The Twilight Zone – Season Four, Episode Sixteen – On Thursday We Leave for Home, with James Whitmore, Tim O’Conner, and James Broderick.
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A great season 4 episode. Interesting the cave was used in the movie The Time Machine, which was also very entertaining. I felt for Benteen who will now have to live out his life alone. Yes, life on earth may have it's ups and downs but I would never leave it to travel 1 billion miles. Observation, all the colonists were white Americans
4:54 Colonel Sloane (on Captain Benteen): "Quite a guy. He just has one aberration: He thinks he's a god, and we're booting him out of his heaven."
One of the advantages to the hour length is that, done right, it gives TZ the freedom to develop a truly interesting character study, and On Thursday may be one of Rod's best. Captain Benteen is a strong-willed character, used to command from what was probably a comparatively young age, and we see how he is very much the leader, the father, yes, even the god of his people. They trust him, they listen to him, they believe in him. We see that, although some of the community have given up, Benteen builds up the survivors. "The ship is coming!" is what he has to tell them every day since they got the notice. But the arrival of the ship changes everything.
Then we have Colonel Sloane, a man who himself is used to command, but he is willing to work with Benteen, give him every benefit of the doubt, and honor his position among the community. But this only can go so far. Sloane has his orders, and when Benteen's "aberration" interferes with those orders, he can coddle Benteen no longer. Benteen cannot let go, however, and, as his need to maintain control grows ever more desperate, he begins to rationalize: Earth isn't the place I told you it was, we will continue to live together, I will continue to guide you, I will make everything perfect — it all comes down to "I can't let you go." He must destroy his people's hope in order to stay in command.
His people cannot understand the change in their Captain. But there has been no change: This is what Benteen always was, but when he was their symbol, the focus of the community, his people needed him. His control was what kept them alive. Now that they are finally returning to earth, Benteen's people don't need him — or that control — anymore. And Benteen cannot accept that.
At the end, Benteen has become "a population of one," with only his anger and his fantasy of control keeping him going. But as the ship leaves the planet, fear takes over. "Don't leave me here!" he cries out, but it's too late. Then, quietly, almost childlike, he can only whisper, "I want to go home." The anger, the control, the fear is all gone – Benteen has nothing left.
Serling himself felt this was the best of the hour-long episodes. Not sure I would go that far – I always preferred Death Ship – but I think it is one of Serling's best stories and his finest character study. Very well done.
A brilliant performance by James Whitmore in which he's a spaceship captain who feels he's losing his position of leader of the colonists.