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(s)
Brian Aherne Pippa Scott Sydney Pollack Dave Willock King Calder Larry J. Blake
Episode chronology

"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.

Plot

Aging Broadway actor Booth Templeton is at home, watching his current wife, Diane Templeton, flirt at poolside with a gigolo. Booth's servant, Marty, comes in with his daily medication, and Booth half-jokingly wonders about what will happen when his pills stop working. Booth notes that he hasn't achieved any contentment, and Marty suggests that he tell the director of his current play that he can't make rehearsal that day. Booth insists on going, however, and admits he can't remember when he ever loved his current wife. He fondly remembers his first wife, Laura, who died after seven years of marriage. Booth reminisces over his happiness with Laura and claims that he is all right.

Booth goes to the theater at noon for the first rehearsal of the new play 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 Sperry informs him that the director has been replaced by up-and-comer Arthur Willis.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 goes in to find Willis declaring to everyone in no uncertain terms that he is in charge. Willis sees Booth entering late and delivers a miniature lecture about the importance of being on time and ready for the first day of rehearsal, ending with a pointed question at Booth about his commitment to the success of the play. Pressured, Booth runs out of the theater, and suddenly finds a crowd of admirers warmly applauding him for his latest performance. Their attire, nearby vehicles, and a play poster inform him that he is inexplicably in 1927, over 30 years in the past.

The play of 1927, The Great Seed, was written by Booth's best friend, the late Barney Flueger. A stagehand tells Booth that his wife is waiting for him with the cast and crew at their usual speakeasy. Hopeful that he will soon see Laura again, Booth runs to the speakeasy, and the owner, Freddie, lets him in. Laura is drinking with Barney and assumes Booth is wearing aging makeup. He wants to talk to her in private about the phenomenon he is experiencing. She refuses, insisting that she just wants to have a good time. As she fans herself with a script, Booth tries to explain what is going on and how his best friend and wife are dead in his time and have been only memories to him for years. They treat him as though he were joking and insist on partying. When Booth professes his love, Laura casually dismisses him and bursts out laughing. When Booth tries to force her into leaving, she slaps him and tells him to go back where he came from. Angry, hurt, and puzzled by Laura's uncharacteristic actions, Booth storms out with Laura's script in hand. As soon as he leaves, the music ceases and everyone is still. Laura and Barney watch his departure with sadness, and the world of the speakeasy goes dark.

Booth runs down the street and back to the theater to find himself back in the present. He notices that the script he is holding is titled What To Do When Booth Comes Back and reads through it to discover that everything that happened in the speakeasy was scripted. Booth realizes that ghosts from his past were putting on a very special encore performance, for him alone, to force him from his ennui and nostalgia for the past and to send him back to live his life in the present with new energy and focus. Sperry and Willis are waiting for him and demand to know if he is there to work. Booth asserts himself, overriding Sperry and demanding a student's obedience from Willis. Impressed, Willis tells Sperry to run along and listens as Booth says that he will someday explain what happened. The rehearsal for the new play proceeds as scheduled.

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

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 are 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."

References

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

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" "The 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"

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