The Trouble with Templeton

"**The Trouble with Templeton**"
"The Trouble with Templeton"
The Twilight Zone episode
	Pippa Scott in 1960
Episode no.	Season 2; Episode 9
Directed by	Buzz Kulik
Written by	E. Jack Neuman
Featured music	Jeff Alexander
Production code	173-3649
Original air date	December 9, 1960
Guest appearances
	Brian Aherne; Pippa Scott; Sydney Pollack; Dave Willock; King Calder; Larry J. Blake; David Thursby; Charles S. Carlson;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "The Lateness of the Hour"	Next →; "A Most Unusual Camera"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 2)
	List of episodes

"The Trouble with Templeton" is episode 45 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone starring Brian Aherne, Pippa Scott and Sydney Pollack. The episode originally aired on December 9, 1960 on CBS.

Opening narration

Pleased to present for your consideration, Mr. Booth Templeton; serious and successful star of over thirty Broadway plays, who is not quite all right today. Yesterday and its memories is what he wants, and yesterday is what he'll get. Soon his years and his troubles will descend on him in an avalanche. In order not to be crushed Mr. Booth Templeton will escape from his theater and his world, and make his debut on another stage, in another world, that we call the Twilight Zone.

Plot

Aging Broadway actor Booth Templeton is at home, watching his much-younger wife, Doris,^[1] flirting with a gigolo by the pool. Booth notes that he hasn't achieved any contentment with his wife and reminisces about the happiness he had with his first wife, Laura, who died after seven years of marriage. Booth leaves to attend the first rehearsal of his new play, where he learns the director has been replaced. The new director, Arthur Willis, shows no respect for the experienced Booth and questions his commitment to the play.

Pressured and desperately unhappy, Booth runs out the stage door and discovers he has been transported back 30 years to the early days of his career. A stagehand informs him that his wife, Laura, is waiting for him at the speakeasy around the corner. He finds her there, flirting with a much younger man, Barney. Laura is cavalier toward Booth, and in his frustration, he snatches a script Laura uses to fan herself and implores Laura to appreciate their life together. Laura rebuffs all Booth's attempts at conversation, laughing at him with Barney, and eventually she tells Booth to leave. As he does so, everyone in the speakeasy stops and looks on with slight sadness, the music stops, and the room grows dark.

Booth runs back into the theater and the present. He fans himself with Laura's script, and notices that it is for a play titled What to Do When Booth Comes Back. Booth sees that ghosts from his past were not mocking him but actually had staged a performance for him in order to break him free from his paralyzing nostalgia and longing for the old days. Realizing that Laura loved him and didn’t want him to be stuck in the past, Booth returns to the rehearsal, asserts himself, dismisses the producer of the play and tells director Willis that he will no longer tolerate any invalidation. Commanding the respect that is his due as a distinguished actor, Booth begins to live happily in the present time with a new future.

Closing narration

Mr. Booth Templeton, who shared with most human beings the hunger to recapture the past moments, the ones that soften with the years. But in his case, the characters of his past blocked him out and sent him back to his own time, which is where we find him now. Mr. Booth Templeton, who had a round-trip ticket - into The Twilight Zone.

Cast

Brian Aherne as Booth Templeton
Pippa Scott as Laura Templeton
Sydney Pollack as Arthur Willis
Dave Willock as Marty
King Calder as Sid Sperry
Larry J. Blake as Freddie
David Thursby as Eddie
Charles S. Carlson as Barney Flueger

References

^ DeSapio, Michael Martin. "Twilight Zone Museum".

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

"The Trouble with Templeton" at IMDb

[1] DeSapio, Michael Martin. "Twilight Zone Museum".

[1]

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"