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Upon his arrival home, he sits and listens to Handel’s Messiah, on the radio.

The fact that the Headmaster informs the Professor that he will still make half salary for the remainder of his life, does nothing to quell the gut wrenching news he has just received. According to the Headmaster, new, younger men, with fresh ideas, need to be brought in to replace someone like Professor Fowler. What the professor fails to realize, until he truly listens to what the Headmaster has to say, is that he has not received a letter asking him if he is going to return, but a termination letter. The school, apparently, only has their educators sign contracts for one year of teaching at a time. The yes, he believes he is giving to the Headmaster, is that he will return to teach the following year. Fowler admits to being behind on his mail, but that his answer is yes. He is wondering why Professor Fowler has not responded to the letter sent to him by the Board of Trustees of the school. In route to exiting the building, the professor is stopped by the Headmaster of the school (Liam Sullivan), and asked to step into his office. After Pleasence’s character is finished teaching class, he gives his student’s a holiday present by informing them that they have all passed. The episode begins on the last afternoon of the semester, three days before Christmas. The viewer learns that Professor Fowler has been teaching literature at the Rock Spring School For Boys in Vermont for the past fifty-one years. In this instance that question is – what would someone who loved their profession, if not more than, than equal to anything else in their life, do if suddenly they were forced out of their line of work?įacing what he feels is an incomprehensible dilemma, is Professor Ellis Fowler, portrayed in a very effective manner by Emmy nominated and BAFTA winner, Donald Pleasence (The Great Escape). As with many episodes of the “Twilight Zone” there is an essential question being asked at its core. Directed by Robert Ellis Miller (Reuben, Reuben), the episode originally aired on June 1, 1962. I had initially planned for this blog to be in the same posting with the episode, “The Trade-Ins,” but felt that the blog would have been way too long for one posting if it contained both episodes. Those words spoken by “Twilight Zone” creator, Rod Serling, who also wrote this season three episode, titled “The Changing of the Guard,” offers the viewer a bit of insight as to what is to come. “Professor Ellis Fowler, a gentle, bookish guide to the young, who is about to discover that life still has certain surprises, and that the campus of the Rock Springs School for Boys lies on a direct path to another institution, commonly referred to as the Twilight Zone.”