While the character of Walter Jameson, played by Kevin McCarthy, is not a vampire, he might as well have a stake put through his heart because he desperately needs to find peace and he won't find it with the type of life that he has. As one of the top college professors at his university, he has a beautiful fiance (Dody Heath) and a promising future that looks bright and happy. But on the inside, McCarthy is hiding a desperate secret and it is one that he cannot escape from: his destiny. Prospective father-in-law Edgar Stehli admires his work but has suspicions about McCarthy's past which are soon proven right. A strange older woman (Estelle Winwood) stocks McCarthy and after a confrontation between McCarthy and Stehli, she confronts him as a woman from his past. What is this past, and how will it affect his future? Or more importantly how will it affect the future of Heath or any other woman that he will become involved with? Stehli, aware of the truth and concerned about his own pending mortality, struggles to learn McCarthy's secret, something even McCarthy is unable to control or explain. There's only one way out and like ashes to ashes and dust to dust, McCarthy will find his Twilight Zone with hopeful rest.
The character of Zorba the Greek once said he met an old man who lived as if he would never die, but lived himself as if he would die any minute. Either way, both characters were grabbing at life but here, the two men discuss the exact same differences and it has a completely different meaning. McCarthy wants to die but is too afraid to take the step, while Stehli who is slowly dying of old age desperately wants to stop that process and be able to live forever irregardless of the aging process. This has many moral questions asked that the scripts does not directly answer, and there lies in the strength of this episode, a philosophical opening for discussion of the importance of living life while you have it and avoiding prolonging it irregardless of destiny. The themes are touching and poignant, and are relevant in any era. That therein lies the beauty of this episode, a fight that man has that he can never win.
The character of Zorba the Greek once said he met an old man who lived as if he would never die, but lived himself as if he would die any minute. Either way, both characters were grabbing at life but here, the two men discuss the exact same differences and it has a completely different meaning. McCarthy wants to die but is too afraid to take the step, while Stehli who is slowly dying of old age desperately wants to stop that process and be able to live forever irregardless of the aging process. This has many moral questions asked that the scripts does not directly answer, and there lies in the strength of this episode, a philosophical opening for discussion of the importance of living life while you have it and avoiding prolonging it irregardless of destiny. The themes are touching and poignant, and are relevant in any era. That therein lies the beauty of this episode, a fight that man has that he can never win.