Air date: December 4, 1959
A man named Carl Lanser (Nehemiah Persoff) finds himself on a British cargo liner, the S.S. Queen of Glasgow, without any knowledge of how he got there or who he is. Somehow, he knows something horrible is going to happen, although he doesn't know what it is or why it will happen, only when it will happen: exactly 1:15 a.m. Further compounding Lanser's worries is his seemingly firsthand knowledge of the hunting tactics of German submarines, as well as the realization that he was born in Frankfurt, which raises suspicion from the ship's captain. Further confusion is raised when upon searching his cabin, Lanser finds a Kriegsmarine officer's cap among his possessions, with his name written upon the inside.
At 12:05 a.m., the Glasgow's overworked engines break down, forcing the captain to stop the ship while repairs are made. This brings Lanser's distress to a boil, unable to shake the feeling of impending doom in his mind. As 1:15 approaches, he snaps and begins running through the ship's passageways in a panic, shouting an alarm that a German U-boat is about to attack, but the ship suddenly seems to have become deserted. Finally happening upon a group of passengers, he attempts to warn them in a near-mad, fervent state to abandon ship, but the passengers just stare at him silently before vanishing. Running back up on deck, Lanser spots to his horror the surfaced U-boat off the ship's side, and is even more horrified to see through a pair of binoculars, none other than himself in a Kriegsmarine officer's attire, sitting in the U-boat's command tower, right as he gives the order to fire upon the Glasgow, exactly at 1:15 a.m.
Lanser experiences the horror of the attack firsthand as the ship is relentlessly bombarded by the sub's mounted guns, thrown overboard into the sea and drowning as the ship swiftly sinks below the waves. Later, in the U-boat's captain's quarters, Kriegsmarine Captain Carl Lanser cheerfully remarks on the success of the sinking to his second-in-command Lt. Mueller, who unlike Lanser, seems to be uncomfortable with the manner of the sinking. When pressed by Lanser to express his worries plainly, Mueller expresses a fear that for sinking an unarmed, disabled ship carrying many innocent men, women, and children aboard, that they're likely to now be damned in the eyes of God, forced to relive that night endlessly in their own private hell after their own deaths, a supposition that brings a degree of fear and worry into the formerly jubilant Lanser's eyes... especially since he appears back on the Glasgow's deck a moment later, his nightmare repeating again.
Judgement Tropes:
- Another Man's Terror: Lanser's punishment for ordering the Glasgow sunk is to remain trapped alongside the place of the people he killed, experiencing their deaths forever.
- Asshole Victim: Carl is revealed to be a pretty awful person in the grand scheme of things. He may seem meek and frightened in the afterlife, but that turns out to be justified retribution towards the arrogant and cruel U-boat commander he was in life.
- Dead All Along: Lanser is actually dead, stuck in his own personal hell for eternity.
- Death Equals Redemption: Zig-Zagged Trope. After being damned for sinking the Glasgow, Lanser finds himself onboard the doomed ship and interacts with the passengers with nothing but care for them, a sharp contrast to the heartless captain he was. Though by the time he showed compassion, it was too late for him to redeem himself.
- Empathy Doll Shot: When swimming in the wreckage of the Queen of Glasgow, Carl finds the doll he gave to the little girl earlier, signifying her death.
- Flying Dutchman: The Queen of Glasgow and all its passengers are ghosts, doomed to wander the seas and be sunken by a German U-boat over and over for eternity as Carl's punishment for sinking the ship without warning.
- Foreshadowing: When someone mentions the creepiness of being stalked by a U-boat beneath the surface, Lanser says they won't torpedo the ship; it would suit their purposes better to surface and sink the ship with other ordinances. Someone answers that Lanser's knowledge makes him sound like a U-boat captain. The end of the episode reveals that he was indeed such a captain.
- When Carl is begging the passengers to flee to the lifeboats, they stare at him with sheer contempt, as if they know something about him that's absolutely unforgivable.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: By the time he wants to redeem himself for sinking the Glasgow, Lanser has already been forever damned.
- Heel Realization: After interacting with the passengers and realizing he was the one who sunk the ship, Carl felt nothing but regret and horror at being the instigator of this atrocity, since he's been damned to be stuck on the receiving end.
- Here We Go Again!: Carl is trapped in an endless loop of experiencing the terror he helped facilitate. The end of the episode has the loop restarting.
- I Hate Past Me: Lanser is killed by his past self, a U-Boat captain.
- Ironic Hell: Carl is damned to relive being frightened and killed, as his victims were, over and over again.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Every night, all Carl can remember is being born in Germany, without any other details of his life.
- Laser-Guided Karma: U-boat captain Carl Lanser is forced to relive the sinking of a ship he torpedoed from the position of its passengers.
- A Million Is a Statistic: The amnesiac Carl actually connects with the passengers, and is horrified to see them killed. His past self has no such regrets, dismissing them as targets instead of people.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Carl likely thought this when he realized he was the cause of the sinking after interacting with the ship's passengers.
- Nazi Protagonist: Lanser was a U-Boat captain who served Nazi Germany.
- Nothing Is Scarier: A passenger talks about how they'd rather that the Nazis sent a ship after them, rather than a submarine that lurks invisibly miles beneath the surface.
- Ominous Fog: The doomed Glasgow is perpetually surrounded by fog.
- Pet the Dog: Lanser returns a doll to a little girl, a surprising moment of compassion from someone who we later learn seems to have none.
- Spoiler Title: A very well-hidden one. Carl Lanser had actually died that night, and being sent to his Ironic Hell was his judgment from God. While this is lampshaded in the closing, by that point the viewer has already figured out the truth.
- Stock Footage: Footage of the titular ship from the 1959 film The Wreck of the Mary Deare is used to depict the S.S. Queen of Glasgow.
- Tempting Fate: When Lieutenant Mueller nervously asks him whether he thinks they might be eternally condemned, Lanser scoffs at it. Guess what happens to him?
- Title Drop: In the closing narration: "This is judgement night in the Twilight Zone."
- Tomato in the Mirror: Lanser eventually realized his past self is responsible for the sinking.
- Took a Level in Kindness: In his afterlife, Carl is a bit more compassionate and polite, as opposed to the heartless U-boat commander he was in life. Justified, as the amnesia about his identity clouds any of the personality that come with it.
