Plot: In a world on the brink of destruction, two scientists plot to steal an experimental space ship and escape with their families to a habitable world – Earth.
Another episode light on plot and heavy on atmosphere. Like Judgment Night before it, it's a tense build-up to a brief but action-packed conclusion. From the moment that our protagonist punches his time card and lights his cigarette to the late-night standoff with a gun, there's an ever-present feeling of impending doom. The somber, contemplative cast is accentuated by shots that have the camera slightly off level and lighting that is just a hair too dark.
Then we have this shot – through the glass table. The young Colonel Sanders in the center is reaching for a piece of paper which has notes on the pair's planetary escape, but we don't know if he knows what he's picking up. How apropos that from this angle we can also see the poker hands of all of the characters in the scene: everyone's secrets laid bare to our omniscient audience, quietly praying that these scientists can keep up their poker faces long enough for their gamble to pay off.
... it is said that early in The Twilight Zone's original run that sponsors worried that the show was too cerebral for lowest common denominator audiences. If only they could see the sort of sci-fi that hits the air nowadays... they'd probably be backing Jersey Shore.
And now a delightful bit of trivia, the stuff that I always get a kick discovering for myself. The space ship, at the end, both exterior and interior shots? Left over from 1956's Forbidden Planet, a flick that any Twilight Zone fan should appreciate. Why, is that Leslie Nielsen? I believe it is.
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