May 6, 1960
173-3629
Riding home on the train one day, a man falls asleep and dreams it is 1880, and he is entering a small town called Willoughby.
Read Full Recap » (warning: possible spoilers!)Great piece of work! hide show
It is a dream of every one to find their little piece of utopia. To see a man get treated like a work horse and a money hungry wife who just keeps pushing him to be some one he is not made me so angry at her. Oh how I wanted to reach in the screen and strangle her. The icing on it was when he needed her the most and she hung up on him!
That so called boss would have me breaking things to!
This episode will have your emotions pulled every which way. This is a great episode!
While riding the train home from work, ad executive Gart Williams dreams of a town named Willoughby, where the pressures and difficulties of life do not exist and a person can live the easy life. As things get bad at his job, Gart's dreams continue. hide show
This is an episode of "The Twilight Zone" that I'm sure a great many people can relate to. Which one of us has not wished for a life where our stress levels and sanity are not pushed to the limit? One of the many highlights of this episode is the character development. The viewer does feel for Gart Williams as his demanding and uncaring boss pressures him more and more each day. Having had a boss at a previous job who was just as bad (but obviously did not drive me to suicide) helped me to relate to Gart's situation.
Utopia,Xanadu,Shangra-la,Brigadoon....and Wiloughby!! hide show
I thought this episode was about me personally it speaks so much to the heart. Excellently conceived ,written and executed,,Gart Williams is an everyman who mirrors that part of everyone that needs to find that one place in the world(or out of this world) where he can be REALLY happy. I'm not sure if women feel this way also but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. James Daly conveys the stress and tension of life expertly, and at the end you really and fervently wish that he has found his Eden. By far my favorite Twilight Zone episode and that is saying something because TZ is so consistantlly great!
Gart Williams, who always takes the train from his demanding job, dreams of a place called Willoughby. It is not long before Williams wants to live there. hide show
The story is gripping and quite simple to grasp yet it has an appeal about it. Its main theme is the theory of refuge in a man's mind, and the protagonist manufactures a town called Willoughby. The audience feels considerable pathos for lead Gart Williams, played immaculately by James Daly, sandwiched between his relentless boss and beyond ambitious wife. He is being consumed by his stressful job and stomach ulcer, thus Willoughby was born. This town is William's heaven because it is some eighty years ago, and a carefree nature is in practice. It is a very sad story, not just for the obvious reason at the climax, but for the fact that Williams was born in a world where he is crying out for help, yet it is falling on deaf ears. The only person to take pity on Williams are the train conductors (real and manufactured) whom represents man's innocence and friendliness, while keeping a formality of his work. Overall 'A Stop at Willoughby' is 'The Twilight Zone' at its very best, because it is thought provoking and as Serling says in his closing narration: 'Maybe (Willoughby) is wishful thinking, nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind...'
We all are overly busy with work, we work so many hour a day, but the trouble with this overly busy reality is it makes our personal lives suffer. It makes areas that need the most nourishment and attention weak, and if we don't take enough time to smell the roses then like any plant that has no sunlight it will die. This is one of my favorate stories because it taps into a common deep seeded emotion we all possess, to get away to a promise land.
We feel a sense of pathos for the protagonist Gart when we get a glimpse of his contemporary modern day reality. On the outside he's a sucessful businessman but on the inside we see he's soulfully broken and has finally reached his breaking point when a jerk at the workplace pushes the wrong button making Gart outburst during a meeting, which puts him a risk of getting fired.
We also look into his home life, which isn't any better the home life is hardly what would be called a santurary. As we see his wife who we don't like is self absorbed and drunk with vanity, obviously doesn't take enough time to really listen and understand him, and also doesn't really love him is probably using him for his money.
From all that crap he is taking he somehow opens the door to a promise land in his mind. Which looks like early 18 century America when the country was still young, simple and anything was still possible. It has all the joys and conforts of his childhood and desires from the customs like fishing, exploring, home cooked meals, you name it.
In a way we see this episode is a metaphor for many things from mid-life crisis as well as our common desire and pursuit for a promise land in a reality that gets stressfully and boringly complicated.
As the promise land unfolds we seem him examining his own life, questioning whether the life he is living now is really the one he really desired. He see that even though he has a lot of money, house, beautiful wife, fancy car and all of the other goodies they haven't made him happy, nor has the bussiness he works for. You can see from little moment and expression of emotion in some place whenever the subject of his job is brought up, he shows signs of sadness and anger toward himself, he obviously hates his job probably never wanted that carrer in the first place.
This knowledge of his whole life has made him realize his whole sucessful life is a lie and is in reality a prison. And of course we see he is soulfully bankrupt and has lost all hope that a promise land does exist in our contemporary reality somewhere leading toward an ending that gives you both a cold and sad feeling.
We all do have a promise land it does exist in our contemporary reality, we just need to be willing to work and look hard enough for it. And eventually our promise land is a reality.
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