Original subtitles

You're traveling through another dimension.

A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.

A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.

That's the signpost up ahead. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone.

When was that picture taken?

Why, I don't think I remember, my dear.

You're looking at that album again.

Seems like that's all you do lately is look at that album.

When was that picture taken?

Oh, it's a lovely picture of you, Nelda.

Thank you, ma'am.

Why, let's see. That was taken the summer after Dr.

Loren retired from the laboratory.

You're holding those lovely yellow roses that Jensen planted for us.

You don't look any different now than you did then.

That's very kind of you, Miss Jaina.

Jaina, Nelda will put that away for you.

That's all right, Father. I'd like to put it away myself.

You're not chilly, are you, Jane, dear?

You shouldn't be.

72 degrees in here.

Isn't it, William?

Isn't it 72 degrees?

Exactly. The optimum temperature.

Of course. The optimum temperature.

And the fireplace.

Designed for perfect heat radiation.

The chairs.

For maximum comfort.

And the windows.

For the most efficient light and proper ventilation.

Oh, yes, and the ceilings. For the most desirable acoustical qualities.

Everything built to perfection, Father.

Everything designed for a perfect life.

Oh, please continue, Nelda.

That's it.

Haven't you had enough of that, Mother?

Why, Jaina, dear, you know it helps my appetite.

Almost six.

Nearly time for dinner.

Why don't we eat a little bit earlier tonight?

Or a little bit later?

Why don't we go out to a restaurant?

A restaurant.

Why, Jaina, my dear, why in the world would we go out to eat in a restaurant?

I don't know.

It's just that it would be different.

Yes, I have no doubt it would be different.

We'd walk through the rain and get ourselves supping wet.

And we'd eat some greasy, unpalatable food, serve off of dirty, unwashed

plates. And after that, it would be a moot question whether we'd succumb to

ptomaine or pneumonia.

Will that be all, ma'am? Oh, just a little bit longer, Nelda.

Don't make her do that anymore!

What is the matter with you?

It's just that outside there must be the clean, beautiful sound of rain.

And in here, those constant animal grunts of pleasure.

Gina! Yell at me, Father.

Please yell at me.

I can't tell you how delighted I am to hear you yell at me. Why, it proves to

me that you've got lungs.

Lungs and a mind and a mouth and a voice.

Oh, Father, we're atrophying in here.

We sit here day after day and year after year while that clock just turns and

turns.

And we decay with every minute of the time while Nelda, the maid, and Robert,

the butcher, and Gertchen, the cook, and Jensen, the handmaid... Jane, I will

listen to no more.

While this army of domestics do everything but our breathing for us.

Nelda, will you leave us, please?

Yes, sir.

Nelda.

I'm speaking to you, Nelda.

Yes, Miss Jane.

Don't you agree with me, Nelda?

You were saying, Miss Jaina?

I was about to say that... I was about to make mention of the

fact.

Please don't stop on my account, Jaina.

We have no secrets here.

Don't we?

No secrets, is that it, Father?

Why, that's all we do have.

Secrets. That's how we live.

By shutting off the world, turning our backs on it.

While you soundless, fleshless things glide around here and with your

efficient ministrations turn my father and my mother into jelly.

If I may say so, Miss Gina. You sound jealous.

You said yourself, Jaina, that I designed and built to perfection, and I

made these people quite indestructible.

It's like living with ghosts.

Oh, no, my dear, not ghosts.

Ghosts are those who have died after living.

But these people had no life until I gave it to them.

The residence of Dr. William Loren, which is in reality a menagerie for

machines. We're about to discover that sometimes the product of man's talent

and genius can walk amongst us untouched by the normal ravages of time.

These are Dr. Loren's robots, built to functional as well as artistic

perfection. But in a moment, Dr. William Loren, wife and daughter, will discover

that perfection is relative, that even robots have to be paid for, and very

shortly will be shown exactly what is the bill.

I believe I'll take the Meuchon tonight, Robert.

I'll prepare it, sir.

Will there be

anything else, Dr. Loren?

I think not tonight, Robert.

Good night, sir. Good night, Robert.

Robert.

There's no need. I'll light your pipe tonight, Father.

Well, Jaina, shall we talk of it now?

Shall we talk of what?

Why, I think that's quite obvious.

Suddenly, inexplicably, your mother and I find you unhappy, you're rebellious.

Do you think that pleases us, Jaina?

I don't know.

I explained to you a long time ago why I did what I did, why I retired from the

world, and why I built these people.

What you've done to yourselves is an atrocity.

But what you've done to me is even worse. You've turned me into a freak.

An unsocial, unworldly, insulated freak.

Shall I tell you what else I've done for you, Jaina?

I've kept you from harm. I've protected you against disease.

And insulation in this 20th century is no crime. It's a service.

You've never had to look into the face of war or the face of poverty or

prejudice. Well, you've been isolated, yes.

But what you think of as imprisonment just happens to be asylum.

And security, yes.

And survival.

Asylum in a hothouse.

Security in a mausoleum.

Survival as a vegetable survives.

What you're becoming and what you're making me become.

A vegetable.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Now,

madam.

There's a good girl.

Will that be all, ma'am?

Yes. Thank you, Nelda. Good night.

Good night, ma'am.

Nelda!

Time is running out, Father.

Instead of controlling, you're being controlled.

Why are you becoming dependent?

You're both reaching a point where you won't be able to exist without them.

Destroy them, Father.

Get rid of them.

Dismantle them.

Jane.

Jane, they're not just machines.

Do you know how many thousands of hours I've spent in developing them and

perfecting them?

Do you realize how marvelously intricate they are? How scientifically precise?

Not just arms and legs that move, Jaina. They're creatures.

They have minds and wills. They have memory tracks.

Do you see?

I've given each one of them a memory of his own, haven't I?

Yes.

And all of them can recount to you in detail.

Everything that's happened to them since their early childhood.

And they had no childhood.

They were born just as you see them now, weren't they?

Yes. Looking the way they do, acting the way they do, but each with his own

talent. One of them was built as a cook.

Another was built as a maid.

The butler was manufactured as a butler. The handyman knows nothing but being a

handyman. Jaina, you're not asking me to dismantle machines.

You're asking me to destroy that which has life.

Life?

They're just highly complicated toys.

Father, you've turned this house into a playroom.

Jane, dear, listen to your mother. You're acting like a willful child.

A willful child?

I'm acting like a woman mother who wants something more out of life than just to

be massaged five times a day.

Or a man.

who thinks paradise is having his pipes filled and refilled and his slippers put

on and taken off.

You've got to get rid of them, Father, all of them. Nelda, Gretchen, Suzanne,

all of them.

That is quite impossible.

I'll give you a choice.

Get rid of them or I'll leave.

You can't leave, Jaina, dear.

Why, you simply can't leave.

What would happen to you?

Who'd look after you?

What would you do out there?

I'd be with normal people, Mother.

People who live and work and then die, but do it properly the way God intended.

That's where I want to be, out there.

I want my freedom.

Jaina, it just isn't possible.

I want my freedom.

Miss Jaina, you'll forgive me, but that was most intemperate of you.

I consider that unforgivable behavior. Miss Jane, you must have respect for

your parents. I agree. You must show respect.

Stop it!

You're jokes.

That's what you are.

Hysterical jokes.

With your sad little homilies and your mouth cliches.

You're nothing but walking record players. That's all any of you are.

Walking record players.

Jane, you're making it difficult for me to be patient.

Very difficult indeed.

I do apologize, Father. I know how accustomed to perfection you are.

And I hate to throw a stone in that serene pool of yours, but you forgot

something. Do you know that? You forgot something.

They may be indestructible, Father, but you're not.

Jaina, dear, you don't really want to leave us, do you?

I thought I made it quite plain, Father.

I want you to open the windows and let the air in.

I want you to let the world in.

By destroying my whole life's work.

Jaina, we've loved you very much.

If you could only see that all of this has been just as much for you as for

ourselves.

Oh, Jaina, we love you more than words can tell.

I know that, Father.

I know that.

Then, then you will stay.

Oh, please stay, Jaina. I beg of you, please.

No.

Jaina.

I'll do what you asked me to do.

I promise you.

I'll do it right away.

Nelda, Gretchen, Suzanne, all of you, rest

in peace.

Robert. Sir?

I want you to take all the servants downstairs to my workroom.

Just stay there until I come.

Have our services been unsatisfactory, sir? Robert, I have given you an order.

You are, all of you, to go downstairs and wait for me.

But I've been an excellent butler, sir. You know I have. I think you'll agree

with me. I came very well recommended, sir. There isn't a more efficient maid

in the entire country. I can fix anything that has to be fixed.

Robert,

you have your orders.

It's all over.

We're alone in the house now.

Alone, William?

Yes, my dear, quite alone.

You and I and our daughter.

I've become so accustomed to them.

It'll be difficult at first, won't it, William?

Yes, my dear, a little.

In the beginning.

We're going to live like normal people, do you understand?

Normal people.

We're going to give parties and we'll take trips and we'll make friends.

And I'll find a young man.

I'll find a young man and before you know it, we're going to have

grandchildren.

Oh, father, grandchildren.

What's the matter?

What is it?

It's what you said about grandchildren.

You see, what your mother means, Jaina, what she means is it's perfectly normal

and natural for parents to think of their children as children.

And then when suddenly they grow up and they talk of having children of their

own, it's a little difficult for parents to absorb quite so quickly.

Something's not right.

Something's not right.

Something's not right.

What is it?

What is it?

Why aren't any of my pictures in the photo albums? There are no pictures of

me here at all. There are many pictures of you. Why, see, here's a picture of

you at Easter.

And why, there are pictures of you decorating the Christmas tree last year.

Not as a little girl, Mother.

There are no pictures of me as a little girl.

Pictures of you and Father and the robots.

Always pictures of the robots, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, but no pictures of

me. Why?

I want you to tell me why.

Why?

It's not true.

Oh, it couldn't be true.

Please tell me it's not true.

Jaina, you are our daughter.

You know you're our daughter.

And you remember everything from your childhood. You remember the schools you

went to, the children you played with. And you remember all the places you went

to. You do remember them, Jaina.

You've got to.

Why have I got to remember them?

Because you fed them to me?

A memory track.

A memory track.

Please tell me what I am.

It doesn't make any difference.

It doesn't make any difference at all, Jaina. We were childless. We had nothing

of our flesh to leave behind. No, nothing of our hearts, nothing of our

love. So, you see, we got you.

You made me.

You built me.

You manufactured me.

Of course.

The maid was built as a maid.

The butler manufactured as a butler.

And the cook and the handyman, all for a particular purpose.

And the daughter.

You built a daughter!

Jaina, I created you as a thing of love.

It doesn't matter what you are or how you got here. You're our daughter.

Jenny, you've got to understand that. You're our daughter. I can't be your

daughter. I'm a thing.

I'm a machine!

A machine!

Jaina! Jaina!

No pain!

No pain at all!

No pain!

Jaina, stop it!

No pain!

No love.

I can't even feel love.

Everything's changed now.

She'll never be the same.

What will we do, William?

William, you wouldn't.

No, I couldn't do anything like that.

I couldn't stand not having her here anymore.

I just couldn't stand that.

Just little to the left, Nelda. Not quite so hard.

Of course, Mrs. Loren.

Of course.

Let this be the postscript.

Should you be worn out by the rigors of competing in a very competitive world,

if you're distraught from having to share your existence with the noises and

neuroses of the 20th century, if you crave serenity but want it full-time and

with no strings attached, get yourself a workroom in the basement and then drop a

note to Dr. and Mrs. William Loren.

They're a childless couple who've made comfort a life's work.

And maybe there are a few do-it-yourself pamphlets still available in the

Twilights.

Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone, will tell you about next week's

story after this word from our alternate sponsor.

And now, Mr. Serling.

An attractive and rather imposing room lived in by a man named Templeton. And

like most rooms, suggestive really of only a part of the man, the outside

part. Our story next week takes off from here.

Mr. Brian Ahern lends us his considerable talents in a script by E.

Jack Newman called The Trouble with Templeton.

It can best be described as poignant, provocative, and a highly diverting trip

into the Twilight Zone.

Be sure and see the Colgate-Palmolive Company's new comedy show, My Sister

Eileen, Wednesday night on many of these same stations.