The Shelter (The Twilight Zone) - Definition and Overview

The Shelter is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.

Details

Episode number: 68

Season: 3

Original airdate: September 29, 1961

Writer: Rod Serling

Director: Lamont Johnson

Cast

Dr. Stockton:Larry Gates

Jerry Harlowe: Jack Albertson

Henderson: Sandy Kenyon

Marty Weiss:Joseph Bernard.

Synopsis

The local neighborhood of a typical suburban community is having a small dinner to honor the local Dr. Stockton at his house. Everybody is especially friendly and mention is made of his late night work on a fallout shelter that he has built in the basement. A scary radio announcement is made that unidentified objects have been detected heading for the United States. Everybody knows what it means, nuclear attack. The doctor locks himself and his family into the shelter. The neighborhood becomes hysterical and wants to occupy the shelter. All the friendliness disappears and is replaced with hate. The last scene shows the once friendly neighbors breaking down the door to the shelter with a battering ram. Just then, the radio announces that the objects have been identified as harmless satellites. Rod Serling makes the final statement. "For civilization to survive, man must remain civilized."

Trivia

• Aired just 17 days before the Cuban Missile Crisis

• One of only a few episodes in the series which contain no supernatural or science-fiction elements. Other such episodes include Where Is Everybody?, The Silence and The Jeopardy Room.

Themes

A warning against Cold War induced mass hysteria and paranoia. Similar themes are visited in The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.

References

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

Back to: The Twilight Zone, Episode List, Season 3