The Last Flight
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Template:Infobox TTW season one The Last Flight is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.
Details
- Production code:
- Original air date: February 5, 1960
- Writer: Richard Matheson
- Director: William Claxton
- Notable cast members: Kenneth Haigh, Simon Scott, Alexander Scourby
Synopsis
Opening narration
Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time - and time in this case can be measured in eternities.
Main story
A cowardly World War I pilot (Decker) finds himself in a 1960s airbase after flying through a cloud. He finds out that the person he was on patrol with (Alexander Mackaye) went on to become a hero of World War II. Decker had flown to safety when Mackaye was attacked by German fighters, but then decided he had to go back and save Mackaye. Later, when Mackaye arrives to inspect the base, he says Decker did return to save him - at the cost of his own life.
Closing narration
Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone.
Trivia
- Filmed on location at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California.
- The vintage 1918 Nieuport biplane was both owned and flown by Frank Gifford Tallman, and had previously appeared in many World War I motion pictures.