The Odyssey of Flight 33

Routine flight from London to New York City is detoured into the TZ.

For me the ending of this show is one of the most unsettling of the series. All the action takes place aboard the jet, so writer Serling had his work cut out for him. But he does keep our interest glued to the cockpit, even if the 5 man crew seems too cool and detached to be plausible. Still, the captain's (John Anderson's) unflappable reactions keep viewers attention focused on what's happening to the flight instead of the crew's reactions to it. The time travel theme is well-handled, particularly with the sonic shocks that impart an air of believability. There's also a humorous bit of byplay between the passengers reminiscent of the later Airport film series. However, someone should have taken a second look at those jungle miniatures, which must have come from some Z-movie stock footage. All in all, the show makes for a very entertaining, if unsettling, half-hour.

In one of the simplest and yet most effective twilight zones, a passenger jet full of people unexpectedly accelerates to unheard of speeds and suddenly finds itself transported into the distant past. Time travel is one of the few endlessly entertaining storytelling premises, and although this story is presented almost entirely through dialogue, it is still one of the more vintage twilight episodes that I've seen. The first half of the episode is a little too simplistic, if only because we are trying to believe an airplane is travelling at thousands of knots, and yet there is not the slightest bit of vibration or noise in the cockpit. It looks more like they're sitting on the ground on a movie set, which they are.

But when the time travel takes place, I have to think that it had some inspiration on some later time travel movies, most notably the Back to the Future films, given the acceleration to a certain speed and the rather violent shock that accompanies the, uh, temporal displacement, if you will.

The payoff of the show is nothing more than a primitive go-motion dinosaur and some stock footage of the World's Fair in New York (which gives it the feeling that the entire episode was made to fit around that aerial stock footage of the World's Fair like a raindrop around a bit of dust), but this is an excellent example of how a simple idea and some quality writing and performances can make for a highly entertaining half hour. Excellent!

While traveling from London to New York, the pilot and crew of Global Flight 33 discover that the airplane is mysteriously increasing the speed and breaking the sound barrier. Soon they realized that they have traveled in time to the human prehistory. The pilot increases the speed trying to return to 1961, but they learn that they reached New York in 1939. What will they do since they are short of fuel?

"The Odyssey of Flight 33" is an intriguing episode of "The Twilight Zone". Time travel is an attractive theme and Rod Serling writes a great episode with magnificent open conclusion. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Odisséia do Voo 33" ("Odyssey of Flight 33")

"The Twilight Zone" is at its best when a whole bunch of respectable and professional actors/actresses, with straight faces and stern voices, talk dead-serious about the unbelievable supernatural phenomena that overcome them and remain unexplained! Prime example: five men in a cockpit who must acknowledge that their airplane is uncontrollably picking up immense speed while the rest of the flight data readings remain normal. I have very little knowledge about aerial terminology, but apparently Flight 33 goes so fast that it breaks through time barriers and bounces back and forth in history. Although high-rated, this isn't a personal favorite episode of mine, but it's most admirable to see how airline crew members remain calm and professional even during moments when all hope seems vanished and sheer disaster is upon them. I like to believe that this is a realist portrayal of what goes on during REAL crisis and emergency situations up there in the air. Quite recently, in 2014, there was the still unsolved disappearance of Flight MH370, and I imagine that the crew of that airplane was just as heroic and comforting to the passengers as the pilots and cabin crew of this fictional Sci-Fi tale.

Yes that's right, they should have landed somewhere in 1939, perhaps not Idlewild Airport (JFK), but somewhere, find a way to steal some gas...A LOT of gas for that jetliner and then take another shot at the time travel with the supernatural jet stream that time jumps them. Why risk being thrown backwards in time again and continue being low on fuel? And worst comes to worst, 1939 is a better alternative to people from 1960 then prehistoric times. It would have been great to have a sequel episode to this in one of the modern Twilight Zone revamps, with Flight 33 being confused as to why Idlewild airport is now called John F. Kennedy airport.