'' children's novels, ''Say Cheese and Die'' and ''Say Cheese and Die–Again''
** The ''[[Goosebumps HorrorLand]]'' novella ''Say Cheese–and Die Screaming''
* "Killer Camera", a short story from [[Anthony Horowitz]]'s ''[[Horowitz Horror]]''
* "[[Treehouse of Horror XV]]'s" "[[Treehouse of Horror XV#The Ned Zone|The Ned Zone]]"
* The film ''[[Time Lapse (film)|Time Lapse]]''

==References==
*DeVoe, Bill. (2008). ''Trivia from The Twilight Zone''. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. {{ISBN|978-1-59393-136-0}}
*Grams, Martin. (2008). ''The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic''. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. {{ISBN|978-0-9703310-9-0}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb episode|0734543}}

{{The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Most Unusual Camera}}
[[Category:1960 American television episodes]]
[[Category:The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series season 2) episodes]]
[[Category:Television episodes written by Rod Serling]]