Death Ship

 Picture of the spaceship E-89, cruising about the thirteenth planet of star system fifty-one, the year 1997. In a little while, supposedly, the ship will be landed and specimens taken, vegetable, mineral and, if any, animal. These will be brought back to an overpopulated Earth, where technicians will evaluate them and, if everything is satisfactory, stamp their findings with the word 'inhabitable' and open up yet another planet for colonization. These are the things that are supposed to happen. Picture of the crew of the spaceship E-89: Captain Ross, Lieutenant Mason, Lieutenant Carter. Three men who have just reached a place which is as far from home as they will ever be. Three men who, in a matter of minutes, will be plunged into the darkest nightmare reaches of the Twilight Zone.

 In Tribute to Jack Klugman

That was us in there…we’re dead!                                                                                          ****

So here’s a rundown. A three-astronaut crew on board a research ship, the E-89, looking for a habitable planet for humans to colonize due to overpopulation. This trio encounters a frightening phenomenon that will test their resolve and emotional state.

To tell you the truth, as much as I love this show, the special effects, sets, and make-up effects (including the costumes often wore by astronaut types) were never what I took away the most from in terms of quality. It was always storytelling and performance (the characters and developmental situations) that gripped and compelled me.

Death Ship is no different. The ship from Forbidden Planet (I love it so this never bothered me all that much, although the cheap production budget restraints often gave way to repetition) shows up yet again, the machinery on the bridge is basically those boxes with buttons, knobs, monitors, and blinking lights, but they serve a purpose so, again, this never really annoyed me. The show can be dated by the sets and costumes—including themes prevalent at the time but maybe not so now—however, The Twilight Zone is a gaze into the past, what were on the minds of many, brought to life within the tales of the supernatural and fantasy.

I kind of smiled to myself when a concerned Klugman kept saying aloud, as if trying to convince himself, “It’s not what it seems.” I said to myself, “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe enough times, you’ll believe it.”

Right from the onset, it is clear these men, particularly Captain Paul Rose (Klugman) and officer, Lt. Ted Mason (Ross Martin), are at odds and have spent far too long in the same space ship with one another. Mason practically argues with Rose’s every command, especially when it concerns orders that might conflict with his own personal feelings about any given situation (like lifting off from a planet). The discovery of a crashed ship that is identical to their own presents a complex problem none are prepared for but must confront. Where are they? What is this planet? Have they passed through a time warp? If they attempt to blast off, will the result be their demise? Will lifting off result in what they’ve already seen? Is the other ship’s discovery (and the dead crew inside) an exact mirror of what will happen if the alive crew decides to take off and risk the chances of peril instead of accepting the potential for life on a planet where survival could be tested (Is the food edible for humans? What lifeforms inhabit this planet? What about procreation?) but still exist? This is what Twilight Zone is all about, my friends.

Out of the three, Lt. Mike Carter (Fredrick Beir), seems to be the most psychological worse-for-wear. He has trouble pulling himself together. The 50-minute format of this season did give room for the characters/story to go into some fascinating areas. Carter actually *trips* to home, meeting characters on the road to his homeplace that were already dead, arriving to not find his beloved wife, a funeral dress on the bed, a telegram announcing his death during the mission. Mason awakens to find his daughter and wife, live and well, a picnic planned for the family, pulled away by the intruding Rose when it is realized that all is unreal, a hallucination, perhaps because of “alien manipulation”. That’s quite a twist, isn’t it?

That theory by Rose could be just his inability to accept a morbid truth regarding his, and the crew’s, true fate, so unwilling that he’ll drive them into a repeated cycle in search for a logical answer to a dilemma that simply doesn’t exist.

The premise is rather horrifying yet does make sense to me as well. Many of us would just continue to defy death even as it stares us dead to rites. Instead of embracing what is right there in front of us, we will do whatever it takes to struggle to hold onto a sliver of hope that all is not what it seems, there’s still a chance of survival, a doomed fate can be averted.

This was a tribute watch to Jack Klugman and you get no wasted time with his performance, although I think all three men are right on the money. Klugman as that stubborn, strong-willed, undaunted Captain, not deterred from finding a way out of death despite the evidence to the contrary, is actually a character I believe is identifiable in most of us. It is like those who continue to fight despite death’s door standing wide open; he’s bound and determined to come up with a logical, reasonable answer for escape that just isn’t there. Morgan conveys an anguished, tormented officer who has grown tired of the grind, is willing to give up and accept fate as it presents itself openly and vividly, but because he’s under the command of Klugman, he’s doomed to rotate in that cycle never to end—he’s eternally condemned due to the chain of command. Beir is basically paralyzed by what happens before him; he is dumbstruck by seeing his dead self, the crashed ship, and further taken aback by finding himself traveling the road to home, meeting folks dead, and returning to the ship to resume a futile mission.

How the crash happens: this is the great mystery of the episode later foretold. I do feel that most of us will figure that a struggle will ensue because Klugman’s burgeoning animosity with his crew stews and brews over the running time of the episode (a series of episodes were commissioned in a failed experiment by the network to extend the running time to 50 minutes instead of the typically reliable 22 minute format). While Morgan and Beir are willing to release themselves from the mission and just find relief and solace in death, Klugman’s insistence on not accepting what is obvious produces a lot of woe and back-and-forth vitriol. At the end, when they realize that Klugman’s theory about alien influence is wrong, the wrecked ship still in its resting position, Beir actually clinches his fist as if ready to slug his commanding officer, with Morgan’s face held in a state of duress, begging the Captain to let them go. It is really a culmination of all that has built over the mission’s orbit around the planet. 

The Twilight Zone stories really tap into universal themes we all, every one of us, are attune to. Death, especially, is something that weighs heavy on our hearts, emotions, minds, and spirits. Death Ship convincingly draws from this and delivers a punch in the gut. There’s one scene that contrasts Klugman’s fight; we understand just why Morgan would wish to let go and embrace death: he rejoins his wife and daughter (who were both killed in a car crash), with Klugman intruding upon his nirvana. Beir trying to find his wife while charging through his home in search for her, find his obit near the bed holding her funeral clothes; we completely understand why they would wish to be free. 

There’s a great deal to chew the fat on here.

The Twilight Zone has lots of these sleepers sprinkled throughout the entire series. Real gems that might have been seen once and forgotten due to the large number of memorable episodes that circumvent their value—a long series can do that (..especially one as heralded as The Twilight Zone).

 Picture of a man who will not see anything he does not choose to see - including his own death. A man of such indomitable will that even the two men beneath his command are not allowed to see the truth; which truth is, that they are no longer among the living, that the movements they make and the words they speak have all been made and spoken countless times before - and will be made and spoken countless times again, perhaps even into eternity. Picture of a latter day Flying Dutchman, sailing into the Twilight Zone.

 Season Four: Episode Six