Valley of the Shadow

This article is about the episode of The Twilight Zone. For the American Civil War project, see The Valley of the Shadow.

"Valley of the Shadow"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 3
Directed by	Perry Lafferty
Written by	Charles Beaumont
Featured music	Stock from A Hundred Yards Over the Rim
Production code	4861
Original air date	January 17, 1963
Guest appearance(s)
Ed Nelson: Philip Redfield Natalie Trundy: Ellen Marshall David Opatoshu: Dorn Dabbs Greer: Evans Jacques Aubuchon: Connelly James Doohan: Johnson Morgan Brittany (as "Suzanne Cupito"): Cissie Johnson Sandy Kenyon: Fredericks (Gas Station Attendant) Henry Beckman: Townsperson Bart Burns: Townsperson King Calder: Townsperson Pat O'Hara: Townsperson
Episode chronology

"Valley of the Shadow" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Opening narration

“

You've seen them. Little towns, tucked away far from the main roads. You've seen them, but have you thought about them? What do the people in these places do? Why do they stay? Philip Redfield never thought about them. If his dog hadn't gone after that cat, he would have driven through Peaceful Valley and put it out of his mind forever. But he can't do that now, because whether he knows it or not his friend's shortcut has led him right into the capital of the Twilight Zone.

”

Plot

A reporter named Philip Redfield (Ed Nelson) gets lost while driving on unfamiliar back roads, and stops in Peaceful Valley, New Mexico, to get directions and gasoline. He soon finds himself forbidden to leave the small, isolated town when he accidentally witnesses a secret mechanical device which can control and rearrange atoms, making things appear and disappear, assemble and reassemble. The town refuses to share this and other amazing technology that had been given to them by a "great man of science" from an unknown land and planet (implying super intelligence from an alien world) until "men learn the ways of peace."

The town elders tell Redfield that their law states that he has either the choice of staying forever in Peaceful Valley as a citizen, where all of his needs and wants will be met and where he will live in constant harmony, or he must be executed to preserve the town's secrets. He ultimately chooses to stay in the town, or what he describes as a prison, and yearns for the freedom of his old life and the glory of curing all sickness, ending hunger, and essentially saving the world. Redfield becomes romantically involved with Ellen, who appears to be the town's only adult his age. She convinces him that she wants to be with him even if it means leaving Peaceful Valley. The backwater confinement chafes, and Redfield decides to make a break for it one evening. Knowing that the elders will try to stop him, he uses the technology to make a revolver.

Opening the door of the safe that holds the book of formulas sets off an alarm, and he has no choice but to shoot the three town elders to escape. When Ellen uses the device on him, he learns the lesson that had been designed for him by the elders and taught by the great man of science. Once he and Ellen are just outside the town limits (and the force field), he looks at the book to see it full of blank pages. The town elders, including the mayor that Redfield shot and supposedly killed, reveal that Ellen was a plant and that Redfield spectacularly failed the test, confirming that if their technology reached the outside world, even under the best of intentions, death and destruction would inevitably follow based upon man's greed and inability to live peacefully. Ellen tearfully confesses that her involvement wasn't all a lie, implying that her feelings for him were real, but Redfield will have none of it and approaches what he believes to be his imminent death in the surly, combative manner—being a metaphor for mankind—that has characterized him throughout the episode. The mayor explains that the law calls for Redfield's execution, but he knows of a solution that should satisfy everyone involved.

The scene cuts to Redfield sitting in his car receiving change back from gas he has just bought. With his dog by his side, he asks for directions and drives out of town, just after having a strange deja vu experience when he sees Ellen, with what appear to be tears in her eyes.

Closing narration

“

You've seen them. Little towns, tucked away far from the main roads. You've seen them, but have you thought about them? Have you wondered what the people do in such places, why they stay? Philip Redfield thinks about them now and he wonders, but only very late at night, when he's between wakefulness and sleep in the Twilight Zone.

”

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

"Valley of the Shadow" at the Internet Movie Database

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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