Rod Serling: Exit one Paul Driscoll, a creature of the 20th Century. He puts to a test a complicated theorem of space-time continuum, but he goes a step further, or tries to. Shortly, he will seek out three moments of the past in a desperate attempt to alter the present, one of the odd and fanciful functions in a shadowland known as the Twilight Zone.
Air date: March 7, 1963
Scientist Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) has constructed a time machine, intending to travel throughout the timestream and prevent historical tragedies from happening. His first stop is Hiroshima, August 6, 1945, where he tries and fails to warn the residents about the United States dropping the atomic bomb. His next stop is Berlin, August 1939, where he hides out in a hotel room and tries to assassinate Adolf Hitler before World War II can start, only to have a maid take notice and alert the Gestapo. His third stop is the RMS Lusitania, May 17, 1915, where he tries and fails to convice the captain that a German torpedo will sink the ship. After so many failures, Paul comes to the conclusion that the past simply can't be changed. He decides to go in a different direction by going back to Homeville, Indiana, July 3, 1881, intending to live in a simple world without the problems of the 20th century. Paul soon discovers that he has traveled to the day before a local schoolhouse burns down. With this information in mind, Paul is torn between trying to live his new life, or making one last attempt to prevent a tragedy.
No Tropes Like the Past:
- Born in the Wrong Century: Subverted with Paul. After thrice failing to fix history, Paul decides to go back to 1881, where none of the modern world's problems exist. After inadvertently causing the fire he intended to stop, he accepts that disasters have always happened and will continue to do so. Since he can't stop history from occuring as it was meant to, Paul decides to return to his own time and work to make a better future.
- Cassandra Truth: During his trip through time, Paul attempts to warn a Hiroshima police captain about the dropping of the atomic bomb, and the captain of the Lusitania about its impending sinking by the U-20. Without proper credentials and/or witnesses to verify his claims, both of them believe that he's insane.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Hanford, one of Paul's fellow boarders in 1881, expounds at length on his views regarding American imperialism during dinner. He believes that the United States will remain weak and isolated if it doesn't expand its sphere of influence by conquering the Orient and Australia, before going back across the Pacific to South America. Hanford repeatedly says that the American flag must be planted as they go. He also believes that the US government was far too conciliatory to the Native Americans during the Indian Wars five years earlier, describing them as "savages" and "Redskins" who should have been wiped out by 20 George Custers, each leading a combined 100,000 men.
- Didn't Think This Through: Paul's failures are mainly the result of his piss-poor planning:
- In 1945, he arrives in Hiroshima mere hours before the bombing, meaning that even if he was believed, the evacuation wouldn't save many lives.
- In 1939, he has Hitler in the scope of his rifle, but when he pulls the trigger, no shot is fired... because he was inexplicably practicing the assassination for no logical reason. This delay allows the maid to warn the Gestapo.
- In 1915, just as he did in Hiroshima, Paul arrives on the Lusitania minutes before the U-20 sinks it. The captain similarly calls him a madman and refuses to believe him.
- Failure Hero: Paul repeatedly works to fix history and prevent disasters from occuring. He keeps failing in all of his attempts, because the captains of the Hiroshima police and the Lusitania think he's insane, he keeps stalling when he has Hitler in the scope of his rifle and gives the hotel maid time to warn the Gestapo, and he accidentally causes the schoolhouse fire that he intended to stop. In spite of this, Paul comes to terms that history is unchangeable, so he instead dedicates himself to improving the future.
- Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: One of Paul's trips through time has him going to Berlin on August 1939, where he attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a sniper rifle from a Berlin hotel room. He unfortunately wastes time by pointlessly practicing the shot, giving the housekeeper tending to his room the chance to alert the SS.
- Hypocrite: Mr. Hanford's assistant at the dinner table silently gobbles up his boss' Rousing Speech about the merits of America's military might. When Paul subjects him to a Reason You Suck Speech, he has the nerve to call the scientist "a violent man."
- Law of Time Travel Coincidences: This is done intentionally at first, as a man goes back in time to attempt to warn the people of Hiroshima about a nuclear bomb in 1945 (hours before it hit), prevent the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (hours before it was torpedoed), and kill Adolf Hitler before World War II. But when he decides to stop trying to change the past and go live in 1881, this trope still comes into play. He arrives the day before President James Garfield is assassinated but decides to let it happen. Then it turns out he arrived a few days before a huge fire killed some children at the local schoolhouse, and he struggles with whether or not to prevent it, only to end up causing it when he does try to intervene.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Paul delivers a particularly devastating one to the warmongering Hanford when he is asked if he is a pacifist:Paul: No, I'm some kind of sick idiot who's seen too many young men die because of too many old men like you who fight their battles at dining room tables.
Guest: Oh, my goodness.
Hanford: I take offense at that remark, Mr. Driscoll.
Paul: And I take offense at armchair warriors who don't know what a shrapnel wound feels like, or what death smells like after three days in the sun, or the look in a man's eyes when he's minus a leg and his blood is seeping out. Mr. Hanford, you have a great enthusiasm for planting the flag deep, but you don't have a nodding acquaintance with what it's like to bury men in the same soil.
Hanford: I'll not sit here and take talk like that.
Paul: No, no, you'll go back to your bank and it'll be business as usual until dinnertime, when you'll give us another vacuous speech about a country growing strong by filling its graveyards. Well, you're in for some gratifying times, Mr. Hanford. Believe me, there'll be a lot of graveyards for you to fill in Cuba, and in France, then all over Europe, and all over the Pacific. You can sit on the sidelines and wave your pennants because, according to your definition, this country's going to get virile as the Devil. From San Juan to Inchon, we'll show how red our blood is because we'll spill it. There are two unfortunate aspects of this. One is, that you won't have to spill any. And the other is, you won't live long enough to know I'm right. (he leaves; beat)
Guest: A violent man... - Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: After traveling to Homeville, Indiana, July 3, 1881, Paul recalls that the schoolhouse will burn down as a result of a kerosene lantern falling off a passing wagon, leading to twelve children within being badly injured. Since his previous attempts to change history were complete failures, he vows not to make any effort to stop the fire from happening. However, when the time comes, he impulsively tries unhitching the horses from the wagon carrying the lantern. In the process, he frightens the horses, causing the lantern to fall off the wagon and start the fire that burns down the schoolhouse.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Paul creates a time machine to try and change history, notably by warning the authorities of Hiroshima about the atomic bombing, assassinating Adolf Hitler, and preventing the sinking of the Lusitania. When all of these efforts fail, Paul instead decides to settle in the town of Homeville, Indiana in 1881. Alas, he also tries to stop a schoolhouse from burning down, but actually causes the school to burn in the first place.
- Stock Footage: Footage of Hitler and Hermann Göring attending a Nazi rally is shown when Paul is in Berlin, attempting to assassinate Hitler with a sniper rifle.
- You Can't Fight Fate: No matter how hard he tries, Paul cannot change the past.
Rod Serling: Incident on a July afternoon, 1881. A man named Driscoll who came and went and, in the process, learned a simple lesson, perhaps best said by a poet named Lathbury, who wrote, 'Children of yesterday, heirs of tomorrow, what are you weaving? Labor and sorrow? Look to your looms again, faster and faster fly the great shuttles prepared by the master. Life's in the loom, room for it. Room.' Tonight's tale of clocks and calendars in the Twilight Zone.
