Back There

"Back There" is the 49th episode of The Twilight Zone.

Episode Details[]

Opening Narration[]

"Witness a theoretical argument, Washington, D.C., the present. Four intelligent men talking about an improbable thing like going back in time. A friendly debate revolving around a simple issue: could a human being change what has happened before? Interesting and theoretical, because who ever heard of a man going back in time? Before tonight, that is, because this is - The Twilight Zone. "

Episode Summary[]

On April 14, 1961, young engineer Peter Corrigan is involved in a discussion with colleagues at the Potomac Club on the question of whether events in history could be changed if time travel were possible. After bumping into an attendant named William on the way out, Peter feels faint. Confused by the gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages on the street, he notices that he's wearing clothes of a much older style and decides to walk home. He finds that his "home" is a boarding house, and in discussion with the strangers he meets there, he discovers that it's April 14, 1865, the day of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

Peter rushes to Ford's Theatre to warn everyone but is arrested for disturbing the peace. The police presume him to be a Union soldier under emotional distress. After being held in the police station a short time, he is released into the custody of a man named Jonathan Wellington. Peter continues to implore Wellington and anyone else he can find to do something to warn and protect the president. Mr. Wellington offers Peter a drink, and immediately afterwards, Peter realizes that he has been drugged, presumably because Wellington doesn't believe him and wants him quiet.

After Wellington's exit, Peter crawls to the door, but he passes out before he can warn anyone else. When someone comes in and rouses him, he notices that the handkerchief left behind by "Wellington" bears the initials JWB. John Wilkes Booth himself had drugged him to prevent any interference in fulfilling his mission. As he hears the crowd outside spreading the news that the president has just been shot, Peter realizes it is too late. He was unable to change the past.

Peter runs out and finds that he is back in 1961. Unable to explain the shift in time but knowing that he will now be in familiar surroundings, he returns to the Potomac Club and asks for William. His request for an attendant named William is met with only confusion. Back at the table with his colleagues, he finds that the scholarly discussion has moved from time travel to a new topic of how to gain wealth and William is at the table participating. When this "new" man of distinction is asked, he reveals that he inherited his wealth from his great-grandfather, a policeman who had insisted despite all opposition that there was an assassination attempt on the president that evening. He had been the only person to believe Peter, and made a name for himself by trying to stop the assassination, went on to become chief of police, then a councilman, and then a millionaire by investing in real estate.

For Peter, the question of whether past events are unchangeable via time travel is no longer speculation. He states that some events can be changed, and others can't. Overwhelmed by all that has happened, Peter steps aside to wipe his brow with his handkerchief and notices the initials: JWB.

Closing Narration[]

"Mr. Peter Corrigan, lately returned from a place 'back there,' a journey into time with highly questionable results, proving on one hand that the threads of history are woven tightly, and the skein of events cannot be undone, but on the other hand, there are small fragments of tapestry that can be altered. Tonight's thesis to be taken, as you will - in The Twilight Zone."

Preview for Next Week's Story[]

This, in the parlance of the 20th century, is a used car lot - a graveyard of some active ghosts who, by virtue of some exceptional salesmanship and an Indian rubber stretching of the truth, remain as commodities in a world that, by rights, they should have left generations ago. Mr. Jack Larson plays the role of a larceny-loaded con man suddenly prevented from telling a falsehood. Next week on The Twilight Zone, a most bizarre tale that we call "The Whole Truth".

Trivia[]

"Back There" was adapted as a short story in one of the Twilight Zone anthology books except it had a different ending. Instead of a handkerchief, Corrigan found the only unused ticket from Ford's Theatre.

Production Companies[]

Cayuga Productions
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (in association with)

Distributors[]

Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1959) (USA) (TV) (original airing)

Home media release[]

This episode is included on the Image Entertainment Vol. 22 DVD along with "A World of Difference", "One More Pallbearer" and "Ring-a-Ding Girl".

External Links[]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734556/

v • e The Twilight Zone (original series) 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" • "Eye of the Beholder" • "Nick of Time" • "The Lateness of the Hour" • "The Trouble With Templeton" • "A Most Unusual Camera" • "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" • "Death's 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"