User Reviews

A man who went to Canada instead of Vietnam finds that a stranger is lurking in his home, frightening his daughter and his wife. Visions of fighting in the jungle appear, even though the first man escaped the war. It turns out that at some point, a decision was made but the man split and went down two roads. Eventually, the two parts have to come together and that's what this episode is about. Unfortunately, the whole thing is hard to swallow. Too contrived.

***SPOILERS*** It's when little Magen, Jaclyn-Rose Lester, began seeing this stranger in her bedroom that things started to unravel for her father Jeff McDowell, Cliff De Young, who felt that his past as a Vietnam War era draft-dodger was finally catching up him. Feeling somewhat guilty in what he did by dodging the draft and service for his country Jeff has hidden his skipping out of the country and into Canada to avoid the draft secret from everyone but himself and his wife Danise,Margaret Klenck, who checked out to Canada, even thought she wasn't draft eligible, along with him. But now his past has finally corralled him and Jeff is more terrified of that then he was of being drafted and sent to "Nam".

As we and Jeff soon find out that he was in fact sent to that jungle hell in South-East Asia not on this plane of existence but in a parallel universe. And it was there that the man he left behind, himself, from going there was chopped up in a Viet Cong ambush and left crippled for life. It's that man, Jeff's twin, from a parallel universe who's been trying to get in touch with him through little Megan to show Jeff how things would have turned out if he in fact went to "Nam" as he was supposed to.

****SPOILERS**** As we soon find out Jeff's twin wasn't at all bitter at being the one who ended up crippled for life in a wheelchair from his injuries in Vietnam. He in fact was glad that Jeff indeed fled the country to avoid ending up the way he did. As things turned out it wasn't anything courageous on Jeff's part, he always considered himself to be a coward, at what he did but it was the right thing for him to do. For himself as well as his twin or double in the parallel universe. At least now Jeff's twin can share the same things in life that Jeff has like a loving family and good health that the Vietnam War, in his being crippled by it, denied him. Even if it's billions of miles or a universe away!

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED has a decent premise but turns out to be one of the weaker episodes of THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE. It concerns the Vietnam War and it was directed by Wes Craven, so it has every right to be good, and yet it's not. A combination of weak storytelling and poor production values sink this one from the outset.

The story sees a kid starting to find her family home haunted by a strange old wheelchair-bound guy. It soon transpires that this isn't a routine haunted house effort but that instead the guy hails from an alternate reality where things have turned out very different. The acting is okay here but the story feels rather diluted and ordinary at best.