"Probe 7, Over and Out"

An offering from Eve (Antoinette Bower) to Adam (Richard Basehart)

“Probe 7, Over and Out”
Season Five, Episode 129
Original Air Date: November 29, 1963
 
Cast:
Colonel Adam Cook: Richard Basehart
Eve Norda: Antoinette Bower
General Larrabee: Harold Gould
Lieutenant Blane: Barton Heyman
 
Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Ted Post
Producer: William Froug
Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Malcolm Brown
Film Editor: Thomas W. Scott
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and Robert R. Benton
Assistant Director: Charles Bonniwell, Jr.
Casting: Patricia Rose
Music: stock
Sound: Franklin Milton and Joe Edmondson
Mr. Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes
Filmed at MGM Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:
“Next on Twilight Zone, an eminent performer of stage and screen, Mr. Richard Basehart, in an oddball excursion that we call ‘Probe 7, Over and Out.’ On occasion we’ll come up with a wild and wooly denouement, but this particular opus has an unpredictable ending that we doubt if even the most seasoned TZ fans will be able to pick up before it happens on your screen. Next on Twilight Zone, ‘Probe 7, Over and Out.’”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

“One Colonel Cook, a traveler in space. He’s landed on a remote planet several million miles from his point of departure. He can make an inventory of his plight by just one 360-degree movement of head and eyes. Colonel Cook has been set adrift in an ocean of space in a metal lifeboat that has been scorched and destroyed and will never fly again. He survived the crash but his ordeal is yet to begin. Now he must give battle to loneliness. Now Colonel Cook must meet the unknown. It’s a small planet set deep in space. But for Colonel Cook, it’s The Twilight Zone.”

Summary: 

            Colonel Cook, a lone astronaut, has veered off course and crash-landed on a distant, unknown planet. His right arm is injured and his spaceship is badly damaged. Cook makes contact with home base using the dwindling power of his ship. Lieutenant Blane answers the call on the video screen and Cook informs him of his situation and tells Blane that he does not believe his ship can be repaired. General Larrabee appears and instructs Cook to remain on the channel in order to resume communication at a later time. Cook signs off to conserve the ship’s power.

            Cook exits the ship with a flashlight to explore his surroundings. He calls out to anyone who can hear him. No one answers his call. Cook returns to the ship and does not see a flurry of movement in the nearby vegetation.

            Cook contacts home base again. He requests a rescue ship be sent to help him. General Larrabee informs Cook that there are no more ships to send. Cook is on his own. Cook informs General Larrabee that the planet upon which he has crashed seems to have an atmosphere and gravitational pull comparable to their home planet. Larrabee tells Cook that war is imminent on their home world. Cook has a better chance of surviving where he is than if he were back home.

            Later, home base reestablishes contact. General Larrabee grimly informs Cook that war has broken out on their home planet and the destruction is enormous on both sides. Cook informs Larrabee that there is plenty of vegetation around him, some of it perhaps edible, although there are no signs of other lifeforms nor of daylight. Larrabee tells Cook that home base will be moving and that Larrabee will try, if possible, to make contact at a later time.

            Outside the ship, Cook finds drawings in the soil made by an intelligent hand. Excited, Cook climbs to the top of a nearby hill and calls out into the night. Suddenly, from out of the darkness, a large rock flies through the air and strikes Cook in the head. He falls to the ground, unconscious.

            A final report from home base appears on the video screen, unheard and unseen by the unconscious Cook. General Larrabee reports that the complete destruction of their home world is imminent. He sends Cook a message of hope for a more peaceful world free from fear and hatred.

            Later, Cook awakens to daylight and a headache. He makes his way back to the ship and collapses into a chair. The cabin door behind him slams closed. Cook arms himself and attempts to communicate with whomever or whatever is behind the door. He hopes the tone of his words will come through even if the language does not.

            Cook leaves the ship and waits nearby for the person inside to come out. Cook is distracted by a noise, however, and does not see the person leave the ship. Cook pursues the person through the trees and is astonished to find a woman on the ground. She is afraid and has, like himself, clearly been through a trying ordeal.  

            She is mistrustful of him, and they cannot communicate effectively, so Cook draws in the soil, attempting to explain how he arrived on the planet. Cook is half-convinced the woman is an illusion until she too draws in the soil. Cook interprets her drawing to mean that she is the last of her kind, having escaped a planetary crisis.

            In a rudimentary fashion, they manage to exchange names. Cook learns that the woman’s name is Norda. She seems willing to follow Cook back to his ship with a promise of food until Cook picks up a stick. This frightens the woman and she scratches Cook and runs away.

            Cook contemplates the notion that humans are by nature violent and fearful before wishing the woman luck and returning to his ship. Cook attempts to contact home base and receives the recording of the grim yet hopeful final message from General Larrabee. He knows now that he no longer has a home to return to. This unknown planet is his home now and for the rest of his life.

            Cook packs his belongings and leaves the ship, intent on finding a better place to make a home, a place near sources of water and food. The woman is waiting for him outside the ship. Cook attempts to communicate with her by picking up a handful of soil and asking what it is called in her language. The woman takes some of the soil in her fingers and speaks the word “earth.” Cook decides that Earth is a suitable name for this new planet.

            Cook then tells the woman his full name: Adam Cook. Likewise, she tells Cook her full name is Eve Norda. Together they walk off in search of a new home and a new life together. Eve stops to pick an apple from a tree and offer it to Adam.

 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
“Do you know these people? Names familiar, are they? They lived a long time ago. Perhaps they’re part fable. Perhaps they’re part fantasy. And perhaps the place they’re walking to now is not really called Eden. We offer it only as a presumption. This has been The Twilight Zone.” 

Commentary: 

            From a favorable perspective, “Probe 7, Over and Out” allowed Rod Serling to combine two themes recurrent in his scripts for the series. These themes (a character alone against an unknown environment and the effects of nuclear annihilation) date to the early part of the first season, with the pilot episode “Where Is Everybody?” and “Time Enough at Last,” Serling’s adaptation of a story by Lynn Venable. These themes continued to regularly appear in such episodes as “Third from the Sun,” Serling’s adaptation of Richard Matheson’s story, which has a twist ending similar to “Probe 7, Over and Out,” “King Nine Will Not Return,” “The Shelter,” and several others, including writer/director Montgomery Pittman’s “Two,” the third season opener with which “Probe 7, Over and Out” shares more than a passing resemblance. The theme of nuclear annihilation, an ever-present shadow over the lives of Americans at the time, continued to be revisited well into the fifth season, with “Probe 7, Over and Out” following closely behind the similarly themed “The Old Man in the Cave.”

            Unlike “Time Enough at Last” or “Two,” however, these themes were not as seamlessly blended in “Probe 7, Over and Out,” as evidenced by the overused twist ending and the significant portion of dialogue consisting of engaging yet artificial monologues ruminating on man’s tendency for self-destruction. Not to be unfair to the excellent performance of Antoinette Bower, who has very little dialogue in the episode, but it is a credit to Richard Basehart and Harold Gould, as well as director Ted Post, that these frequent asides largely enhance rather than diminish the dramatic effect of the episode. “Probe 7, Over and Out” is, after all, Robinson Crusoe in space, a story type dating to the earliest days of pulp science fiction. Perhaps the most complimentary thing one can say about Serling’s script is that he found means by which to produce engaging dialogue and character interaction without resorting to methods previously used on the series such as voice-over narration or an alter-ego.

            From a less favorable perspective, “Probe 7, Over and Out” is ultimately an unsuccessful, Frankenstein’s monster of an episode, combining several previous parts to create a whole which clearly shows the seams of its construction. As reported by Bob Stahl in the April 4, 1964 issue of TV Guide, The Twilight Zone (Cayuga Productions) purchased the impressive crashed spaceship that features in the episode from rival series The Outer Limits (Daystar Productions). The crashed shuttlecraft was built by a crew led by Jack Poplin, art director on The Outer Limits. The crashed ship was featured in the first season Outer Limits episode “Specimen: Unknown,” which aired on February 24, 1964. After production on "Specimen: Unknown" was completed, Daystar sold the crashed ship to Cayuga in order to regain some of the costs of production. The ship was repainted and used as the centerpiece of “Probe 7, Over and Out.”

The crashed ship from The Outer Limits episode "Specimen: Unknown"

The crashed ship from "Probe 7, Over and Out"

Of course, the Adam and Eve twist ending has generated the greatest comment from those who have written about the episode. In fact, it is very much all anyone has had to say about the episode, and always in a negative context. Marc Scott Zicree, writing in The Twilight Zone Companion, views the ending to the episode this way: “One of the oldest science-fiction chestnuts known to man: Colonel Cook is Adam, the woman he discovers is Eve and the planet – let’s just call that Earth. What could have been a marvelous adventure instead becomes something that, had it been written as a short story, would have been rejected by every science-fiction magazine at the time, because it had been done to death many years earlier.”

            The themes presented in the episode were perhaps too well-worn to produce a “marvelous adventure,” even with a different ending. But had the Adam and Eve theme been “done to death” many years earlier? E.F. Bleiler, in The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, which examines works to 1960, lists more than a dozen works on the theme, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The New Adam and Eve” (1843), George MacDonald’s Lilith (1895), Rudyard Kipling’s “The Enemies of Each Other” (1924), and C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra (1943). Is this done to death? Well, if we widen the field to include science fiction stories then the number of examples of the Adam and Eve theme expands considerably. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, in its entry on the subject, lists numerous examples, which writer Brian W. Aldiss labeled “shaggy God stories,” simple science fiction frameworks for biblical myths. The entry defines the most common of this story type as “the one in which survivors of a space disaster land on a virgin world and reveal (in the final line) that their names are Adam and Eve.”

By the time Rod Serling wrote “Probe 7, Over and Out,” Adam and Eve was truly one of the most overused themes in science fiction and fantasy. Serling revisited the theme in one of his more celebrated post-Twilight Zone works, Planet of the Apes (1968), a film that reflects a number of Twilight Zone episodes, including "People Are Alike All Over" and "I Shot an Arrow into the Air." In the film, the “Eve” character, Nova, played by Linda Harrison, strikes a resemblance in appearance, name, and behavior to Norda in “Probe 7, Over and Out.” 

            Was Serling aware of the overworked nature of the Adam and Eve theme? Judging from his preview narration for the episode it would appear that he was not, believing the ending would surprise “even the most seasoned TZ fans.” Serling must have known that a significant portion of the show’s viewers were also avid readers of science fiction and would have recognized the twist ending as one of the most overused in the genre.  

Nicholas Parisi wrote of the episode in his biography, Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination: “When Rod Serling wrote ‘Probe 7, Over and Out,’ its twist ending was already one of science fiction’s most overdone ideas. Serling, who had read plenty of science fiction, likely knew as much. He also likely knew that what is old on the printed page is sometimes new on television. Or, with his creative well running dry, he simply decided that using such an overworked idea was worth whatever risk it entailed.”

            Parisi’s view is probably closest to the mark. Serling was creatively exhausted and had, by his own admission, lost the ability to distinguish bad writing from good. One can expect, under such conditions, that Serling also lost some of the ability to distinguish a good idea from a bad one. The series also became, somewhat to its detriment, defined by the twist ending, a viewer expectation that persists to this day. 

As far as another underlying theme of the episode, that a character is traveling to Earth rather than away from it, Parisi points out that when Richard Matheson’s “Third from the Sun” was published more than a decade before the airing of “Probe 7, Over and Out,” the theme was less common than it became in subsequent years. Another interesting aspect of Parisi’s take on the episode is that Serling “had read plenty of science fiction.” It was for this reason that when a well-known science fiction theme was presented on the series, Serling was often accused of borrowing or outright stealing old ideas from more established science fiction writers who, coincidentally, were not writing for television (or cashing the accompanying checks). Science fiction on television in 1963 was still well behind science fiction on the page, and it is unreasonable to expect a television series, even one as skillfully written as The Twilight Zone, to break new thematic ground each and every week. As critic Les Daniels put it when discussing The Twilight Zone in his genre study, Living in Fear (1975): "The themes were sometimes a trifle familiar to those already conversant with the literature in the field, but Serling's undeniable skill in dramatic construction provided considerable compensation."

            “Probe 7, Over and Out” was filmed under the show’s final producer, William Froug (1922-2013), an affable, talented producer who was, despite a good working relationship with Rod Serling, at odds with what worked well on the series. Froug was also a successful scriptwriter, authoring several books on the subject, and took an active role in story content on the series. Part of this, unfortunately, included jettisoning several scripts from the show’s best writers previously purchased by departing producer Bert Granet, as well as bringing in a new stable of writers whose contributions to the series, with one exception, were uniformly poor. Yet, in this way, Froug was the producer that Serling needed at the time. Creatively exhausted, Serling became less concerned with protecting the integrity of his scripts. Froug and director Ted Post both related to author Marc Scott Zicree that Serling handed over the script for “Probe 7, Over and Out” with permission to make whatever changes they felt were necessary to create the best possible episode from the material.

            Froug further related to Zicree that Serling’s initial script ran to over forty-five pages, with one page of script roughly equivalent to one minute of screen time, putting the episode more than twenty minutes over the allotted time. When this was pointed out to the writer, Serling simply told Froug to make whatever changes were needed. Froug cut ten pages of dialogue from Serling’s script with little change to the course of the narrative. Froug told Zicree: “There were these speeches that went on and on for pages. So I remember taking ten pages out of the script, and it didn’t affect it in the least.” Even so, the episode came in overlong when filmed and further cuts were made by Ted Post in post-production.

            One wonders how an episode like "Probe 7, Over and Out" could be made out to twice the length. Serling’s scripts by this time primarily became exercises in dialogue, likely owing to the fact that Serling increasingly dictated his scripts rather than composed them on the typewriter. One can imagine Serling walking around his home or sitting poolside and speaking into the machine, “performing” each character on the stage of his mind. The result, however, in “Uncle Simon,” “Probe 7, Over and Out,” and several additional episodes of the fifth season, was a style of drama structured upon enjoyable but stagy dialogue densely executed and often artificial in exchange. Serling crafted such engaging characters and dialogue, however, that a viewer can both enjoy these excessive exercises while also recognizing the shortcomings inherent in such an approach. 

            Richard Basehart (1914-1984), here portraying Colonel Cook, is remembered for his portrayal of Admiral Harriman Nelson in Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968). Basehart’s long career in film and television included an appearance in Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954), as well as several crime and mystery films which endeared him to generations of film noir fans. These films included Basehart’s breakout role in He Walked by Night (1948), co-written by Crane Wilbur, who later directed Basehart in Outside the Wall (1950), and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), directed by Robert Wise. Basehart also memorably portrayed the man on the ledge of a hotel building in Fourteen Hours (1951). Other Basehart roles include that of Ishmael in director John Huston’s adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1956), co-scripted by Ray Bradbury, and a memorable appearance under heavy makeup as the Sayer of the Law in director Don Taylor’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977). This latter film also featured Nick Cravat as M’Ling, companion to Dr. Moreau, as portrayed by Cravat’s lifelong friend Burt Lancaster. Cravat memorably portrayed the gremlin on the wing of the plane that terrorizes William Shatner in the fifth season Twilight Zone episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”

Like Rod Serling, Richard Basehart narrated documentary films covering such subjects as the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam war, and the salvaging of sunken Spanish galleons, the latter of which, Treasure Galleons (1973), directed by Basehart, also credits Rod Serling as a performer, although I have been unable to view and verify this. Basehart provided the opening narration for the television series Knight Rider, and appeared in the pilot episode as Wilton Knight. Basehart appeared in two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “The Black Curtain,” based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich, from the first season, and “Starring the Defense,” written by Henry Slesar, from the second season. In 1983, Basehart appeared on the sixth season of Tales of the Unexpected, in an adaptation of C.S. Forester’s memorable suspense story, “The Turn of the Tide.” 

            Antoinette Bower (b. 1932), portraying Eve Norda, was born in Germany to a German father and an English mother. She was educated in schools in England, Vienna, and Monte Carlo. Bower moved to Canada in 1953 and began acting on the Canadian stage while also working as a disc jockey in Ontario. She began appearing on Canadian television later in the decade, including an appearance in an adaptation of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Bower landed a role on American television in 1961 while visiting friends, leading to further roles on the American small screen. Bower appeared in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “A Woman’s Help,” scripted by Henry Slesar, from the sixth season, and “The Silk Petticoat,” from the seventh season. Bower also appeared twice on the second season of Boris Karloff’s Thriller, in “The Return of Andrew Bentley,” scripted by Richard Matheson from the story by August Derleth and Mark Schorer, and in Robert Bloch’s “Waxworks.” Bower is perhaps best known for her appearance in the second season episode of Star Trek, “Cat’s Paw,” also scripted by Robert Bloch. Bower also performed in films, including a handful of low-budget thrillers such as Die Sister, Die (1978), Prom Night (1980), and Blood Song (1982). Bower returned to Canada to appear in the television series Neon Rider (1990-1995) before retiring from acting. 

            Harold Gould (1923-2010), portraying General Larrabee, is likely a familiar face due to his long and prolific career as a character actor. Though remembered for his work in comedies and lighter fare, or as father figures, Gould’s career occasionally ventured into stranger territory. Gould got his start on the screen in an uncredited role in Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Man from Planet X (1951). It was not until the 1960s, however, after earning a PhD in theater and a stint teaching at Cornell University, that Gould devoted himself fulltime to acting. He appeared in the second season episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “How to Get Rid of Your Wife,” while also appearing uncredited in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964). Gould later appeared in two episodes of The Ray Bradbury Theater, “To the Chicago Abyss,” from the third season, which earned him an Emmy nomination, and “Colonel Stonesteel and the Desperate Empties,” from the fifth season, based on Bradbury’s 1981 story “Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-Made Truly Egyptian Mummy.” Gould also appeared in “Paradise,” a second season episode of The Outer Limits revival series. 

            Barton Heyman (1937-1996) appears briefly as Lieutenant Blane in the episode. The prolific Heyman also appeared in such horror and suspense films as Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), The Exorcist (1973), Cruising (1980), and Raising Cain (1992).

            “Probe 7, Over and Out” is a well-acted, well-directed episode that is ultimately unsuccessful due to its content being overly familiar without offering any new or significant variations on the material. Although most viewers would likely rate this episode lower than the grade I have given it, I found the episode to be a breezy and engaging drama, lifted beyond its artificial ending by quality acting, directing, and production. It is simply marred by an overused twist ending and does not stand up to comparison with the best of the series. I can recommend the episode to viewers willing to look beyond the twist ending to find enjoyment in Rod Serling’s robust dialogue and two excellent performances from Richard Basehart and Antoinette Bower. 

Grade: C 

Next Time in the Vortex: A review of Rod Serling’s “The 7^th Is Made Up of Phantoms.” Thanks for reading! 

Acknowledgments:

--The Twilight Zone Companion (3^rd ed.) by Marc Scott Zicree (Silman-James, 2018)
--The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, Jr. (OTR, 2008)
­--Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination by Nicholas Parisi (University Press of Mississippi, 2018)
--A Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone by Don Presnell and Marty McGee (McFarland, 1998)
--Audio commentary by Marc Scott Zicree and Ted Post for “Probe 7, Over and Out” (The Twilight Zone: The 5^th Dimension Box Set, 2014)
--Inside The Twilight Zone by Marc Scott Zicree (CBS DVD/Image Entertainment, 1999)
--The Guide to Supernatural Fiction by E.F. Bleiler (Kent State University Press, 1983)
--The Outer Limits Companion by David J. Schow (GNP/Crescendo, 1998)

---Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media by Les Daniels (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975)
--The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4^th ed.) (sf-encyclopedia.com)
--The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org)
--The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) 

Notes: 

--Rod Serling’s teleplay for “Probe 7, Over and Out” was collected in volume 9 of As Timeless as Infinity: The Complete Twilight Scripts of Rod Serling, edited by Tony Albarella (Gauntlet Press, 2012).
--Ted Post directed three additional episodes of the series, “A World of Difference,” from the first season, and “Mr. Garrity and the Graves” and “The Fear,” from the fifth season. Post also directed Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), a sequel to Planet of the Apes (1968), a film co-scripted by Rod Serling.
--“Probe 7, Over and Out” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Louis Gossett, Jr.
--For years, the home video release of the episode included a summary which spoiled part of the episode’s twist ending: “The lone survivors of two annihilated planets become stranded on the same remote world. Together they must begin new lives on this new planet. A planet called Earth.”
--Like many episodes of the series, “Probe 7, Over and Out” features costumes from the film Forbidden Planet (1956), seen in those worn by General Larrabee and Lieutenant Blane.
--“Probe 7, Over and Out” was originally scheduled to follow “Night Call,” which was scheduled to air the previous week on November 22, 1963. “Night Call” was pulled from the air on the day it was scheduled due to media coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Thus, “Probe 7, Over and Out” followed “Uncle Simon” in broadcast order while “Night Call” was rescheduled and appeared later in the fifth season on February 7, 1964. 

-JP