Rod Serling: You're riding on a jet airliner en route from London to New York. You're at 35,000 feet atop an overcast and roughly fifty-five minutes from Idlewild Airport. But what you've seen occur inside the cockpit of this plane is no reflection on the aircraft or the crew. It's a safe, well-engineered, perfectly designed machine. And the men you've just met are a trained, cool, highly efficient team. The problem is simply that the plane is going too fast, and there is nothing within the realm of knowledge or at least logic to explain it. Unbeknownst to passenger and crew, this airplane is heading into an uncharted region well off the beaten track of commercial travelers—it's moving into the Twilight Zone. What you're about to see we call "The Odyssey of Flight 33."
Air date: February 24, 1961
Global Airlines Flight 33 is en route to New York from London, when it suddenly hits a high power jetstream. After a period of turbulence and a flash of light, Captain Farver and his crew notice that the landscape below them has radically changed. Upon spotting a grazing Brontosaurus, Farver realizes that the airliner has travelled back in time after its trip through the jet stream. When the passengers get word about the situation, Farver and the crew try to get back to 1961 by going back through the same stream, but only if they have enough fuel for a second trip.
The Odyssey Of Trope 33:
- Affectionate Nickname: Captain Farver repeatedly refers to Hatch, his navigator, as "Magellan."
- Anachronism Stew: In-Universe. The flight crew get several clues that they haven't returned to their own time when the controller at LaGuardia isn't familiar with (then) modern aircraft technology and tells Farver to report to the Civil Aeronautics Authority. Farver notes that the FAA hasn't gone by that name in years.
- Artistic License – Geography: Farver makes an announcement to the passengers that they are still in the past. He describes the World's Fair as being held at Lake Success in place of the UN Headquarters. Lake Success is in Nassau County, just outside New York City. The 1939 World's Fair was actually located at Flushing Meadows in Queens, while the UN is located in Turtle Bay on Manhattan, though they were briefly located at Lake Success until the headquarters were completed in 1952.
- Artistic License – Geology: After being transported to the Jurassic period, the crew recognize Manhattan Island from its shape, despite the absence of New York City. Not only was Manhattan Island a product of glacial activity in the last Ice Age, but not even the ocean would be there, since North America was still joined to Europe as part of Pangaea.
- Artistic License – Physics: Breaking the sound barrier doesn't send you back in time. However, it should be noted that Captain Farver was only speculating when he mentioned the sound barrier. We never know for sure what it was that sent the plane back in time.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: This episode was adapted as a graphic novel by Walker Paperback in 2008. Notably, a pair of new characters are added and it has a new ending: Flight 33 winds up in the future, but though the automated staff tries to land the plane, Farver and Hatch forcefully retake control and try their time traveling stunt one more time.
- Episode on a Plane: The entire episode takes place on Global Airlines Flight 33.
- Get Back to the Future: After Flight 33 is sent million of years back in time, the crew try to return it to 1961 by reversing the process. However, they do not travel far enough forward, as they arrive over New York City in 1939, evidenced by the World's Fair. Another attempt is made, but Flight 33 is running low on fuel so there is no guarantee of success.
- No Ending: A rarity for this show. There will be an ending, since the plane has to run out of fuel at some point, but whether or not the crew get back to 1961 before that is never specified. The Comic-Book Adaptation doesn't have an ending either, as Farver and Hatch realize that they transported their plane to the future, and try the time travel stunt one more time.
- Rambling Old Man Monologue: An old woman on the plane goes on monologues about several things in her life, such as her aunt's diseased liver and her nephew who served in the Navy during World War II. Contrary to most examples, the RAF captain she's talking to doesn't seem annoyed, only more concerned about the plane going too fast.
- Stock Footage: The final scene features stock footage of the 1939 New York World's Fair, specifically the Trylon and the Perisphere.
Rod Serling: A Global jet airliner, en route from London to New York on an uneventful afternoon in the year 1961, but now reported overdue and missing, and by now, searched for on land, sea, and air by anguished human beings, fearful of what they'll find. But you and I know where she is. You and I know what's happened. So if some moment, any moment, you hear the sound of jet engines flying atop the overcast — engines that sound searching and lost, engines that sound desperate — shoot up a flare, or do something. That would be Global 33, trying to get home from The Twilight Zone.
