I Shot an Arrow into the Air
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| "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" | |||
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| The Twilight Zone episode | |||
 Scene from I Shot an Arrow Into the Air |
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 15 |
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| Directed by | Stuart Rosenberg | ||
| Written by | Rod Serling (story by Madelon Champion) | ||
| Featured music | Stock from "And When the Sky Was Opened" by Leonard Rosenman | ||
| Production code | 173-3626 | ||
| Original air date | January 15, 1960 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
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Dewey Martin: Officer Corey |
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||
"I Shot an Arrow into the Air" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
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[edit] Plot
A manned space flight crash lands on what the astronauts believe to be an unknown asteroid. Their expectations of survival or rescue are bleak. Only four of the crew survive, one of whom is barely alive. After he dies, the three remaining men, Corey, Donlin, and Pierson decide to trek out into the barren desert to see if there is anything that might improve their chances of survival. When Corey and Donlin reconvene, it seems that Pierson is dead and Corey filched the water supply from his dead body. Donlin, the commanding officer, forces Corey at gunpoint to lead him to Pierson's body.
They find Pierson, still barely alive, who with his last bit of strength draws a primitive diagram in the sand with his finger. Corey then kills Donlin and sets out alone, confident that he will survive longer now that he has all of the water supply. Corey later sees a sign for Reno, and then sees telephone poles, which were what Pierson had attempted to draw before he died. Realizing that they had in fact never left Earth and that he had killed his partners for nothing, Corey breaks down weeping.
[edit] Episode notes
- When Serling first started collecting material for The Twilight Zone he offered an open call for scripts. Anyone could submit a script based on any science-fiction idea they had. The results of this open call were disastrous:
| “ | "I got 15,000 manuscripts in the first five days. Of those 15,000, I and members of my staff read about 140. And 137 of those 140 were wasted paper; hand-scrawled, laboriously written, therapeutic unholy grotesqueries from sick, troubled, deeply disturbed people. Of the three remaining scripts, all of clearly poetic, professional quality, none of them fitted the show." —Rod Serling quoted in The Twilight Zone Companion | ” |
- Despite this, Serling did end up producing an idea from an industry outsider when he paid Madelon Champion $500 for the idea on which this episode was based, an idea that came up in a social conversation between the two.[1] Though Serling was frequently approached with suggestions for the series, such a purchase was never repeated.
- Much of this episode was filmed in Death Valley National Park, particularly around Zabriskie Point.[1]
- In addition to the usual opening and closing narration, this episode features a rare bit of narration from Serling in the middle of the show—after Corey kills Donlin, Serling narrates Corey's travels through the desert landscape.
- The title of the episode comes from the opening line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Arrow and the Song": "I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth I knew not where." Serling also used this title for a prospective Twilight Zone pilot episode that was eventually shot, in modified form, as "The Gift".[2]
- The plot idea of astronauts thinking they had crashed on an unknown planet, only to discover that in fact they had been on Earth all along, would be adapted by Rod Serling in his work on the initial screenplay of Planet of The Apes.
- This is one of several episodes from Season One with its opening title sequence plastered over with the opening for Season Two. This was done during the Summer of 1961 to help the season one shows fit in with the new look the show had taken during the following season.
[edit] References
[edit] Further reading
- Full video of the episode at CBS.com
- DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
- Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090
[edit] External links
- "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" at the Internet Movie Database
- "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" at TV.com
