The Trouble with Templeton

"**The Trouble with Templeton**"
"The Trouble with Templeton"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 2; Episode 9
Directed by	Buzz Kulik
Written by	E. Jack Neuman
Featured music	Jeff Alexander
Production code	173-3649
Original air date	December 9, 1960
Guest appearance
	Brian Aherne Pippa Scott; Sydney Pollack; Dave Willock; King Calder; Larry J. Blake; ;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "The Lateness of the Hour"	Next →; "A Most Unusual Camera"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 2)
	List of episodes

"The Trouble with Templeton" is episode 45 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on December 9, 1960 on CBS.

Opening narration

Pleased to present for your consideration, Mr. Booth Templeton; serious and successful star of over thirty Broadway plays, who is not quite all right today. Yesterday and its memories is what he wants, and yesterday is what he'll get. Soon his years and his troubles will descend on him in an avalanche. In order not to be crushed Mr. Booth Templeton will escape from his theater and his world, and make his debut on another stage, in another world, that we call the Twilight Zone.

Plot

Aging Broadway actor Booth Templeton is at home, watching his much-younger wife, Doris^[1], flirting with a gigolo at his backyard swimming pool. Booth's butler Marty comes in with his daily medication, and Booth half-jokingly wonders what will happen when his pills stop working and he dies.

He notes that he hasn't achieved any contentment with his wife and fondly reminisces over his happiness with Laura, his first wife, who died after seven years of marriage.

Marty suggests that Booth tell the director of his new play that he can't make the first day of rehearsal, but Booth insists on going.

He arrives at the theater late and meets Sid Sperry, the play's unctuous financial backer. Sperry informs him that the director has been replaced by up-and-comer Arthur Willis. Booth enters to see Willis announcing to everyone in no uncertain terms that he is in charge and that everyone will do what he says. He lectures the cast about punctuality and discipline, implies that the distinguished Booth is no more important than any of the other players, and ends with a pointed question to him about his commitment to the play.

Pressured and desperately unhappy, Booth runs out the stage door, and finds a crowd of admirers applauding him for his latest performance. Their attire, nearby vehicles, a play poster, and a stagehand all inform him that he is inexplicably in 1927—more than 30 years in the past.

The poster says that "1927's Big Hit!", The Great Seed, was written by Booth's best friend, Barney Flueger. The stagehand tells Booth that his wife is waiting for him at the speakeasy around the corner.

Eager to see Laura again, Booth runs to the speakeasy, and the owner, Freddie, lets him in. Laura is drinking beer with Barney and assumes Booth is wearing aging makeup. He wants to talk to her in private about their relationship and the phenomenon he is experiencing. She refuses, insisting that she just wants to have a good time. She then ignores him and fans herself with a script, which Booth snatches and puts in his jacket pocket.

He tries to explain that he is from the future and that they are both dead in his time and have been only memories to him for years. They treat him as though he is joking or crazy, and insist on partying instead. When Booth objects, Laura says "What did you expect?" Barney adds, "Yes, old chap, what did you expect?"

Booth seriously professes his love, but Laura bursts out laughing. When Booth tries to force her into leaving with him, she slaps him and tells him, "Go back where you came from; we don't want you here."

Confused, hurt and puzzled by Laura's hostility, Booth storms out. As soon as he leaves, the music suddenly ceases mid-song and everyone stops moving. The room becomes dark, with light only on Laura and Barney. Laura steps forward and Barney fades into the darkness. Alone, she stares sadly at the door of the bar. Then she too, fades into the blackness and the world of the past disappears forever.

Booth runs to the theater and reenters the stage door. Suddenly, he is back in the present. He fans himself with Laura's script, and notices that it is for a play titled What to Do When Booth Comes Back. Flipping through it, he discovers that everything in the speakeasy was scripted.

Booth realizes that ghosts from his past were putting on a performance for him, to force him from his paralyzing nostalgia for the past and instead, live his life in the present with new enthusiasm and focus.

Sperry and Willis are waiting for him and demand to know if he is there to work or not. Booth asserts himself, dismissing Sperry and demanding respect from Willis. The rehearsal begins, with Booth now happily paying attention to where he is instead of desperately and helplessly yearning for the dead past.

Closing narration

Mr. Booth Templeton, who shared with most human beings the hunger to recapture the past moments, the ones that soften with the years. But in his case, the characters of his past blocked him out and sent him back to his own time, which is where we find him now. Mr. Booth Templeton, who had a round-trip ticket - into The Twilight Zone.

Cast

Brian Aherne as Booth Templeton
Pippa Scott as Laura Templeton
Sydney Pollack as Arthur Willis
Dave Willock as Marty
King Calder as Sid Sperry
Larry J. Blake as Freddie
David Thursby as Eddie
Charles S. Carlson as Barney Flueger

References

^ DeSapio, Michael Martin. Twilight Zone Museum. http://twilightzonemuseum.com/media/templeton.php

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

[1] DeSapio, Michael Martin. Twilight Zone Museum. http://twilightzonemuseum.com/media/templeton.php

[1]

v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"