What did everyone think of "Back There"? Watch more Twilight-Tober Zone here - bit.ly/TwilightToberZone Follow Walter on Twitter - twitter.com/Awesome_Walter Follow us on Twitch - www.twitch.tv/channelawesome
It was a decent episode, and Russell Johnson was Terrific as the unwitting time traveller. While the assassination of Lincoln may not have been prevented, at least there was a positive reprucussion.
I really liked it and wished I had seen it sooner. Rod's opening narration where he acts like time travel is some new concept no one's ever thought of before is dumb though.
The 2002 Twilight Zone remake had a similar episode called "Memphis", about a legal clerk with an incurable brain tumour who finds himself back in 1968 Memphis, and tries to stop the assassination attempt on Martin Luther King. Although he's unsuccessful, his actions made a difference in the present, since the boy he saved over King in the past turns out to be the same specialist whose treatments he previously couldn't afford. It's quite a touching episode.
This may have been one of the first attempts at alternate history on TV. I love how this also makes reference to the “butterfly effect” that Ray Bradbury inspired with A Sound of Thunder
The weird thing about this episode when you think about it is they were 100 years too late to save Lincoln but only a few years too early to save Kennedy.
Pretty underrated episode IMO. I thought Mark Zicree was way too harsh on this one in the Twilight Zone Companion. He called it a dramatic failure because the audience already knows the conclusion (Lincoln getting assassinated), so there’s no tension. I feel like he missed the whole point of the episode. The whole time I was watching it, I was so intrigued to see if Corrigan would actually manage to stop Lincoln’s assassination, and if so, what the consequences would be. That’s a pretty darn good hook for an episode. Perhaps the stakes could’ve been a bit higher, but it certainly held my attention.
I think this is one of the best of all 5 seasons of the original TZ. Well worth the watch. Some many time travel things alone is enough. The change of the outside lamp to a flickering flame is indeed great. The plants in front of the Potomac Club sign are different one century to the next with more plants and a black iron fence surrounding the flowerbox itself among other things. It is a great plot which fits just perfectly in to the half-hour slot. I had previously seen this episode at least 40 to 50 years ago as a youngster and I had remembered the lamp change most vividly which led me to purchase the episode on Amazon.
John Wilkes Booth was a very well known actor for the time and people would've recognized him. I find it hard to believe that The Police wouldn't know who he was.
I reckon beetween my love of time travel and the Professor as a kid, this was desitined to be one of my favorites back then and luckily still holds that magic, thoroughly unobjective, feeling even now. And I was lucky enough also to have grown up on Batman's time travel means being simple hypnosis so that suddenly being thrown into the past was never an issue for me like it was for a lot of my friends.
This episodes score, along with several others, were used in the score for the 1977 film Kingdom of the Spiders, starring William Shatner. The 80s revival of the Twilight Zone had an episode, "Profile in Silver", dealing with the assassination of JFK.
i personally really like this one, the points in the begging that both men make are proven to both be true. major events cannot be changed and yet the main characters presence alone changes a family's history drasticly
This episodes an amusing reminder of how before strip clubs co-opted the phrase, "gentleman's club" meant a bunch of guys in suits sitting around smoking cigars, playing cards or chess and reading the paper, typically the Wall Street Journal.
A solid episode. Despite not being American (from Australia) I do know the story involving the assassination of the countries president. I knew, of course that one can never go back in time to change past events. I don't think the story of the policeman eventually becoming a millionaire was required in the episode
Potomac is actually pronounced "Pa-toe-mic" It's the name of the river that runs near DC. I watched the episode to see if they pronounced it, but it seems that the word only appears on a sign, and if you're not from Virginia or the DC area, I can understand how you might not know that.
@@theproplady Yes, I remember that crash. It happened during a really bad snow storm. I grew up in Virginia near Richmond, we had no school at the time due to that storm.
Anyone with an elementary knowledge of either the D.C. area or the Civil War would know this. I urge the narrator, otherwise excellent, to rectify this embarrassing mistake.
Russell (The professor) Johnson is probably one of the few actors that appeared in more than one Twilight Zone episode that was about the same subject. Both this episode and "Execution" were about time travel. Just a little trivia.
I remember my dad and I watching this and “Dust” back to back. While not being impressed with Dust, we enjoyed this one much more and the second the butler-turned-millionaire was revealed, my dad said “now THATS a classic Twilight Zone twist.”
This is another one where, like "The Trouble with Templeton," I was starting to feel bored with the predictability of the premise, when all of a sudden it surprised me with the actual twist, or in this case, the theme. Of course Corrigan wasn't going to prevent Lincoln's assassination, the ramifications such an event could have on US history and perhaps even world history are too great to cover in the meager time allotted for a Twilight Zone episode. However, showing that his actions did have an impact to some degree, in this case on Williams' family, was a cool twist that I didn't see coming. I always enjoy when the Twilight Zone can pull the rug out from under me whenever I start to get complacent with an episode. I have to admit, when the superior officer was berating the man who turned out to be Williams' great-grandfather, I though it was weird that he wasn't addressing him by his name (he didn't, if I recall correctly). With the amount of time spent berating him, I subconsciously acknowledged it seemed odd for him to not be identified properly. Turns out there was a reason, if he'd been called Williams, it could have clued us in to the twist. A few other connections to "Templeton:" I felt the revelation that Corrigan had Booth's handkerchief, thus proving for certain was unnecessary. We fully believed he went back in time, Williams' higher status in 1961 proved it, and even if we were questioning Corrigan, leaving him as a potentially unreliable narrator would've been a better choice. It reminded me of Templeton Booth coming back to the present with the script; too hand-holdy. The audience are not idiots. On a more positive comparison, while the method of time travel (just willing it to occur because it was on his mind thanks to the discussion with the club members?) was again rather extemporaneous, I appreciated the visual motif they did here rather than in "Templeton" where they simply cut to 1927 as our protagonist walked through the stage door. The wavy special effect wasn't much but it was sufficient and the matching fade between the electric lamp and the gas-lit one was a nice touch. Again, while this episode was maybe too derivative or played it a little too safe, it had enough working for it to be pleasantly entertaining.
Love the level of set/shot detail with the large single blocks/cubes of ice in the drinks at the game table (0:49) . Pity most places nowadays don't realize or can't be bothered to properly serve similarly now--generally a mark of class and insight when drinks appear appropriately. Communicates a lot if you realize what it means when you see it.
I enjoy it for its influence on the time travel genre. I also like that it wasn't yet another adult/baby [30s-40s German Chancellor] plot like a lot of its contemporaries. Not to say that stories like "The City on the Edge of Forever" aren't great stories, just that it was an overused trope in the 60s.
I LOVE the Jerry Goldsmith score here, so ominous and haunting - it also featured in my top favorite of the hour-long fourth season episodes, "Death Ship."
Reminds me of the Doctor Who episode with Agatha Christie. The Doctor and Donna try to prevent her disapperance but only ended up causing it so history was in tact but they did change how Agatha Christie remembers her adventure with them
Reminds me of the Rene Clair film ‘it happened tomorrow’ starring Dick Powell where he gets tomorrows newspaper today, thus knowing the future. Powell was also in ‘The Tall Target’ where he tried to stop the assassination of Lincoln.
This is was my first Twilight Zone episode. I first saw it in 7th grade while we were talking about the reconstruction era and Lincoln's death. Rewatching it years later, I never picked up in the main ideas and other aspects of the episode until then. Regardless this episode has a special place in my heart.
In a real Twilight Zone like coincidence, the first time I saw this episode I was doing a marathon of episodes, a new one night after night. The date I watched this the first time was the date of the actual assassination of Abraham Lincoln and me and my dad didn't realize until that moment.
The big weakness of this episode was the fact that everyone would have known who John Wilkes Booth was on sight, since he was from a famous acting family. One of Abraham Lincoln's sons, Robert, was actually rescued by John Wilkes Booth's brother, Edwin shortly before the assassination happened. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Todd_Lincoln#:~:text=Robert%20Lincoln%20and%20Edwin%20Booth
The thing about changing the past is, "How would you know?" Our past may have changed 5 minutes ago, so 5 minutes ago you remembered a different past, but now you remember the new past. Our past may be changing all the time, you just keep remembering the new past each time.
I read this in play form in 6th grade, but it did have the Rod Serling narration bit. It was a couple years later when I found out it was an actual episode of the show.
Think of time as a large tapestry. Changing a single thread could either change the entire tapestry from that point, or have little to no lasting effect at all!
I would agree this is not one of the greatest episodes they ever did but I enjoyed it. There is just something about it that kept me intrigued and when I was young I didn't know what john Wilkes booth looked like so I fell for that. But overall I like it. Definitely in 100 best episodes.
Its a very good, "what would you do?" Story. If you were suddenly back in time trying to stop the assassin of Abe Lincoln, what would you do? Who would you talk to? How would you convince them? How would you convince Lincoln to give you attagraph because you liked him in There will be Blood.
John Lassell, who played John Wilkes Booth in this episode, made a career on playing Booth both on screen and on stage, mostly due to his strong resemblance to real Booth. Same goes for Austin Green, who played Lincoln in The Passerby, who also bore very strong resemblance to Lincoln and had played him numerous times both on screen and on stage.
*A bit of trivia: The one police officer who did believe Russel Johnson's character was portrayed by Jimmy Lydon--best known for playing the geeky teenager "Henry Aldrich" in a number of pictures that were very popular in the early 1940's. Lydon just died in 2222 at the age of 98. When I was a kid I really enjoyed the Henry Aldrich series that they showed on TV decades after it was first filmed.*
It's pretty eerie to think that just two years after this episode about the Ape Lincoln assassination first aired the real-life assassination of President Kennedy happened.
Imagine going back to the past knowing something very bad is about to happen and nobody believes you and you get thrown into jail. Maybe I am just a empath but I believe the professor did a excellent job in this episode
Next Episode: S2E14 The Whole Truth Intro Monologue: "This is Rod Serling, thirty six years old, a passionate but harried television showrunner for a moderately successful anthology program. He's under significant stress, due to the high pressure of the rapid production turnaround time, and his boss at CBS is a notorious skinflint. For his latest episode, he has decided to cut a few corners such as proper research, resulting in an ending to this episode so unintentionally flippant and counterfactual, that it's surprising it didn't create a shitstorm of peeved historians and angrily bemused Russians. He is about to enter the.... Cold War Zone."
The poster for the play does not mention that Lincolns would be attending, even though most usual perception is that original posters contained the reference. Poster shown in this episode is correct. In real life, Lincolns' visit to the theatre was not planned in advanced and Lincolns decided to attend at the very last moment. This is why Lincolns did not have any security with them as their bodyguards were let go for the evening as there were no plans for Lincolns to go out that night. Therefore, any posters made in advance could not possibly contain information about Lincolns attending. All such posters, which do exist and are known to be circulating, are forgeries.
JWB introduces himself as Jonathan Wellington, the psychiatrist. Jonathan Wellington was actually one of fake names Booth has used during his escape after the assassination. He used it when he was stopped by a police officer in Virginia a day after. Since this was just a routine checkup unrelated to Lincoln assassination, officer believe his story and let him go, only finding out hours later who that man really was. It was the report of this officer that helped authorities track Booth down so fast as this helped them figure out the route he was going to the South.
Personally, I thought an episode just as interesting as this was in Timeless. The antagonist traveled back to the day of Lincoln's assassination, and the heroes fear he would help Booth assassinate the rest of the party including the president's wife the vice president, and the secretary of state. Only for the twist being the antagonist killing Booth and taking his place as Lincoln's assassin. Just like this, it doesn't significantly change history, but it changes some details.
I wonder why the protagonist didn't pretend to be one of Lincoln's guards assigned to protect him and just wait next to the opera seats until he sees JWB approaching. Sure, it would've probably taken away from the aesop, but it's a much more logical choice than hollering out a conspiracy hours before it actually happens and make yourself sound like a drunk maniac.
Yeah what you say is right especially because a big reason Lincoln got assassinated was because the guard on duty was not guarding Lincoln! He left his post to go get a drink 🥃 at the bar in the opera house. This allows Booth just to simply walk into the box Lincoln was seated in to put a bullet in the back of his head
If I could change the past, I would go to the writer's room of GOT season 8 and hit them until they agree to do a season 9 to complete the story in a good way.
I agree that the transition to the past and the score are the strongest parts, and the twist with the attendant being a member when we returned to the present. It gave it a little something extra in a plot that would otherwise be just kind of a bummer. I mean, you know that changing the past isn't gonna happen, but that little change gives it a good payoff, if not an amazing one and stops the episode from being entirely blah.
For me, there is a problem with no one recognizing John Wilkes Booth. He was one of the biggest celebrities in America at the time. It would be as though no one recognized Brad Pitt.
I think this would've been better as a 45-60min episode. I wasn't crazy with Russell's performance either. I think Martin Landau would've worked better.
Not enough happens in "Back There" other than Russel Johnson's character running around like a madman trying to warn of Aberham Lincoln's assassination, only for everyone not to believe him until it's too late. I can't believe I'm admitting this online but, this story would have benefited greatly by being an hour-long episode in season 4 of this show since the lack of time here doesn't really help.
Hey man, I've been meaning to write to you about these. I really love this series that you're doing. You put such a great historical context to these episodes and I enjoy hearing your take on them as well. I'm a huge Twilight Zone fan and really appreciate you making these. I can't imagine the amount of time it must take. Please keep them coming, and thank you!
I'm in complete agreement with you. Walter needs to know that we sincerely appreciate his excellent reviews and incredibly hard work. I come home from work every day excited to watch his latest review - even if it's about an episode I don't like.
@@johnhaladay5541 100%. I don’t expect him to respond, but I at least hope he sees comments like this to know how appreciative people are of this content.
What did everyone think of "Back There"?
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It was a decent episode, and Russell Johnson was Terrific as the unwitting time traveller. While the assassination of Lincoln may not have been prevented, at least there was a positive reprucussion.
You should do a revew on the creature from the black lagoon it's a great movie.
I really liked it and wished I had seen it sooner. Rod's opening narration where he acts like time travel is some new concept no one's ever thought of before is dumb though.
It's a middle of the pack episode. Not a classic, but worth a watch.
I haven’t seen a single episode of the Twilight Zone, but I like time travel stories. This seems like it’s right up my alley.
As soon as the mustachioed guy entered the scene, I immediately recognized him as Boothe, cuz, ya know, history books kinda have pictures of the guy.
I think it was a nice touch that they had the actor dress the part, despite banking on audiences not recognizing him.
@@yoseftreitman7226 It's just kinda weird that a guy who seems to know alot about the assassination couldn't recognize jwb
Russell Johnson better role
The 2002 Twilight Zone remake had a similar episode called "Memphis", about a legal clerk with an incurable brain tumour who finds himself back in 1968 Memphis, and tries to stop the assassination attempt on Martin Luther King. Although he's unsuccessful, his actions made a difference in the present, since the boy he saved over King in the past turns out to be the same specialist whose treatments he previously couldn't afford. It's quite a touching episode.
Ah, yes, the one with Eriq La Salle. He directed it too, I think.
I remember that
One of the only few decent episodes of the God awful remake. And that barely counts as a compliment
@@cater06 I liked that remake it has some really good episodes
Yes that was a good one.
I love this episode. The idea that certain events cannot be changed. But some alterations can still happen is an awesome idea.
Agreed, although you can't Fight Fate, at least some merits were able to come out of it.
Constants and Variables
Like the main event that Peter will never pay his rent, but may ask your daughter out in an alternate timeline.
@@TheGoodWario Dammit, you beat me to it!
Doctor Who runs on this!
This may have been one of the first attempts at alternate history on TV. I love how this also makes reference to the “butterfly effect” that Ray Bradbury inspired with A Sound of Thunder
The weird thing about this episode when you think about it is they were 100 years too late to save Lincoln but only a few years too early to save Kennedy.
I heard John Lasell who appeared in this episode has died. He was such a nice guy when I first got to stay in touch with him. May he rest in peace. 🙏❤
So basically this had ideas of the Sacred Timeline before Marvel used that idea. Sweet!
Pretty underrated episode IMO. I thought Mark Zicree was way too harsh on this one in the Twilight Zone Companion. He called it a dramatic failure because the audience already knows the conclusion (Lincoln getting assassinated), so there’s no tension. I feel like he missed the whole point of the episode. The whole time I was watching it, I was so intrigued to see if Corrigan would actually manage to stop Lincoln’s assassination, and if so, what the consequences would be. That’s a pretty darn good hook for an episode. Perhaps the stakes could’ve been a bit higher, but it certainly held my attention.
Russell Johnson appeared in Season 1 in episode Execution, which also dealt with time travel.
Ah, so this is why the Professor got shipwrecked with the S.S. Minnow. It was to keep him from fucking around with the space/time continuum!
Haha, I didn't realise that Corrigan and the Professor were played by the same actor. Rest in peace, Russell Johnson!
And Milburn Drysdale was removed from Beverly Hills Bank of Commerce so he wouldn't be able to embezzle Jed Clampett's fortune.
Exactly
@@ItWILLbeWONDERFUL_THERE omg. You're right that is the same actor from Beverly Hill billies. Good catch
@@entertainmentlife430 There are some actors I recognize right away. Raymond Bailey just had that sort of face.
I think this is one of the best of all 5 seasons of the original TZ. Well worth the watch. Some many time travel things alone is enough. The change of the outside lamp to a flickering flame is indeed great. The plants in front of the Potomac Club sign are different one century to the next with more plants and a black iron fence surrounding the flowerbox itself among other things. It is a great plot which fits just perfectly in to the half-hour slot. I had previously seen this episode at least 40 to 50 years ago as a youngster and I had remembered the lamp change most vividly which led me to purchase the episode on Amazon.
John Wilkes Booth was a very well known actor for the time and people would've recognized him. I find it hard to believe that The Police wouldn't know who he was.
Peter Corrigan should travelled back in time to prevent the SS Minnow from leaving for its 3 hour tour.
Yep, he might have stopped Gilligan from mucking things up, and for leaving the captives there for an indeterminate amount of time!
Maybe he did but it was too late and he got stranded with them and had to tell them he was a professor so no one would know he was a time traveler.
Traveled forward in time, from 1961 to 1964
I reckon beetween my love of time travel and the Professor as a kid, this was desitined to be one of my favorites back then and luckily still holds that magic, thoroughly unobjective, feeling even now. And I was lucky enough also to have grown up on Batman's time travel means being simple hypnosis so that suddenly being thrown into the past was never an issue for me like it was for a lot of my friends.
This episodes score, along with several others, were used in the score for the 1977 film Kingdom of the Spiders, starring William Shatner.
The 80s revival of the Twilight Zone had an episode, "Profile in Silver", dealing with the assassination of JFK.
That was a great film🕷🕸🕷🕸
Good to know.
Fun fact: in the 1800s and early 1900s mental health specialists were called “alienists”
Wow
and your Barber was also your Dentist!
i personally really like this one, the points in the begging that both men make are proven to both be true. major events cannot be changed and yet the main characters presence alone changes a family's history drasticly
This episodes an amusing reminder of how before strip clubs co-opted the phrase, "gentleman's club" meant a bunch of guys in suits sitting around smoking cigars, playing cards or chess and reading the paper, typically the Wall Street Journal.
And they were actually Gentlemen
I really really really love this episode and I love the second episode where Abraham Lincoln appears called passersby to
A solid episode. Despite not being American (from Australia) I do know the story involving the assassination of the countries president. I knew, of course that one can never go back in time to change past events. I don't think the story of the policeman eventually becoming a millionaire was required in the episode
Potomac is actually pronounced "Pa-toe-mic" It's the name of the river that runs near DC. I watched the episode to see if they pronounced it, but it seems that the word only appears on a sign, and if you're not from Virginia or the DC area, I can understand how you might not know that.
congrats?
I knew how it was pronounced because when I was a kid, there was a notorious plane crash in the Potomac River where a lot of people were killed.
@@theproplady Yes, I remember that crash. It happened during a really bad snow storm. I grew up in Virginia near Richmond, we had no school at the time due to that storm.
Anyone with an elementary knowledge of either the D.C. area or the Civil War would know this. I urge the narrator, otherwise excellent, to rectify this embarrassing mistake.
Russell (The professor) Johnson is probably one of the few actors that appeared in more than one Twilight Zone episode that was about the same subject. Both this episode and "Execution" were about time travel. Just a little trivia.
I remember my dad and I watching this and “Dust” back to back. While not being impressed with Dust, we enjoyed this one much more and the second the butler-turned-millionaire was revealed, my dad said “now THATS a classic Twilight Zone twist.”
Love this episode. 1 of my favorite elements of The Twilight Zone is time travel/traveling to the future, and this episode is a good 1.
One of my favorites in its season. Given this “if you could change history…” debate has been covered many times, but this is interesting for its time
I rather go back in time to Ancient Sumeria and upgrade their technology and knowledge as much as possible
This was a fantastic episode!
I agree, that's why I'm here.
This is another one where, like "The Trouble with Templeton," I was starting to feel bored with the predictability of the premise, when all of a sudden it surprised me with the actual twist, or in this case, the theme. Of course Corrigan wasn't going to prevent Lincoln's assassination, the ramifications such an event could have on US history and perhaps even world history are too great to cover in the meager time allotted for a Twilight Zone episode. However, showing that his actions did have an impact to some degree, in this case on Williams' family, was a cool twist that I didn't see coming. I always enjoy when the Twilight Zone can pull the rug out from under me whenever I start to get complacent with an episode.
I have to admit, when the superior officer was berating the man who turned out to be Williams' great-grandfather, I though it was weird that he wasn't addressing him by his name (he didn't, if I recall correctly). With the amount of time spent berating him, I subconsciously acknowledged it seemed odd for him to not be identified properly. Turns out there was a reason, if he'd been called Williams, it could have clued us in to the twist.
A few other connections to "Templeton:" I felt the revelation that Corrigan had Booth's handkerchief, thus proving for certain was unnecessary. We fully believed he went back in time, Williams' higher status in 1961 proved it, and even if we were questioning Corrigan, leaving him as a potentially unreliable narrator would've been a better choice. It reminded me of Templeton Booth coming back to the present with the script; too hand-holdy. The audience are not idiots. On a more positive comparison, while the method of time travel (just willing it to occur because it was on his mind thanks to the discussion with the club members?) was again rather extemporaneous, I appreciated the visual motif they did here rather than in "Templeton" where they simply cut to 1927 as our protagonist walked through the stage door. The wavy special effect wasn't much but it was sufficient and the matching fade between the electric lamp and the gas-lit one was a nice touch.
Again, while this episode was maybe too derivative or played it a little too safe, it had enough working for it to be pleasantly entertaining.
These are amazing
love this series
I first encountered this episode as a script included in a Reading text book when I was in elementary. Very interesting story.
Love the level of set/shot detail with the large single blocks/cubes of ice in the drinks at the game table (0:49) . Pity most places nowadays don't realize or can't be bothered to properly serve similarly now--generally a mark of class and insight when drinks appear appropriately. Communicates a lot if you realize what it means when you see it.
Good episode
I really liked this episode. I’ve been binge watching all the O.G & my daughters & my wife laugh at me. This is good stuff 😂
I love it
I enjoy it for its influence on the time travel genre. I also like that it wasn't yet another adult/baby [30s-40s German Chancellor] plot like a lot of its contemporaries. Not to say that stories like "The City on the Edge of Forever" aren't great stories, just that it was an overused trope in the 60s.
Why would you refuse to say Hitler? Do you fear TH-cam would censor you over typing an actual name?
@@jlev1028 Yes. I've had comments auto-removed before due to controversial keywords, so now I'm super paranoid.
I remember having to do a reading assignment of the script of this episode in 8th grade. So I actually read the script before seeing this episode.
What was the violin music at the end? Does anyone know?
The background music in this video is so entrancing... Is that tune in the ost of Back There? I couldn't find where it matched just yet.
It's most likely Kevin macleod since some of the other vids use his music aswell. Not sure which one it is though
I LOVE the Jerry Goldsmith score here, so ominous and haunting - it also featured in my top favorite of the hour-long fourth season episodes, "Death Ship."
Reminds me of the Doctor Who episode with Agatha Christie. The Doctor and Donna try to prevent her disapperance but only ended up causing it so history was in tact but they did change how Agatha Christie remembers her adventure with them
Reminds me of the Rene Clair film ‘it happened tomorrow’ starring Dick Powell where he gets tomorrows newspaper today, thus knowing the future. Powell was also in ‘The Tall Target’ where he tried to stop the assassination of Lincoln.
This is was my first Twilight Zone episode. I first saw it in 7th grade while we were talking about the reconstruction era and Lincoln's death. Rewatching it years later, I never picked up in the main ideas and other aspects of the episode until then. Regardless this episode has a special place in my heart.
In a real Twilight Zone like coincidence, the first time I saw this episode I was doing a marathon of episodes, a new one night after night.
The date I watched this the first time was the date of the actual assassination of Abraham Lincoln and me and my dad didn't realize until that moment.
Does anyone know what background music Walter used for this video?
The big weakness of this episode was the fact that everyone would have known who John Wilkes Booth was on sight, since he was from a famous acting family. One of Abraham Lincoln's sons, Robert, was actually rescued by John Wilkes Booth's brother, Edwin shortly before the assassination happened.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Todd_Lincoln#:~:text=Robert%20Lincoln%20and%20Edwin%20Booth
It's called ACTING!! :)
I’d like to know if a young Donald Bellisario watched this and was inspired to make Quantum Leap.
What was the background music used in this episode? It sounds really cool!
He's able to go back in time 100 years, and yet he can't get off a deserted island.
Love these
The thing about changing the past is, "How would you know?" Our past may have changed 5 minutes ago, so 5 minutes ago you remembered a different past, but now you remember the new past. Our past may be changing all the time, you just keep remembering the new past each time.
“Long Distance Call” is my favorite twilight zone episode…waiting for a review of that one!’
Our Protagonist somehow went back in time, tried to fix history and failed! It goes to show when you mess with time, it fights back
I read this in play form in 6th grade, but it did have the Rod Serling narration bit. It was a couple years later when I found out it was an actual episode of the show.
Back There....in the Twilight-Twilight-Tober Zone XD
Think of time as a large tapestry. Changing a single thread could either change the entire tapestry from that point, or have little to no lasting effect at all!
A good episode.
I would agree this is not one of the greatest episodes they ever did but I enjoyed it. There is just something about it that kept me intrigued and when I was young I didn't know what john Wilkes booth looked like so I fell for that. But overall I like it. Definitely in 100 best episodes.
Its a very good, "what would you do?" Story.
If you were suddenly back in time trying to stop the assassin of Abe Lincoln, what would you do? Who would you talk to? How would you convince them? How would you convince Lincoln to give you attagraph because you liked him in There will be Blood.
What’s the song playing in the background of this video?
i like the episode. true the transition of the character from present to past had a creepy tone.
This episode was on MeTV, today, 7-8-24.
Oh my goodness, that music in the background. What was that piece? It sounds so familiar, but I can't place it.
I read this one in 6th grade, I was hoping to see this one on here
Wasn't Jerry goldsmith music did the omen
John Lassell, who played John Wilkes Booth in this episode, made a career on playing Booth both on screen and on stage, mostly due to his strong resemblance to real Booth. Same goes for Austin Green, who played Lincoln in The Passerby, who also bore very strong resemblance to Lincoln and had played him numerous times both on screen and on stage.
This episode was on MeTV, 12-4-24.
*A bit of trivia: The one police officer who did believe Russel Johnson's character was portrayed by Jimmy Lydon--best known for playing the geeky teenager "Henry Aldrich" in a number of pictures that were very popular in the early 1940's. Lydon just died in 2222 at the age of 98. When I was a kid I really enjoyed the Henry Aldrich series that they showed on TV decades after it was first filmed.*
However, Jerry Goldsmith's score and the visuals of Washington DC in the 1880''s were a standout and was something I enjoyed.
It's pretty eerie to think that just two years after this episode about the Ape Lincoln assassination first aired the real-life assassination of President Kennedy happened.
Ape Lincoln from the Tim Burton version of a Rod Serling movie? So many connections!
You can only change a little in the past.
*Insert Back in time song here*
Yep, that was my initial thought as well!
Imagine going back to the past knowing something very bad is about to happen and nobody believes you and you get thrown into jail. Maybe I am just a empath but I believe the professor did a excellent job in this episode
Next Episode: S2E14 The Whole Truth
Intro Monologue: "This is Rod Serling, thirty six years old, a passionate but harried television showrunner for a moderately successful anthology program. He's under significant stress, due to the high pressure of the rapid production turnaround time, and his boss at CBS is a notorious skinflint. For his latest episode, he has decided to cut a few corners such as proper research, resulting in an ending to this episode so unintentionally flippant and counterfactual, that it's surprising it didn't create a shitstorm of peeved historians and angrily bemused Russians. He is about to enter the.... Cold War Zone."
I see you've been talking to Nikita, too. Hey, stop banging your shoe on the table!
The poster for the play does not mention that Lincolns would be attending, even though most usual perception is that original posters contained the reference. Poster shown in this episode is correct. In real life, Lincolns' visit to the theatre was not planned in advanced and Lincolns decided to attend at the very last moment. This is why Lincolns did not have any security with them as their bodyguards were let go for the evening as there were no plans for Lincolns to go out that night. Therefore, any posters made in advance could not possibly contain information about Lincolns attending. All such posters, which do exist and are known to be circulating, are forgeries.
JWB introduces himself as Jonathan Wellington, the psychiatrist. Jonathan Wellington was actually one of fake names Booth has used during his escape after the assassination. He used it when he was stopped by a police officer in Virginia a day after. Since this was just a routine checkup unrelated to Lincoln assassination, officer believe his story and let him go, only finding out hours later who that man really was. It was the report of this officer that helped authorities track Booth down so fast as this helped them figure out the route he was going to the South.
By MCU Professor Hulk logic, the protagonist in this twilight zone episode is in a new alternate timeline instead of his own timeline.
Personally, I thought an episode just as interesting as this was in Timeless. The antagonist traveled back to the day of Lincoln's assassination, and the heroes fear he would help Booth assassinate the rest of the party including the president's wife the vice president, and the secretary of state. Only for the twist being the antagonist killing Booth and taking his place as Lincoln's assassin. Just like this, it doesn't significantly change history, but it changes some details.
Don't like Timeless. Lest Darkness Fall + Apothesis of Martin Padway does it righ5
I think they used the same music on Star Trek TOS but I could be wrong on that ?!
I wonder why the protagonist didn't pretend to be one of Lincoln's guards assigned to protect him and just wait next to the opera seats until he sees JWB approaching. Sure, it would've probably taken away from the aesop, but it's a much more logical choice than hollering out a conspiracy hours before it actually happens and make yourself sound like a drunk maniac.
Yeah what you say is right especially because a big reason Lincoln got assassinated was because the guard on duty was not guarding Lincoln! He left his post to go get a drink 🥃 at the bar in the opera house. This allows Booth just to simply walk into the box Lincoln was seated in to put a bullet in the back of his head
I wonder if that was the inspiration of that Stephen King story about time traveler trying to save John F Kennedy
Something tells me this guy has never heard of the whole if you mess up the past you mess up the future thing
"Johnny Booth was a handsome devil..." 🎶
The twist is that Corrigan DID change history, but not what he/we suspected it would be.
0:39 it’s pronounced just like the river in DC
If I could change the past, I would go to the writer's room of GOT season 8 and hit them until they agree to do a season 9 to complete the story in a good way.
Me too, I'd travel back to the HIMYM writers, and try to convince them not to plan an ending in advance that would tick off a bunch of fans!
Wait did you pronounce "Potomac" pough-tow-mac? 4:04
Ive seen this story or ones like it on other shows where a guy tries to save Lincoln only to cause his assassination.
I agree that the transition to the past and the score are the strongest parts, and the twist with the attendant being a member when we returned to the present. It gave it a little something extra in a plot that would otherwise be just kind of a bummer. I mean, you know that changing the past isn't gonna happen, but that little change gives it a good payoff, if not an amazing one and stops the episode from being entirely blah.
**me watching this video at **1:58**** :
"Nice"
Russekl Johnson always scientific episodes
For me, there is a problem with no one recognizing John Wilkes Booth. He was one of the biggest celebrities in America at the time. It would be as though no one recognized Brad Pitt.
👍👍
By the way the public did not know Lincoln would be at Fords Theater . They certainly wouldn keep that secret.
I think this would've been better as a 45-60min episode. I wasn't crazy with Russell's performance either. I think Martin Landau would've worked better.
Rather than the music in the ep, I want the music he's using as background in the review.
It's most likely Kevin Macleod since most of his music is copyright free, some of the other T-TZ vids use his music aswell
Not enough happens in "Back There" other than Russel Johnson's character running around like a madman trying to warn of Aberham Lincoln's assassination, only for everyone not to believe him until it's too late.
I can't believe I'm admitting this online but, this story would have benefited greatly by being an hour-long episode in season 4 of this show since the lack of time here doesn't really help.
Remember Rango
"Poe-toe-mack" club. 🤣 It's "Puh-toe-mick, sweetie. As in Potomac River.
Hey man, I've been meaning to write to you about these. I really love this series that you're doing. You put such a great historical context to these episodes and I enjoy hearing your take on them as well. I'm a huge Twilight Zone fan and really appreciate you making these. I can't imagine the amount of time it must take. Please keep them coming, and thank you!
I'm in complete agreement with you. Walter needs to know that we sincerely appreciate his excellent reviews and incredibly hard work. I come home from work every day excited to watch his latest review - even if it's about an episode I don't like.
@@johnhaladay5541 100%. I don’t expect him to respond, but I at least hope he sees comments like this to know how appreciative people are of this content.