By the fifth and last season a lot of steam had run out of "The Twilight Zone." Serling had just about written himself out, and Buck Houghton, an effective producer, had left for greener pastures. (That's show business.) Writer Charles Beaumont was suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder and farming "his" stories out to other writers.
But this episode is as good as the best in any of the earlier season, written by Richard Matheson. It puts recently discharged mental patient, William Shatner, aboard an airplane that is flying through a thunderstorm and the engines of which are being slowly pried open and pulled apart by an apparition -- a "gremlin", Shatner calls them. The anomalous creature disappears whenever anyone other than Shatner is looking at him. Shatner is finally forced to take drastic measures to rid the airplane of the threat, but he's justified in the end.
Shatner makes a convincing young, handsome, man recovering from a psychotic episode. He's a nervous wreck as the beast outside systematically demolishes the engine. The climax is dramatic.
I've always rather liked Shatner, who mostly gave the impression of an actor enjoying his role. Now he appears in commercials, older and squat, and he hams it up outrageously, as lovable as ever.
Everyone else in the cast does a good job in this suspenseful thriller too. Except, well, I must say that it's impossible to tell whether or not Nick Cravat does well or not. He's the short, sinewy guy who is bundled up in that Gremlin's absurd monkey suit. Not only does he resemble one of Bo Peep's lost sheep, but he wears a grotesque rubber mask. He was adequate in many of Burt Lancaster's movies, hired because he had been Lancaster's pal when they were both circus acrobats.
Yet the plot sticks Cravat out on the wing of an airplane flying at some 200 miles per hour, and he's able to stand upright and stroll around peering into the chthonic depths of the airplane's engines. It reminds me of an old photo of two crouching men strapped to opposite end of the upper wing of a mile-high biplane, both holding tennis rackets at the ready, a tennis net between them.
But this episode is as good as the best in any of the earlier season, written by Richard Matheson. It puts recently discharged mental patient, William Shatner, aboard an airplane that is flying through a thunderstorm and the engines of which are being slowly pried open and pulled apart by an apparition -- a "gremlin", Shatner calls them. The anomalous creature disappears whenever anyone other than Shatner is looking at him. Shatner is finally forced to take drastic measures to rid the airplane of the threat, but he's justified in the end.
Shatner makes a convincing young, handsome, man recovering from a psychotic episode. He's a nervous wreck as the beast outside systematically demolishes the engine. The climax is dramatic.
I've always rather liked Shatner, who mostly gave the impression of an actor enjoying his role. Now he appears in commercials, older and squat, and he hams it up outrageously, as lovable as ever.
Everyone else in the cast does a good job in this suspenseful thriller too. Except, well, I must say that it's impossible to tell whether or not Nick Cravat does well or not. He's the short, sinewy guy who is bundled up in that Gremlin's absurd monkey suit. Not only does he resemble one of Bo Peep's lost sheep, but he wears a grotesque rubber mask. He was adequate in many of Burt Lancaster's movies, hired because he had been Lancaster's pal when they were both circus acrobats.
Yet the plot sticks Cravat out on the wing of an airplane flying at some 200 miles per hour, and he's able to stand upright and stroll around peering into the chthonic depths of the airplane's engines. It reminds me of an old photo of two crouching men strapped to opposite end of the upper wing of a mile-high biplane, both holding tennis rackets at the ready, a tennis net between them.