Two classics, one after the other...
Title: “Third From the Sun”
Original transmission date: January 8 1960
Written by: Rod Serling, based on the story by Richard Matheson
Directed by: Richard L. Bare
Starring: Fritz Weaver as Will Sturka
Edward Andrews as Carling
Joe Maross as Jerry Riden
Denise Alexander as Jody Sturka
Lori March as Eve Sturka
Jeanne Evans as Ann Riden
Setting: Unknown
Timeframe: Unknown
Theme(s): War, survival, escape
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating: A+
Serling's opening monologue
Quitting time at the plant. Time for supper now. Time for families. Time for a cool drink on a porch. Time for the quiet rustle of leaf-laden trees that screen out the moon, and underneath it all, behind the eyes of the men, hanging invisible over the summer night, is a horror without words. For this is the stillness before storm. This is the eve of the end.
End of the world? Two fiercely opposed factions are preparing for war, the first - and most decisive and deadly - strikes being prepared for launch. Will Sturka, one of the factory workers, is increasingly worried about the imminent attack and he can see that his daughter is too, but he tries to make light of it. He has invited his friend Jerry Riden over for a card game, but unbeknownst to his family the two men have another task in mind: the theft of a top-secret craft Riden has been test-flying, with which they hope to escape the doomed planet. Riden and Sturka have to be very careful, as there are spies everywhere, and indeed one is watching his movements. Spurred by what he called “defeatist talk” - simply a comment by Sturka that the coming war is pointless and will serve no end - from earlier outside the factory, another worker, Carling, has his suspicions and is watching the house.
As they make their plans over the card game everything is tense. Sturka has let his wife in on the secret, and Riden’s wife already knows, but the daughter does not as she can’t be trusted to keep it to herself. Riden is telling Sturka about their destination, a planet quite like their own with a similar language and technology, about eighteen million miles distant, when Carling arrives and interrupts the game. Obsequious and smarmy, he looks like a fat little nondescript man, the kind you find out too late works for the Gestapo. Carling tries to find out what’s going on - he knows something is afoot - but the two families keep their nerve. When Sturka gets a call saying he’s needed at work he knows it’s time to run, and so they do.
There’s a scare when Carlin catches them, but they overpower him and make for the craft. Once they make it into space Riden points out the planet they’re heading to, where there are people just like them, where they can be safe. Third planet from the sun. Earth.
Serling’s closing monologue
Behind a tiny ship heading into space is a doomed planet on the verge of suicide. Ahead lies a place called Earth, the third planet from the Sun. And for William Sturka and the men and women with him, it's the eve of the beginning—in the Twilight Zone.
The Resolution
The first time you see it, knocked out. Because the people and indeed the planet mirror so closely our own we all assume it’s Earth they’re escaping from, and it’s a real twist to find that it is in fact an alien planet, and they are fleeing to Earth.
The Moral
Several I guess. Sometimes the safest thing to do is run. Sometimes you can’t stop the madness so don’t try, just leave it behind. Maybe it’s best to know when you’re beaten and take the only alternative open to you. There’s also a clever if slightly heavy-handed moral lesson for us in terms of the Cold War. This episode shows a planet which has tipped over that point into outright war, and will destroy itself. Will we do the same?
Oops!
Although this is from a science fiction story, and written by someone who surely knows his stuff, I wonder if Serling adapted it and used his own measurements, because the distance from the planet the Sturka and Riden families are fleeing from to Earth is said to be eighteen million miles. That would put it closer to Earth than Mars or Venus, and as we know there are no planets between those two and Earth, so where is the planet meant to be?
Iconic?
Not the story, which I don’t recall being used again, but in the spaceship there’s a sound used which would become famous, synonymous with Star Trek, which would air eight years later. Have a listen to it. I feel it may also have been used on the iconic science fiction movie of all iconic science fiction movies, Forbidden Planet.
Themes
Survival being the first, survival in the face of impending nuclear disaster. Also hope, hope that the families can find a new home on this strange planet called Earth. The futility of war - MAD - is addressed too, when Sturka tells a gleefully confident Carling that “they can get us too” or something like that, I’m not going back to check. Basically he’s letting him know that though their side can wreak unimaginable havoc, the other side is capable of doing the same. Finally, there’s a sort of space exploration theme, as for only the second episode we see man in space.
And isn’t that…?
Fritz Weaver (1926 - 2016)
Known for among other things,
Creepshow, The X Files, The Martian Chronicles, Law and Order, Star Trek Deep Space 9 and
The Streets of San Francisco.
Denise Alexander (1939 - )
Famed for her role as Lesley Webber on the American soap
General Hospital.
Personal Notes
It's not important and it doesn't impact on the story, but I must note the names of the two families. Sturka sounds so much like the feared German divebomber used to such terrifying effect in World War II, the Stuka, and this is a war episode at its heart. And I could not resist: the other family is Riden. Riden with Biden? Sorry.
Questions, and sometimes, Answers
Why is Jody, the daughter, the only one kept out of the secret? I understand that as a younger person she might be more likely to say something, or to possibly want a boyfriend to come, a boyfriend who might not be trustworthy and might sell them out, but it’s clear that there is tension as the card game proceeds, and she must wonder what the problem is. Of course, she’s already on edge, like everyone, over the imminent war, but it must feel to her like she’s the only sober one at a drunken party. Would it not have been better to have told her and sworn her to secrecy?
Those clever little touches
Riden has been sketching out their flight plan on a piece of paper, and when Carling arrives he turns it over face down, and pretends he’s using it to keep score how much his friend owes him. As Carling looks at the paper, we can see the reverse, showing the diagram, and it’s quite clever: a tense moment when you think “if he just turns that over they’re done for”. But he doesn’t, and returns it to the table, never realising he had held the evidence of what would be seen as their treachery in his hands.