And When the Sky Was Opened

"And When the Sky Was Opened"
The Twilight Zone episode
Jim Hutton in "And When the Sky Was Opened".
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 11
Directed by	Douglas Heyes
Written by	Teleplay by Rod Serling Based on a short story by Richard Matheson
Featured music	Leonard Rosenman
Production code	173-3611
Original air date	December 11, 1959
Guest stars
Rod Taylor: Col. Clegg Forbes Charles Aidman: Col. Ed Harrington Jim Hutton: Major William Gart Maxine Cooper: Amy Sue Randall: Nurse Paul Bryar: Bartender Joe Bassett: Medical officer Gloria Pall: Girl in bar Elizabeth Fielding: Blonde nurse
Episode chronology
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List of Twilight Zone episodes

"And When the Sky Was Opened" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It was first aired on December 11, 1959.

Plot

Three astronauts flying the X-20 DynaSoar into space for the first time disappear from radar on a test flight, then reappear.

However, all is not as it seems upon their return to Earth. After they land, Gart is sent to the hospital with a broken leg. During the evening the other two, Forbes and Harrington, go to a bar. There, Harrington suddenly gets a strange feeling as if he no longer belongs in the world. He immediately goes to a phone booth to call his parents, but they tell him they have no son. Then Harrington mysteriously disappears, and no one but Forbes remembers his existence. Forbes tells his story to Gart, who says he does not know any person named Harrington. Then Forbes looks in the mirror, only to find there is no reflection and runs out of the room. By the time Gart gets up to run after him, Forbes has mysteriously disappeared too, and nobody remembers him. Then Gart himself mysteriously disappears, and the ship does too – wiping them off the face of the Earth.

Although there are no special effects showing the spacecraft in flight, the disappearances are emphasized by props. The headline on the newspaper first says "Three Men..." then "Two Men..." and finally "Lone Man..." There is one fewer bed in the hospital room when one man disappears. At the end, the hospital room is shown empty, as is the hangar where the ship was originally housed.

Episode notes

This episode is closely based on the short story "Disappearing Act" by Richard Matheson.^[1] The story was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (March 1953).

In the scene where Forbes looks into the mirror, the camera angle accidentally reveals a sliver of his reflection.

Rod Taylor and director Douglas Heyes later worked together on the TV series Bearcats!^[2]

See also

• "Remember Me", an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which a character undergoes a similar experience.

References

External links

• "And When the Sky Was Opened" at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com episode page
• And When The Sky Was Opened | John's Twilight Zone Page
• 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