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TV

Exploring The Twilight Zone, Episode #62: "Shadow Play"

by Peter Martin, August 30, 2011 9:07 PM


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You're having a recurring nightmare, one that never ends, one that you never survive. You see a signpost up ahead ...

Exploring The Twilight Zone, Episode #62: "Shadow Play" (original air date: 05/05/61)

The Plot: A man is trapped in a nightmare, in which he is sentenced to death and executed, over and over again.

The Goods: Adam Grant (Dennis Weaver), his face covered in sweat, listens as the jury foreman announces that he has been found guilty of murder in the first degree. The judge promptly sentences him to death. But Grant can't take it anymore: "No, you can't kill me again!" As he's dragged out of the courtroom, kicking and screaming, alarming everyone, he insists that it's all a dream, a terrible, horrible dream.

Grant is returned to his cell to await his execution. He recounts his nightmare to another death-row inmate, the screen splitting into two as Grant talks precisely about the 78 steps to the electric chair and the exact process by which a man is executed. The setting switches to the home of District Attorney Henry Ritchey, who is unexpectedly visited by a newspaper reporter. The two discuss the case and Grant's contention that it's all a dream, prompting the district attorney to pay Grant a visit.

Grant argues his case, unnerving Ritchey with his propensity to mouth the DA's words as they're coming out of his mouth. "It doesn't make any kind of logical sense," Ritchey protests. Grant is becoming increasingly desperate, as he relates the horror of reliving his own death over and over again.

tz-shadow-play.jpg

As if often the case, the episode hinges on the performance of the lead character, and Weaver absolutely nails the texture of a man who is losing his mind and can't do a thing about it.

The Trivia: The episode was remade in the 1980's version of The Twilight Zone, with Peter Coyote as Adam Grant.

To one generation, Dennis Weaver will always be remembered for playing sidekick Chester in the long-running Gunsmoke. To another, he was a kind father in Gentle Ben. To yet another, he was the mystery-solving cowboy investigator in New York in McCloud. But he was truly immortalized thanks to his legendary, near one-man show in Steven Spielberg's Duel.

Bernie Hamilton eventually enjoyed a measure of fame as Captain Dobey, a prototypical exasperated supervising officer, in the TV series Starsky and Hutch, which ran from 1975-79.

On the Next Episode: "Using the power of mind over matter, Archibald Beechcroft remakes the world to his own specifications."

Catching up: Episodes covered by Twitch | Episodes covered by Film School Rejects.

We're running through all 156 of the original Twilight Zone episodes, and we're not doing it alone! Our friends at Film School Rejects have entered the Zone as well, only on alternating weeks. So definitely tune in over at FSR and feel free to also follow along on Twitter accounts @twitchfilm and @rejectnation.

More from Exploring The Twilight Zone


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