Probe 7, Over and Out

"Probe 7, Over and Out"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no. Season 5
Episode 9
Directed by Ted Post
Written by Rod Serling
Featured music Stock
Production code 2622
Original air date November 29, 1963
Guest appearance(s)

Richard Basehart: Colonel Adam Cook
Antoinette Bower: Eve Norda
Harold Gould: General Larrabee
Barton Heyman: Lieutenant Blane

Episode chronology

"Probe 7, Over and Out" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Its plot is a shaggy God story.

Opening narration

“ One Colonel Cook, a traveler in space. He's landed on a remote planet several million miles from his point of departure. He can make an inventory of his plight by just one 360-degree movement of head and eyes. Colonel Cook has been set adrift in an ocean of space in a metal lifeboat that has been scorched and destroyed and will never fly again. He survived the crash but his ordeal is yet to begin. Now he must give battle to loneliness. Now Colonel Cook must meet the unknown. It's a small planet set deep in space. But for Colonel Cook, it's the Twilight Zone. ”

Plot

Astronaut Adam Cook (Richard Basehart) crash lands on a strange planet with gravity and atmospheric conditions similar to those of his home world. Most of his equipment is destroyed in the crash and cannot be repaired due to a broken arm and lack of resources. He manages to contact his home base, but they have little encouragement for him; there is no replacement spacecraft to rescue him, and his home planet may soon be at war.

In his last transmission, Cook's superior back home, General Larrabee (Harold Gould), tells him that there may be no survivors when the war is over, so he can expect no rescue, hoping for Cook that his new world is more peaceful.

Cook readies himself to make a home on his new world when he discovers another inhabitant, a human-like female (Antoinette Bower). They cannot understand each other but communicate through sketches drawn in the sand and by pantomime. He learns that she is also stranded; her planet had left its orbit and she is its sole survivor. As they learn to communicate, he learns that her name is Eve Norda.

Together Cook and Norda search for a more fertile area, which Cook describes as looking like a "garden." He fully introduces himself as "Adam Cook" and Norda gives her full name as "Norda Eve." Adam and Eve begin a new life on this planet she calls "Earth." At this point she even offers him a "seppla" ("seppla" is an anagram of "apples," which is artistically depicted as the biblical forbidden fruit). As they venture further, Rod Serling narrates that even he presumes that the place they are heading to is Eden.

Closing narration

“ Do you know these people? Names familiar, are they? They lived a long time ago. Perhaps they're part fable, perhaps they're part fantasy. And perhaps the place they're walking to now is not really called 'Eden.' We offer it only as a presumption. This has been the Twilight Zone. ”

Notes

"Probe 7, Over and Out" was intended to air a week after the premiere of "Night Call," which was scheduled for Friday, November 22, 1963[1] — the previous episode, "Uncle Simon," having aired a week earlier on November 15. Hours before "Night Call" was to air though, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Thus it was rescheduled, as were all of the other network shows. As a result, "Probe 7, Over and Out" immediately follows "Uncle Simon" in original broadcast order. "Night Call" was eventually broadcast on February 7, 1964.

The radio adaptation of this episode starred Louis Gossett, Jr..

References

  1. ↑ New York Times television listings 11/22/63
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