Corrected entry: The scientists, having carefully charted their course to Earth, state that it is an 11 million mile trip from their planet. Not likely. Mars is our nearest planetary neighbor, and it's over 34 million miles away at its closest orbital approach. There are no planets any nearer to Earth than Mars. This is one of the very few cases where Rod Serling simply failed to do his astronomy homework. (00:12:30)
Jean G
11th May 2007
The Twilight Zone (1959)
10th May 2007
The Twilight Zone (1959)
Corrected entry: Though Pedott the street peddler sells his trinkets to several people in the bar, no one ever gives (or even offers) him any money. (00:07:00)
Correction: In the first bar scene and several other scenes, we see that Pedott is purposely giving his trinkets away, explicitly saying that there's "no charge tonight". It's easily understood that he's not charging for the goods he provides as they're "what they need".
31st Jul 2007
The Twilight Zone (1959)
Corrected entry: Lincoln refers to himself as "the last casualty of the Civil War." Although he used the phrase "a great civil war" in the Gettysburg Address, that name for the conflict wasn't generally applied to it until much later. In 1865, Lincoln would have called it "The War Between the States." (00:23:30)
Correction: There is no basis for this statement. Many prominent men used the term "Civil War" in Lincoln's time. And Lincoln used the term himself on many occasions, not just in the Gettysburg Address (for example, when addressing the Senate about the War in '62). Not to mention, the term "civil war" for a war among its citizens has been around since the 15th century (which men like Lincoln would have known).
21st Oct 2007
The Twilight Zone (1959)
Mr. Garrity and the Graves - S5-E32
Corrected entry: Garrity is a con artist with an accomplice who pretends to be a resurrected dead man. Yet the accomplice somehow achieves the unachievable by vanishing, via fade-out special effect, in front of several townspeople. Since he's a fraud, he couldn't possibly do this.
Correction: At the end of the episode, we learn that Garrity is not a fraud and can really bring back the dead. Therefore, if he can do that, we can safely assume he can also make his partner disappear.
Correction: Serling's script called for Garrity to say "Lookee there!" or something like that, to distract the townspeople's attention in a different direction. During this time, the accomplice could quickly move off the street. The director decided to do the fade-out instead for effect, even though it makes no sense in the context of Garrity being a simple con man.
31st Jul 2007
The Twilight Zone (1959)
The Arrival - S3-E2
Corrected entry: Sheckly is revealed, at the end, to have hallucinated the plane and the entire investigation. How did his hallucination correctly presage the names and faces of the real airline employees, Malloy and Bengston, neither of whom he'd ever met? The Twilight Zone it may be, but unbelievably, Sheckly doesn't even seem surprised at this impossible occurrence. (00:20:00)
Correction: The final scene of the episode shows all the various investigators in an office. It is revealed that Sheckly has been hallucinating the entire investigation of (and this is very important) a plane that had disappeared 19 years ago! Sheckly was accurately able to recreate the plane, situation, and persons involved because they make it very clear that they had all worked with him on the investigation (of the plane he's hallucinating about) but that that occurred "some 17 or 18 years ago..." He isn't hallucinating the people, but subconsciously remembering them. Since it has been almost 20 years since they'd all been together, Malloy doesn't remember who Sheckly is and is reminded by the other investigator. It is never insinuated that Sheckly is a stranger.
10th Aug 2007
The Twilight Zone (1959)
Corrected entry: Because Earth is moving closer to the sun, Serling says here that there is no longer night anywhere on the planet. For this to occur, Earth would have to stop rotating and/or be close enough to the sun to be engulfed in its corona, both cataclysmic events that would annihilate all life on the planet. (00:21:00)
Correction: SPOILER ALERT: The events described were merely a fever induced dream of Norma's and thus never actually occurred, therefore, there is no mistake. The Earth was moving away from the sun the whole time.
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Correction: The whole point is that a planet used to be 11 million miles away. They blew themselves up, planet and all.