In His Image

This article is about an episode of The Twilight Zone. For the novel, see In His Image (novel).

"In His Image"
The Twilight Zone episode
Alan discovers that he is a robot.
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 103
Directed by	Perry Lafferty
Written by	Charles Beaumont (From his short story.)
Production code	4851
Original air date	January 3, 1963
Guest actors
George Grizzard: Alan Talbot/Walter Ryder Jr. Gail Kobe: Jessica Connelly Katherine Squire: Old Woman Wallace Rooney: Man James Seay: Sheriff George O. Petrie: Driver

"In His Image" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone aired on January 3, 1963. This was the first episode of the fourth season. Each episode was expanded to an hour (with commercials) from In His Image until The Bard. The fourth season is the only season of The Twilight Zone to have each episode one hour long.

Opening narration

What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn't – it's the beginning. Although Alan Talbot doesn't know it, he's about to enter a strange new world, too incredible to be real, too real to be a dream. It's called The Twilight Zone.

Plot

Alan Talbot seems to be an average man leading a normal life. He falls in love with a woman named Jessica Connelly. One day, he starts hearing strange noises that give him headaches and the urge to kill. He throws a religious fanatic under a train.

He takes Jessica to visit his hometown, but his memory seems to betray him. Nothing in the town is as he remembers. While seeking answers, he comes face to face with his double. It turns out that he is an android created by Walter Ryder in his own image, provided with Walter's memories from twenty years before. Walter has been trying to create a less flawed image of himself with mixed success. Alan is the third such creation, and has been "living" for only eight days. Alan is mentally flawed and can't be fixed; when Walter explains this to him, Alan stabs Walter with a pair of scissors and escapes.

Finally accepting the truth, Alan returns to Walter and tells him about Jessica. Alan wants Walter to replace him with a properly functioning android who will love and care for Jessica, but after seeing a religious pamphlet on which Alan write Jessica's address for Walter, Alan malfunctions again and tries to kill Walter. After the struggle, the survivor goes to Jessica and asks her to marry him. In the final scene, it is revealed that the survivor is Walter and that Alan's broken form lies amid the wreckage of the laboratory where he was "born".

Closing narration

In a way, it can be said that Walter Ryder succeeded in his life's ambition, even though the man he created was, after all, himself. There may be easier ways to self-improvement, but sometimes it happens that the shortest distance between two points is a crooked line – through the Twilight Zone.

Allusions

The opening sequence between Alan Talbot and the old woman is sampled in the song, The Seer, The Poet by Killah Priest.

Sources

• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

• "In His Image" at IMDb