I Shot an Arrow Into the Air
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Template:Infobox TTW season one I Shot an Arrow Into the Air is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.
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Details
Episode number:15
Season:1
Production code: 173-3626
Original air date: January 15, 1960
Writer: Rod Serling, based on an idea by Madelon Champion
Director:Stuart Rosenberg
Music: stock
Cast
Officer Corey: Dewey Martin
Colonel Donlin: Edward Binns
Pierson: Ted Otis
Synopsis
A space shuttle crash lands on an unknown asteroid and only three astronauts survive the wreckage. One of the astronauts, Corey, flips out and kills the other two mercilessly, only to discover power lines and a highway waiting on the other side of a hill. The entire time they were stranded in the Nevada desert.
Trivia
- When Serling first started collecting scripts for The Twilight Zone he offered an open call for scripts. Anyone could submit a script based on any science-fiction idea they had. The results of this open call were disastrous.
- "I got fourteen thousand manuscripts in the first five days. Of those fourteen thousand, I and members of my staff read about five hundred. And four hundred and ninety-eight of those five hundred were absolute trash; hand-scrawled, laboriously written, therapeutic pieces of writing from sick people. Of the two remaining scripts, both of professional quality, neither fitted the show."
- Rod Serling quoted in The Twilight Zone Companion
Despite this, Serling did end up producing an idea from an industry outsider when he paid Madelon Champion $500 for the idea on which this episode was based, an idea that came up in a social conversation between the two. Though Serling was frequently approached with suggestions for the series, such a purchase was never replicated.
The line "I shot an arrow into the air, it landed I know not where", from which the episode took its title, is the opening line of "The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The title of this episode was also used by Serling for a prospective Twilight Zone pilot episode that was eventually shot, in modified form, as The Gift.
Themes
A warning against abandoning civilized morals for animal instincts when in a fight for survival. Similar themes are explored in The Midnight Sun and The Shelter.
External link
- TV Tome episode page (http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-237/epid-12599/)
References
- Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
Back to: The Twilight Zone, Episode List, Season 1