The Internet Time Travel Database
Serling wrote this script based on a George Clayton Johnson’s bare bones, present-tense
treatment for a TV script, complete with an indication of where the commercial break should
go. For this episode, Serling filled in the flesh and cut the fat
from a bare bones, present-tense treatment by George Clayton
Johnson. The treatment appeared in Johnson’s 1977 retrospective
collection of scripts and stories, and in Volume 9 of Serling’s
collected Twilight Zone scripts, Johnson commented that “Rod took my idea and
went off to the races with it. He had a remarkable knowledge of what would and wouldn’t
work on television, and he took everything that wouldn’t work out of ‘Execution’. He
worked like a surgeon; a little snip here, a complete amputation over there, move this bone
into place, graft over that one. When he was done, my little story had grown into a
television script that lived and breathed on its own.” Serling also added a nice twist at
the end that, for us, warranted the TV episode an Eloi Honorable Mention.
Rod Serling wrote this script based on a 1960
Twilight Zone episode of the same name, but I’m uncertain whether the story was
published before Johnson’s 1977 retrospective collection.
Caswell: I wanna see if there are things out there like you
described to me. Carriages without horses and the buildings that rise to—
Professor Manion: They’re out there, Caswell. . .
. Things you can’t imagine.
1 English variant