Mirror Image (The Twilight Zone)

"Mirror Image"
The Twilight Zone episode
Vera Miles as Millicent Barnes
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 21
Directed by	John Brahm
Written by	Rod Serling
Production code	173-3623
Original air date	February 26, 1960
Guest appearance(s)
Vera Miles Martin Milner Joe Hamilton Naomi Stevens
Episode chronology

"Mirror Image" is episode 21 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on February 26, 1960 on CBS.

Opening narration

“

Millicent Barnes, age 25. Young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Ms. Barnes: not given to undue anxiety, or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fantasy. Like most young career women, she has generic classification as a quote "girl with her head on her shoulders" end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Ms. Barnes' shoulders will be put to a test: circumstances will assault her sense of reality and chain of nightmares will put her sanity in a block. Millicent Barnes who, in one minute, will wonder if she's going mad.

”

Plot

A young woman named Millicent Barnes is waiting in a bus depot in Ithaca, New York, for a bus to Cortland, en route to a new job. Upon looking at a wall clock she notices the bus is late. She walks up to the ticket counter to ask the ticket agent when the bus will arrive, and he gruffly replies that this is her third time there. Millicent denies this. While speaking with the ticket agent, she notices a bag just like hers in the luggage pile behind her. She mentions this to the ticket agent, who says it is her bag. She doesn't believe this until she notices her bag is not beside the bench anymore. Later she goes into the restroom to wash her hands and the cleaning lady there insists this is her second time there. Again, Millicent denies this. Upon leaving the restroom, she glances in the mirror and sees, in addition to her reflection, an exact copy of herself sitting on the bench outside.

A few moments later she meets a young man from Binghamton named Paul Grinstead, who is waiting for the same bus. Millicent tells Paul about encountering her double. Paul, attempting to calm Millicent, says it is either a joke or a misunderstanding caused by a look-alike. When the bus arrives and the two of them prepare to board it, Millicent looks in the window and sees the copy of herself, already seated on the bus. In shock, she runs back into the depot and faints.

Millicent lies unconscious on a bench inside the depot while Paul and the cleaning lady attend to her. Paul agrees to wait for the 7:00 bus. While they wait, Millicent, now coming to, insists the strange events are caused by an evil double from a parallel world - a nearby, yet distant alternate plane of existence that comes into convergence with this world by powerful forces, or unnatural, unknown events. When this happens, the malevolent impostors enter this realm. Millicent's doppelgänger, evil in nature, can survive in this world only by eliminating and replacing its good counterpart - Millicent herself.

Paul says the explanation is "a little metaphysical" for him, and believes that Millicent's sanity is beginning to unravel. Paul tells Millicent he'll call a friend in Tully who has a car and may be able to drive them to Syracuse. In actuality, he calls the police.

After Millicent is taken away by two policemen, Paul begins to settle himself. After drinking from a water fountain, Paul notices that his valise is missing. Looking up towards the doors, Paul notices another man running out the door of the bus depot. Pursuing this individual down the street, Paul discovers that he is chasing his own copy: its face is a mask of excited, evil delight. His copy disappears as Paul calls out "Where are you?" while looking around in confusion and shock.

Closing narration

“

Obscure and metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomena. Reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it 'parallel planes' or just 'insanity'. Whatever it is, you will find it in the Twilight Zone.

”

Cast

Vera Miles as Millicent Barnes
Martin Milner as Paul Grinstead
Joe Hamilton as Ticket agent
Naomi Stevens as Washroom Attendant

Episode notes

In a short film pitching the Twilight Zone series to a Dutch television station, creator Rod Serling claimed to have gotten the idea for "Mirror Image" following an encounter at an airport. Serling noticed a man at the other side of the terminal who wore the same clothes and carried the same suitcase as himself; Serling considered what would happen if the man turned around and was revealed to be a duplicate of himself. However, the man turned out to be younger and "more attractive".

This is one of several episodes from season one with its opening title sequence plastered over with the opening for season two. This was done during the Summer of 1961 as to help the season one shows fit in with the new look the show had taken during the following season.

External links

"Mirror Image" at the Internet Movie Database

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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