Sunday, January 24, 2010

Episode 15 - I Shot an Arrow Into the Air

Original Airdate: January 15, 1960

Plot: Three astronauts find themselves stranded on an arid asteroid after their rocket goes off course. The infighting soon starts and only one man is left alive to discover that they've actually landed in Nevada.



There's not a lot to be said about this episode. This production brought the crew back to Death Valley, where their ordeal shooting "The Lonely" had taught them some lessons on the limits of the human body. This time they took more frequent breaks and planned their meals properly.



Another week, another UFO story. For people who had never been to space, they sure liked to talk about it. What we have here is a mishmash of previous stories: similar themes of survival with last week's "Third from the Sun," the backdrop of "The Lonely," and the idea that anything could happen when man attempts to explore the universe that was handled better in "And When the Sky was Opened." The cast come off as amateurs – a captain with exactly one facial expression, the stock villain who proposes letting his fellow astronauts die with his first line, and... that other guy. Whoever he was, he was forgettable. The twist ending – that they're on Earth – can be seen coming a mile away by anyone not in the show. An asteroid with an atmosphere, exactly the same distance from the sun as Earth? Maybe they're astronauts, but they're definitely not rocket scientists. "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" might be more at home among episodes of the original Star Trek; it's just not the quality we've already come to expect from The Twilight Zone.

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