Stranded in Space

Entering the Fifth Dimension: A Twilight Zone Podcast

If there's one thing The Twilight Zone loves, it's exploring humanity through the lens of space travel. This month we take a look at two episodes where the lead characters find themselves stranded in space, albeit for entirely different reasons. In season 1 episode 7 entitled, "The Lonely," we encounter the story of a man named Corry who has been sentenced to solitary confinement on an asteroid millions of miles from earth. He's given a human-looking robot to ease his loneliness, but what happens if he's eventually forced to choose between the robot and returning to earth?

Next we take a look at season 3 episode 28, "The Little People." Here we encounter two astronauts who land on an unknown planet so they can make repairs to their spaceship. While there, they discover a colony of ant-sized intelligent beings. One of the men, Craig, decides to prop himself up as their god and maniacally torments them to receive their praise. His superior, Fletcher, leaves him behind on the planet against his better judgement, but Craigs reign as god will not be long-lived.

These two episodes give us a chance to explore what it means to be human, the importance of kindness, compassion, and empathy, and lessons we've learned in our lives when we let our egos get the best of us.

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