Twilight Zone episode review — 1.26 — Execution
Episode 1.26 “Execution”
Original air date: April 1, 1960
Writer: Rod Serling, story by George Clayton Johnson
Director: David Orrick McDearmon
Rating: 5/10
After an impressive run of classics, The Twilight Zone was due for a subpar episode. I wouldn’t even call it bad, but I might call it uninspired. At its best, The Twilight Zone made viewers think, forcing them to confront the harsh realities of society. While this is an amusing enough story, it doesn’t exactly do that.
The episode opens in the old West, with a convicted murderer, Joe Caswell (Albert Salmi) about to be hanged. He feels no remorse. When he is hanged, he disappears, leaving those around him dumbfounded.
He emerges in the modern world, inside a scientist’s (Russell Johnson) time machine. Professor Manion informs him that he is the first person ever to time travel, and in time he will show him an exciting new world.
Manion makes some observations into a tape recorder. He notes that there is some kind of mark around Caswell’s neck, thinking it’s from a rope. He begins to worry that he has brought back a “19th century primitive.” He eventually confronts Caswell on this, and Caswell tells him that he’s killed a whole territory of people. While Manion tries to lecture him on justice, Caswell flips and kills him. Just then, the tape recorder goes off and Caswell hears Manion’s voice. Not understanding the new 20th century technology, Caswell runs away into the outside world.
From here on out, each scene is basically the same. Caswell encounters some kind of modern technology that he doesn’t understand and he ends up destroying it. This involves a phone booth, a jukebox, and a television set, which he shot when a western with a gunman looking at the camera was on.
He goes back to Manion’s place, realizing that he had been protected by the scientist. Then suddenly, an armed criminal enters and holds Caswell up, thinking that he was already trying to rob the place. There’s a fight, and Caswell is fittingly choked to death with the blinds.
When the criminal wanders around, looking for a wall safe, he hits a bunch of buttons and for some reason enters the time machine, which closes with him inside. It transports him to the old West, where he is dangling from Caswell’s rope.
The priest present prays that they didn’t hang an innocent man, and Serling’s narration reveals that justice will always prevail.
It has its moments, but it’s not particularly thought-provoking or creative. It’s a below-average episode for the series, and it would be a few weeks before there was another really great one.
