The Wall (''The Twilight Zone'')

"The Wall" is the fifty-eighth episode and the twenty-third episode of the third season (1988–89) of the television series The Twilight Zone.

Opening narration

Plot

Major Alex McAndrews is escorted into an extremely secure facility where he meets with a General Greg Slater. The general explains that two months prior the facility was just a research lab with a government contract, working on particle physics, wormholes, and theoretical subspace corridors. Things get out of hand and once the rubble was cleared, a hole appeared and a bright light started to emerge. Every great mind was brought in to study it and they think it's a gate to somewhere. The researchers fear that if they close it, they may not be able to open it again and they want Alex to go inside. Slater explains that four volunteers have entered but never returned. Some garbled communications came through but nothing else. The government is debating about what to do; some want to shut it down and declare them missing, others want to go ahead in the interest of national security. Alex may be the last one to go but Slater believes he'll come back.

Alex, dressed in a spacesuit, enters the bay. His mission is to go into the hole and have a look around. Alex enters a frenzy of light and flashes but then blacks out, awakening later in what looks like a meadow on Earth and finds the atmosphere to support life, but no sign of the "gate." He continues to enter logs, unsure if he is being received. Soon, he encounters a volunteer Kincaid with a strangely dressed woman named Baret. He seems okay and not surprised to see another person emerge from the gate. He claims that where they are is heaven. The other volunteers meet with them and discuss where they are, and according to the navigational specialist the stars are not even close to being near Earth. Also, there appears to be no way to return from this side. The indigenous people don't mind welcoming them to their peaceful idyllic community, Alex claims to reserve judgment without more study, but apparently there is no way back. Back on Earth Slater believes that they must close the gate and stop losing people but the government decides to send another.

Alex discovers that the volunteers lied about the gate as it is still there but can only be seen at night. The volunteers claim that if they were able to go back the government would send swarms of military men and ruin the paradise they've found. Alex disagrees and fights with Kincaid and escapes to go back. Baret follows him and begs him not to return. Alex's honor seems to win out so he goes back to report what he found and discovers that the government will indeed use the gate technology to further war and war-like goals. Suddenly, Alex decides to go against them and return to the idyllic community, but first he must destroy the gate and the ability to re-create it. He destroys the computer and runs through the gate, and Alex explains to Baret that without the information of how the gate was created - they couldn't possibly create another.

Closing narration

Themes

This episode is vaguely similar to the final episode of the original Twilight Zone series called "The Bewitchin' Pool", where two children living with rich, yet emotionally negligent parents about to divorce each other escape their miserable life by diving in their backyard pool and swimming to a parallel universe where a poor, yet caring woman looks after children in an isolated meadow.

It is also similar, in all but a few respects, to an episode of the anthology series Night Visions. In that version, effectively the exact same series of events happen, save for the protagonist wearing a spacesuit and that, once on the other side, he is quickly devoured by the monsters there – monsters which resemble humans at a glance, but have mouths filled with needle-like teeth. He dies and the monsters "close" the gate...an illusion, as they are shown figuring out how to open a second one.

External links

• "The Wall" on IMDb
• "The Wall" at TV.com