Death Ship (The Twilight Zone)

"**Death Ship**"
"Death Ship"
The Twilight Zone episode
	Cruiser E-89 about to land
Episode no.	Season 4; Episode 6
Directed by	Don Medford
Written by	Richard Matheson
Based on	"Death Ship"; by Richard Matheson
Featured music	Stock
Production code	4850
Original air date	February 7, 1963
Guest appearances
	Jack Klugman; Ross Martin; Fred Beir; Mary Webster; Ross Elliott; Sara Taft; Tammy Marihugh;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Mute"	Next →; "Jess-Belle"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 4)
	List of episodes

"Death Ship" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, based on a 1953 short story with the same title by Richard Matheson. The story was inspired by the legend of the Flying Dutchman. In this episode, a spaceship crew discovers a wrecked replica of their ship with their own dead bodies inside.

Opening narration

Picture of the spaceship E-89, cruising above the 13th planet of star system 51, the year 1997. In a little while, supposedly, the ship will be landed and specimens taken: vegetable, mineral, and if any, animal. These will be brought back to overpopulated Earth, where technicians will evaluate them, and if everything is satisfactory, stamp their findings with the word 'inhabitable' and open up yet another planet for colonization. These are the things that are supposed to happen.

Picture of the crew of the spaceship E-89: Captain Ross, Lieutenant Mason, Lieutenant Carter. Three men who have just reached a place which is as far from home as they will ever be. Three men who in a matter of minutes will be plunged into the darkest nightmare reaches of the Twilight Zone.

Plot

The Space Cruiser E-89, crewed by Captain Paul Ross, Lt. Ted Mason, and Lt. Mike Carter, is on a mission to analyze new worlds and discover if they are suitable for colonization. While orbiting a planet, Mason sees a metallic glint in the landscape. He conjects that this might be a sign of alien life, but the pragmatic Captain Ross disagrees. Nevertheless, the Cruiser prepares to land next to the mysterious object.

After landing, the men find that the gleaming comes from the wreck of a ship exactly like their own. Inside the craft, they discover their own lifeless bodies. Mason and Carter go numb with shock. Ross, struggling for an explanation, decides they have bent time in such a way as to get a glimpse of the future. He says to avoid their fate they must refrain from taking off again. Mason and Carter fiercely object to this plan, especially once they find that atmospheric interference prevents their contacting anyone for help, and that the frigid night-time temperatures of the planet will force them to rapidly exhaust the ship's energy reserves on heat. Ross pulls rank to make them comply.

While looking out the viewport, Carter is transported back to a country lane on Earth. There, he encounters people from his past. He runs to the house that his wife and he shared, and finds it empty except for a telegram notifying her that he has died in the line of duty. Carter is wrenched from his vision by Ross; as Carter describes what he has just experienced, he realizes that the people he encountered are dead. Ross insists it was a delusion. The two then find Mason has vanished. He is having an emotional reunion with his wife and child. When Ross pulls him back, Mason is enraged and wants to be allowed back, maintaining that his encounter with his family was real. From Mason's pocket, Ross pulls a newspaper clipping about the death of Mason's wife and child. The captain then posits a new theory about what is going on: The planet is inhabited by telepathic aliens who are using illusions to keep them from reporting back to Earth, thus averting colonization of their home. Ross says that if they take the E-89 back up to space, that should break the spell.

The men take E-89 back in orbit. Mason and Carter admit that Ross may have been right about the aliens. Ross then insists on landing the craft again to gather foreign samples to bring back to Earth. When they land again, the wreck of their craft is still present. The successive disproving of Ross's theories, combined with an intuitive knowledge of their condition, brings Mason and Carter to the realization that they already crashed and are dead. Their afterlife visits were real, and their current situation is the illusion. Ross refuses to accept this. He rejects his crew's pleas to be allowed to embrace their deaths and be reunited with their loved ones, and says that they will "go over it again and again" until he figures out an alternative explanation.

In compliance with Ross's order, the men are returned to the moment where Mason first spotted the E-89's wreckage, doomed to relive the past several hours of investigation over and over.

Closing narration

Picture of a man who will not see anything he does not choose to see, including his own death. A man of such indomitable will that even the two men beneath his command are not allowed to see the truth; which truth is, that they are no longer among the living, that the movements they make and the words they speak have all been made and spoken countless times before, and will be made and spoken countless times again, perhaps even unto eternity. Picture of a latter-day Flying Dutchman, sailing into the Twilight Zone.

Production notes

The model of the hovering spaceship is that of a C-57D Cruiser, a leftover prop from MGM's 1956 film Forbidden Planet. The crashed ship was a realistically painted model/set.^[1] The prop was also used in the 1960 Twilight Zone episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Third from the Sun".^[2]^[3]

A crew member shirt, also used in the episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home", was offered at auction in late September 2015 by Profiles in History with an estimated value of $1,000 to $1,500, with a winning bid of $1,600 by Mathew G. Perrone, a private collector.^[4]^[5]

Cast

Jack Klugman as Capt. Paul Ross
Ross Martin as Lt. Ted Mason
Fred Beir (as Fredrick Beir) as Lt. Mike Carter
Mary Webster as Ruth Mason
Ross Elliott as Kramer
Sara Taft as Mrs. Nolan
Tammy Marihugh as Jeannie Mason

References

^ Zicree, Marc Scott (1982). The Twilight Zone Companion (second ed.). Silman-James.
^ "Rod Serling FAQ". Archived from the original on 2009-06-01. Retrieved 2013-10-03.
^ VanDerWeff, Emily (2011-10-22). "The Twilight Zone: "The Four Of Us Are Dying"/"Third From The Sun"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2015-07-14.
^ Hollywood Auction 74. California: Profiles in History. 2015. p. 358. Lot 1017. Shirt made for Forbidden Planet and used in Twilight Zone episodes. (CBS TV, 1959-1964) Vintage futuristic shirt consisting of an iridescent gray blue short sleeve shirt with zipper front closure, 2-breast pockets, and soft sculpture bright red fabric crescents attached to shoulders. Ultimately unused in Forbidden Planet, the shirt does appear in two episodes of The Twilight Zone; "Death Ship" and "On Thursday We Leave for Home". With minor fading and discoloration to some areas. In vintage very good to fine. $1,000 - $1,500. (Auction took place September 29, 30, October 1, 2015.)
^ Mark Zicree, "Death Ship" audio commentary, The Twilight Zone DVD boxed set

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

"Death Ship" at IMDb

[1] Zicree, Marc Scott (1982). The Twilight Zone Companion (second ed.). Silman-James.

[2] "Rod Serling FAQ". Archived from the original on 2009-06-01. Retrieved 2013-10-03.

[3] VanDerWeff, Emily (2011-10-22). "The Twilight Zone: "The Four Of Us Are Dying"/"Third From The Sun"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2015-07-14.

[4] Hollywood Auction 74. California: Profiles in History. 2015. p. 358. Lot 1017. Shirt made for Forbidden Planet and used in Twilight Zone episodes. (CBS TV, 1959-1964) Vintage futuristic shirt consisting of an iridescent gray blue short sleeve shirt with zipper front closure, 2-breast pockets, and soft sculpture bright red fabric crescents attached to shoulders. Ultimately unused in Forbidden Planet, the shirt does appear in two episodes of The Twilight Zone; "Death Ship" and "On Thursday We Leave for Home". With minor fading and discoloration to some areas. In vintage very good to fine. $1,000 - $1,500. (Auction took place September 29, 30, October 1, 2015.)

[5] Mark Zicree, "Death Ship" audio commentary, The Twilight Zone DVD boxed set

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v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

v t e Richard Matheson
Novels	I Am Legend (1954) The Shrinking Man (1956) A Stir of Echoes (1958) The Beardless Warriors (1960) Hell House (1971) Bid Time Return (1975) What Dreams May Come (1978) Earthbound (1982)
Short stories	"Born of Man and Woman" (1950) "Button, Button" (1970)
Screenplays	The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) House of Usher (1960) "The Last Flight" (1960) "Nick of Time" (1960) "A World of Difference" (1960) "A World of His Own" (1960) Master of the World (1961) The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) "The Invaders" (1961) "Once Upon a Time" (1961) Night of the Eagle (1962) Tales of Terror (1962) "Little Girl Lost" (1962) "Young Man's Fancy" (1962) The Raven (1963) "Death Ship" (1963) "Mute" (1963) "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963) "Steel" (1963) The Comedy of Terrors (1964) The Last Man on Earth (1964) "Night Call" (1964) "Spur of the Moment" (1964) Fanatic (1965) The Young Warriors (1966) "The Enemy Within" (1966) The Devil Rides Out (1968) De Sade (1969) Duel (1971) The Night Stalker (1972) The Night Strangler (1973) The Legend of Hell House (1973) Dying Room Only (1973) Bram Stoker's Dracula (1974) The Morning After (1974) Scream of the Wolf (1974) Trilogy of Terror (1975) Dead of Night (1977) The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver (1977) The Martian Chronicles (1980) Somewhere in Time (1980) Jaws 3-D (1983) Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) "Button, Button" (1986) Loose Cannons (1990) The Dreamer of Oz (1990) Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994) Trilogy of Terror II (1996)
Adaptations by others	"And When the Sky Was Opened" (1959) "Third from the Sun" (1960) Cold Sweat (1970) The Omega Man (1971) The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) What Dreams May Come (1998) Stir of Echoes (1999) "Dance of the Dead" (2005) "My Ambition" (2006) I Am Legend (2007) I Am Omega (2007) The Box (2009) "The Splendid Source" (2010) Real Steel (2011)
Related	Richard Christian Matheson (son) Chris Matheson (son)