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krpalmerWhen I moved on to “And When the Sky Was Opened” in my Twilight Zone collection, Rod Serling’s next-episode preview had me thinking another science fiction episode was ahead. The preview also had me understanding the episode involved “astronauts coming back to Earth,” and that had me thinking of “The Quatermass Experiment.” A Penguin paperback collecting the television scripts of that British production from the 1950s had turned up in my grandmother’s house. Most of the episodes were “lost media” long before even that, but I have managed to see a remake from this side of the millennium that condensed the story into one episode.
Having thought of another production didn’t make the Twilight Zone episode all that similar to it. Both were basically Earthbound, but they found varying ways to be unsettling in involving different characters. I did contemplate a bit the characters here being US Air Force officers, how that wound up tying into what we think of as “astronauts” now, and what the episode just might have done to bump against certain expectations. It’s at least possible the Twilight Zone episode was further towards the fringes where some start complaining “that’s not science fiction,” though. It was a little tempting to invoke that time-honoured idea “things are different out there,” wonder what was alluded to as the crucial difference, and then claim the other genres folded into The Twilight Zone brought “difference” closer.
Having thought of another production didn’t make the Twilight Zone episode all that similar to it. Both were basically Earthbound, but they found varying ways to be unsettling in involving different characters. I did contemplate a bit the characters here being US Air Force officers, how that wound up tying into what we think of as “astronauts” now, and what the episode just might have done to bump against certain expectations. It’s at least possible the Twilight Zone episode was further towards the fringes where some start complaining “that’s not science fiction,” though. It was a little tempting to invoke that time-honoured idea “things are different out there,” wonder what was alluded to as the crucial difference, and then claim the other genres folded into The Twilight Zone brought “difference” closer.