A Stop at Willoughby

This entry very much reflects the button-down collar of the 1950's when success was identified with rising in the corporate world. I suspect Serling was reaching deep within himself with recollections of an uncluttered childhood as contrasted with the pressure of TV advertising surrounding a successful writer-executive.

Daly both looks and acts the junior executive part perfectly. And I like the traveling train as a metaphor for time passage. In a sense, Williams must depart the real world train to find the contentment he seeks. One thing to note – a 30-minute time frame doesn't leave much leeway for character development of supporting players, so Williams' "push, push" boss and grasping wife become shorthand caricatures for the pressures he faces. Nonetheless, it's a particularly poignant entry, deftly handled, with what I suspect is near universal appeal.

Gart Williams is a harried, miserable Madison Avenue ad exec with a social climber of a wife, a relentlessly demanding boss, and an ulcer that won't quit. Riding the commuter train home to Connecticut one evening, he falls asleep and awakens on an 1890's train stopping at "Willoughby," a bucolic village where "a man can live his life full measure." He quickly returns to the present, but can't stop dreaming of the simple life for which he longs in a place where a band plays in the town square and kids carry fishing poles. There is little doubt that, when the pressures of modern day life become truly unbearable, Gart Williams will pay a visit to the place of his dreams. Rod Serling's most personal episode. When I had the privilege of seeing him in person in 1970, he described it, along with "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," as his two personal favorites. The final scene drew multiple gasps from the audience.

I could just feel for this guy. The fifties ad agency where everyone is expected to spend every waking hour working, trying to come up with some insipid slogan or campaign. The bosses yell, the wives demand, the pressure builds. I have to say that this episode makes me tired. That poor man, doing something for which he is not cut out. And the wife, who in the fifties would have expected to be treated to everything in life. Her price: Marrying him. Anyway, somewhere exists this dreamland, this Willoughby, where things are calm and gentle and there is a band playing. Where stress is not a part of the picture. And we can see that this is still something we long for. But where is it? And why is it always summer. Well, if you're a Twilight Zone fan, you know where Willoughby is.

Of all of the episodes from The Twilight Zone it is this one that seems to stick in my mind most - alongside the episode entitled (I think) 'Terror at 10,000ft'.

Why 'A Stopover at Willoughby' should have such an effect on me I can not really say, but there is something about the idea of a place which you have never actually visited yet you know every street, building, shop, person, even the dogs on the streets that appeals to something deep within - maybe a psychological yearning for a place were you are eternally safe and free from worries. I have often had dreams like that and I guess that is what this episode taps into deeply, as do the very best of the rest of this amazing series.

The other thing that has stayed with me after watching this episode - which was some many moons ago! - is the train conductor saying "Willoughby, this is Willoughby...Willoughby, this is Willoughby..." When I am travelling on a bus (and, occasionally, the train) and it is idling at some stop somewhere I find myself saying these words in my head - now there are not many programmes that have the power to last that long in the brain!

The really sad thing is the comment someone made that A Stop at Willoughby is dull. It may have moments where the victim is simply sitting on the train, with little happening, but I think this is the point. After years apparently dealing with Mr. Misrell, anyone would wish for peace and a slowed down environment. I guess everyone is entitled to their personal opinion. But, certainly, anyone who would truly see the episode for the first time, would be blown away by the ending. Dull, this I don't understand. The idea is extremely relevant today, in our hyper-speed society, where people get mad if a car honks at them for driving bad while text messaging. I think we don't come close to smelling the flowers often enough.