George Clayton Johnson

writer
TV Episode

The Twilight Zone (v1s01e26)

Execution


Back in the 1880s, just after a man without conscience is dropped from a lone tree with a rope around his neck, a scientist pulls him into 20th-century New York City.

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. —Michael Main
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.
Dressed in a tie and black jacket, and holding his trademarked cigarette, Rod
                Serling stands in front of a time machine.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Weird Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Twilight Zone [s1e30] (treatm.ent)

Execution


Back in the Old West, just after outlaw Jason Black is dropped from a lone tree with a rope around his neck, two scientists pull him into the 20th century. The story isn’t your typical short story; instead, it’s a treatment that Johnson presented to Rod Serling for a Twilight Zone episode that aired on 1 April 1960.
Listen to me. There is a strange world outside that door. Without us to help you, anything can happen to you. This is the twentieth century, don’t you understand?
|pending alt-text|
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Fantasy
  • Weird Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel