The Parallel

"The Parallel" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Synopsis

An astronaut, Major Robert Gaines, is orbiting the Earth in his space capsule. However, at one point the systems malfunction and he blacks out, waking up on Earth. He appears to be none the worse for his experiences, and is released to the custody of his family.

However, inconsistencies quickly pop up. His own daughter senses he is not the same person, his house has a white picket fence he's never seen (even though his wife stated they had it when they bought the house), everyone keeps calling him Colonel (confirmed by the rank insignia on his uniform) when he knows he's a Major, and he insists the President of the United States is John F. Kennedy — a man nobody else around him has ever heard of. Gaines concludes that he's slipped into a parallel universe and tries to return to his space capsule, but blacks out again before he can do so.

He immediately finds himself back in orbit, and lands his craft safely. He is prepared to write the whole thing off as a nightmare, but controllers on the ground subsequently receive another transmission — from Colonel Robert Gaines…

References

• Sander, Gordon F.:Serling: The Rise And Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition).
• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear......
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