Original subtitles

You're traveling through another dimension-

a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.

A journey into a wondrous land

whose boundaries are that of imagination.

That's the signpost up ahead.

Your next stop, the twilight zone.

When was that picture taken?

Why, i don't think i remember, my dear.

You're looking at that album again?

It seems like that's all you do lately

is look at that album.

When was that picture taken?

Oh, it's a lovely picture of you, nelda.

Thank you, ma'am.

Let's see. That was taken the summer

after dr. Loren retired from the laboratory.

You're holding those lovely yellow roses

that jensen planted for us.

You don't look any different now

than you did then.

That's kind of you, miss jana.

Jana, nelda will put that away for you.

That's all right, father.

I'd like to put it away myself.

You're not chilly, are you, jana, dear?

Shouldn't be.

72 degrees in here.

Isn't it, william?

Isn't it 72 degrees?

Exactly. The optimum temperature.

Of course. The optimum temperature.

And the fireplace- designed for perfect heat radiation.

The chairs, for maximum comfort.

And the windows

for the most efficient light, and proper ventilation.

Oh, yes, and the ceilings

for the most desirable acoustical qualities.

Everything built to perfection, father.

Everything designed

for a perfect life.

Oh, please continue, nelda.

That's it.

Haven't you had enough of that, mother?

Why, jana, dear

you know it helps my appetite.

Almost 6:00.

Nearly time for dinner.

Why don't we eat a little bit earlier tonight?

Or a little bit later?

Why don't we go out to a restaurant?

A restaurant?

Why, jana, my dear,

why in the world would we go out to eat

in a restaurant?

I don't know.

It's just that it would be different.

Yes, it would be different.

We'd walk through the rain

and get ourselves sopping wet.

Then we'd eat some greasy, unpalatable food

served off of dirty, unwashed plates

and after that it would be a moot question

whether we'd succumb to ptomaine or pneumonia.

Will that be all, ma'am?

Oh, just a little bit longer, nelda.

Don't make her do that anymore!

What is the matter with you?

It's just that outside there must be

the clean, beautiful sound of rain.

And in here

those constant animal grunts of pleasure.

Jana!

Yell at me, father.

Please yell at me.

I can't tell you how delighted i am to hear you yell at me.

It proves that you've got lungs.

Lungs and a mind and a mouth and a voice.

Oh, father, we're atrophying in here.

We sit here day after day

and year after year

while that clock turns and turns.

And we decay with every minute

while nelda the maid and robert the butler

and gretchen the cook and jensen the handyman...

jana!

While these domestics do everything

but our breathing for us.

Nelda, will you leave us, please?

Yes, sir.

Nelda!

I'm speaking to you, nelda.

Yes, miss jana?

Don't you agree with me, nelda?

You were saying, miss jana?

I was about to say that...

i was about to make mention of the fact...

please don't stop on my account, jana.

We have no secrets here.

Don't we?

No secrets. Is that it, father?

Why, that's all we do have- secrets.

That's how we live-

by shutting off the world,

turning our backs on it,

while you soundless, fleshless things glide around here

and, with your efficient ministrations,

turn my father and my mother into jelly.

If i may say so, miss jana,

you sound jealous.

You said yourself, jana,

that i designed and built to perfection,

and i made these people quite indestructible.

It's like living with ghosts.

Oh, no, my dear. Not ghosts.

Ghosts are those who have died after living,

but these people had no life

until i gave it to them.

The residence of dr. William loren,

which is, in reality, a menagerie for machines.

We're about to discover

that sometimes the product of man's talent and genius

can walk amongst us untouched by the normal ravages of time.

These are dr. Loren's robots,

built to function as well as artistic perfection.

But, in a moment, dr. William loren, wife and daughter

will discover that perfection is relative-

that even robots have to be paid for-

and very shortly will be shown exactly what is the bill.

Tonight, florient unscented,

the new kind of room deodorant

that kills bad odors yet leaves no fragrance,

brings you...

ah. I believe i'll take the meerschaum tonight, robert.

I'll prepare it, sir.

Will there be anything else, dr. Loren?

I think not tonight, robert.

Good night, sir.

Good night, robert.

Oh, uh... robert?

There's no need.

I'll light your pipe tonight, father.

Well, jana, shall we talk of it now?

Shall we talk of what?

Why, i think that's quite obvious.

Suddenly, inexplicably,

your mother and i find you're unhappy.

You're rebellious.

Do you think that pleases us, jana?

I don't know.

I explained to you a long time ago

why i did what i did-

why i retired from the world,

and why i built these people.

What you've done to yourselves

is an atrocity.

But what you've done to me is worse.

You've turned me into a freak-

an unsocial, unworldly, insulated freak.

Shall i tell you

what else i've done for you, jana?

I've kept you from harm.

I've protected you against disease.

And insulation in this 20th century is no crime.

It's a service.

You've never had to look into the face of war

or the face of poverty or prejudice.

Well, you've been isolated, yes,

but what you think of as imprisonment

just happens to be asylum and security, yes, and survival.

Asylum in a hothouse?

Security in a mausoleum?

Survival as a vegetable survives.

What you're becoming,

and what you're making me become...

a vegetable.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Oh.

Now, madam.

There's a good girl.

Will that be all, ma'am?

Yes. Thank you, nelda. Good night.

Good night, ma'am.

Nelda!

Time is running out, father.

Instead of controlling, you're being controlled.

Why, you're becoming dependent.

You're both reaching a point

where you won't be able to exist without them.

Destroy them, father.

Get rid of them.

Dismantle them.

Jana!

Jana, they're not just machines.

Do you know how many thousands of hours

i've spent in developing them

and perfecting them?

Do you realize how... how marvelously intricate they are?

How scientifically precise?

Not just arms and legs that move, jana.

They're creatures.

They have minds and wills.

They have memory tracks, you see?

I've given each one of them a memory of his own, haven't i?

Yes.

And all of them can recount to you in detail

everything that's happened to them

since their early childhood,

and they had no childhood.

They were born just as you see them now, weren't they?

Yes.

Looking the way they do, acting the way they do,

but each with his own talent.

One of them was built as a cook.

Another was built as a maid.

The butler was manufactured as a butler.

The handyman knows nothing but being a handyman.

Jana, you're not asking me to dismantle machines.

You're asking me

to destroy that which has life.

Life?

They're just highly complicated toys.

Father, you've turned this house

into a playroom.

Why, jana, dear.

Listen to your mother.

You're acting like a willful child.

A willful child?

I'm acting like a woman, mother,

who wants something more out of life

than just to be massaged five times a day.

Or a man who thinks paradise

is having his pipes filled and refilled,

and his slippers put on and taken off.

You've got to get rid of them, father-

nelda, gretchen, suzanne- all of them.

That is quite impossible.

I'll give you a choice-

get rid of them or i'll leave.

You can't leave, jana, dear.

Why, you simply can't leave.

Well, what would happen to you?

Who'd look after you?

What would you do out there?

I'd be with normal people, mother-

people who live and work and then die-

but do it properly, the way god intended.

That's where i want to be- out there!

I want my freedom.

Jana, it just isn't possible.

I want my freedom!

Miss jana, you'll forgive me

but that was most intemperate of you.

I consider that unforgivable behavior.

Jana, you must have respect for your parents.

I agree. You must show respect.

Stop it!

You're jokes.

That's what you are.

Hysterical jokes,

with your sad little homilies and your mouthed cliches.

You're nothing but walking record players.

That's all any of you are-

walking record players.

Jana, you're making it difficult

for me to be patient.

Very difficult indeed.

I do apologize, father.

I know how accustomed to perfection you are,

and i hate to throw a stone in that serene pool of yours,

but you forgot something.

Do you know that? You forgot something.

They may be indestructible, father, but you're not!

Jana.

Jana, dear, you don't really

want to leave us, do you?

I thought i made it quite plain, father.

I want you to open the windows

and let the air in.

I want you to let the world in.

By destroying my whole life's work.

Jana, we've loved you very much.

If you could only see

that all of this has been just as much for you

as for ourselves.

Oh, jana, we love you more than words can tell.

I know that, father.

I know that.

Then... then you will stay.

Oh, please stay, jana.

I beg of you, please.

No.

Jana, i'll do what you asked me to do.

I promise you.

I'll do it right away.

Nelda, gretchen, suzanne- all of you-

rest in peace.

Robert. Sir?

I want you to take all the servants

downstairs to my workroom.

Just stay there until i come.

Have our services been unsatisfactory, sir?

Robert, i have given you an order.

You are, all of you, to go downstairs

and wait for me.

But i've been an excellent butler, sir.

You know i have. I think you'll agree with me.

I came very well- recommended, sir.

There isn't a more efficient maid

in the entire country.

I can fix anything that has to be fixed.

No more!

Robert, you have your orders.

It's all over.

We're alone in the house now.

Alone, william?

Yes, my dear. Quite alone.

You and i and our daughter.

I've become so accustomed to them.

It'll be difficult at first,

won't it, william?

Yes, my dear, a little, in the beginning.

Oh, mother.

We're going to live like normal people

do you understand?

Normal people.

We're going to give parties

and we'll take trips and we'll make friends

and i'll find a young man.

I'll find a young man and, before you know it,

we're going to have grandchildren.

Oh, father, grandchildren.

What's the matter?

What is it?

It's what you said about grandchildren.

You see, what your mother means, jana...

what she means is it's perfectly normal and natural

for parents to think of their children

as children.

And then, when suddenly they grow up

and they talk of having children of their own,

it's a little difficult for parents

to absorb quite so quickly.

Something's not right.

Something's not right.

Something's not right.

What is it?

Why aren't any of my pictures in the photo albums?

There are no pictures of me here at all.

Jana, dear, there are many pictures of you.

Here's a picture of you at easter.

Why, there are pictures of you

decorating the christmas tree last year.

Not as a little girl, mother.

There are no pictures of me

as a little girl.

Pictures of you and father and the robots.

Always pictures of the robots-

10 years ago, 20 years ago-

but no pictures of me. Why?

I want you to tell me why.

Why?

It's not true.

Oh, it couldn't be true.

Please tell me it's not true.

Jana...

you are our daughter- you know you're our daughter-

and you remember everything from your childhood.

You remember the schools you went to,

the children you played with,

and you remember all the places you went to.

You do remember them, jana?

You've got to.

Why have i got to remember them?

Because you fed them to me?

A memory track.

What am i?

Oh, please, tell me what i am.

It doesn't make any difference.

It doesn't make any difference at all, jana.

We were childless.

We had nothing of our flesh to leave behind-

nothing of our hearts, nothing of our love.

So, you see...

we got you.

You made me.

You built me.

You manufactured me.

Of course, the maid was built as a maid,

the butler manufactured as a butler,

and the cook and the handyman, all for a particular purpose.

And the daughter...

you built a daughter!

Jana, i created you as a thing of love.

It doesn't matter what you are

or how you got here.

You're our daughter.

Jana, you've got to understand that.

You're our daughter.

I can't be your daughter.

I'm a thing.

I'm a machine.

A machine!

Jana, jana.

No pain.

No pain at all!

No pain.

Jana, stop it!

No pain.

No love.

I can't even feel love.

Oh!

William, what will we do?

Everything's changed now.

She'll never be the same.

What will we do, william?

William, you wouldn't.

No, i couldn't do anything like that.

I couldn't stand not having her here anymore.

I just couldn't stand that.

Jana, jana, jana...

just a little to the left, nelda.

Not quite so hard.

Of course, mrs. Loren, of course.

Should you be worn out

by the rigors of competing in a very competitive world,

if you're distraught from having to share your existence

with the noises and neuroses of the 20th century,

if you crave serenity

but want it full-time and with no strings attached,

get yourself a workroom in the basement,

and then drop a note to dr. And mrs. William loren.

They're a childless couple

who've made comfort a life's work,

and maybe there are a few do-it-yourself pamphlets

still available in the twilight zone.

Rod serling, creator ofthe twilight zone,

will tell you about next week's story

after this word from our alternate sponsor.

And now, mr. Serling.

An attractive and rather imposing room

lived in by a man named templeton.

And, like most rooms, suggestive, really,

of only a part of the man- the outside part.

Our story next week takes off from here.

Mr. Brian aherne lends us his considerable talents

in a script by e. Jack neuman

called "the trouble with templeton."

It can best be described as poignant, provocative,

and a highly-diverting trip into the twilight zone.

Captioned by media access group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org

be sure and see the colgate-palmolive company's

new comedy show my sister eileen

wednesday night on many of these same stations.