Story by David Gerrold
 
Directed by Phil DeGuere
 
Original Airdate - April 11, 1986
 
Starring:    
 
Victor Garber - Dr. Kevin Carlson
Stacey Nelkin - Faith Carlson
Jeff Morrow - H. C. Orson
John Agar - Pops
Kenneth Tobey - Sheriff
Warren Stevens - Major Whitmore
Richard Partlow - Sargeant
Myles O'Brien - Young Man

 

  
Story:
     

Two young lovers, driving through the desert, see a spaceship land. They report the spaceship to the sheriff of Beaumont, the nearest town, but no one believes them. That's because the whole town has been taken over by aliens. They continue to press, but are captured and taken to the ship, where they are changed back into the aliens they have always been. They had become much too human in their new skin.

 

 

This is a weak entry in an otherwise stellar first season. The two lovers are not convincing, even though Victor Garber is an extremely capable actor. Stacy Nelkin just looks surprised through the entire production.

The only interesting aspect of this episode is the pantheon of old sci-fi film actors they've used in the cast, since it's basically an homage to the sci-fi films of the 1950s. Kenneth Tobey (one of my all-time favorite actors, from 1951's classic "The Thing from Another World"; "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms"; "It Came from Beneath the Sea"; etc.), John Agar ("Zontar, the Thing from Venus"; "Tarantula"; "The Mole People"; etc.), Warren Stevens ("Forbidden Planet" and a host of other sci-fi and mainstream films, as well as the original Twilight Zone episode "Dead Man's Shoes"), and Jeff Morrow ("This Island Earth"; "The Giant Claw", etc., and also another actor from an original Twilight Zone, "Elegy"). They were truly great to see, and it shows how much reverence the people who made the new Twilight Zone had for the classics of the genre.