I’m talking the original 1960s episodes
There were quite a few red pills dropped by Mr. Serling
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A Stop at Willoughby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Stop_at_Willoughby
Gart Williams is a contemporary (c. 1960) New York City advertising executive who has grown exasperated with his career. His overbearing boss, Oliver Misrell, angered by the loss of a major account, lectures him about this “push-push-push” business. Unable to sleep properly at home, he drifts off for a short nap on the train during his daily commute through the November snow.
He wakes to find the train stopped and his car now a 19th-century railway car, deserted except for himself. The sun is bright outside, and as he looks out the window, he discovers that the train is in a town called Willoughby and that it’s July 1888. He learns that this is a “peaceful, restful place, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure.” Being jerked back awake into the real world, he asks the conductor if he has ever heard of Willoughby, but the conductor replies, “Not on this run…no Willoughby on the line.”
That night, he has another argument with his shrewish wife Jane. Selfish, cold and uncaring, she makes him see that he is only a money machine to her. He tells her about his dream and about Willoughby, only to have her ridicule him as being “born too late”, declaring it her “miserable tragic error” to have married a man “whose big dream in life is to be Huckleberry Finn.”
The next week, Williams again dozes off on the train and returns to Willoughby where everything is the same as before. As he is about to get off the train carrying his briefcase, the train begins to roll, returning him to the present. Williams promises himself to get off at Willoughby next time.
Experiencing a breakdown at work, he calls his wife, who abandons him in his time of need. On his way home, once again he falls asleep to find himself in Willoughby. This time, as the conductor warmly beckons him to the door, Williams intentionally leaves his briefcase on the train. Getting off the train, he is greeted by name by various inhabitants who welcome him while he tells them he’s glad to be there and plans to stay and join their idyllic life.
The swinging pendulum of the station clock fades into the swinging lantern of a train engineer, standing over Williams’ body. The 1960 conductor explains to the engineer that Williams “shouted something about Willoughby”, before jumping off the train and was killed instantly. Williams’ body is loaded into a hearse. The back door of the hearse closes to reveal the name of the funeral home: Willoughby & Son.
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Black Leather Jackets
Chick falls in love with one of the “bad boys” (who are actually from another planet) that moves in next store
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Night Call
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Call
n elderly woman, Elva Keene (Gladys Cooper), receives strange anonymous phone calls in the middle of a stormy night. During the first calls she hears only static. Later she hears a man moaning and she repeatedly demands to know who is calling. Finally he says “Hello? Where are you? I want to talk to you.” Elva, terrified, screams at the man to leave her alone.
The phone company traces the calls to a telephone line that has fallen in a cemetery.
Elva and her housekeeper visit the cemetery where she finds that the line is resting on the grave of her long-deceased fiancé, Brian Douglas. Elva says that she always insisted on having her own way, and Brian always did what she said. Brian died a week before they were to be married. That day, she insisted on driving, lost control of the car and hit a tree. The accident crippled her and caused Brian to fly headfirst into the windshield, killing him.
Now that she can talk to him again she won’t have to be alone. At home she picks up the phone and calls out to Brian’s ghost, pleading with him to answer. He replies that she told him to leave her alone and that he always does what she says. Then the line goes dead, leaving Elva alone and crying in her bed.
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A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_Drink_from_a_Certain_Fountain
Harmon Gordon, a wealthy old man married to a much younger woman, is exhausted by his wife Flora’s youthful and selfish lifestyle. Seeking to keep up the pace, he asks his scientist brother Raymond to inject him with an experimental youth serum. Raymond firmly refuses at first, saying that the serum has had mixed results even in laboratory animals and won’t be ready for testing on humans without decades of refining. Moreover, he abhors Flora for her callous treatment of his brother, and is not enthusiastic about any step to strengthen their marriage. However, when Harmon suggests he will commit suicide rather than lose Flora, his brother reluctantly agrees to administer the serum.
At his brother’s instructions, Harmon rests after taking the serum. He wakens to find himself a young man, to Flora’s surprised delight. However, before Harmon can enjoy his new youth, the regression continues, and hours later he has become a toddler. Flora tries to leave, but Raymond says she must stay and raise the infant Harmon or be cut off from Harmon’s fortune. He threatens to take legal action against her if she abandons the child. Finding a stroke of poetic justice in what has happened, Raymond points out that by the time Harmon has regained adulthood, his position with Flora will be reversed, with Flora being old.
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Anyone think this would be allowed on network TV these days?
Tazz 2 years ago.
