Oh hey, it’s Richard Baseheart! Wait, who? Well, it was a running joke for years on Mystery Science Theater 3000 when one of the bots would just say his name for no good reason.
He’s got a nice voice and an expressive face, as it turns out.
Basic Premise: An astronaut is stuck on an alien world, far from home, with no hope of getting back.
Writer: Series creator Rod Serling
Commentary: Have I reached a point where these episodes have become predictable? Well, sort of. Colonel Cook is stuck on a nameless world, in a distant galaxy, and his message from home indicates that there’s a nuclear war breaking out, such that the general talking to him says he can’t keep talking because they’ll all be dead soon.
Was the year 1974? A lot of stuff happens on this show in 1974. Actually, funny thing, the general never says what country they’re in or who the enemy is…just that he hopes Cook, who can’t get home, is somewhere where there is no war or hatred or the other basic stuff a Serling script says are the cause of all the world’s ills.
Seriously, I’m just glad this one doesn’t have the same twist ending as that one with Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery. I mean, Cook does learn he isn’t alone, that there is a woman there, but she’s an alien and the lone survivor of her people. Despite a language barrier, the two eventually come to an understanding.
The Twist: OK, this twist was my second guess, sort of: the planet they landed on is named “Earth” by the woman, whose name is Eve, and Cook’s first name is Adam. Yeah, that, um, that’s something.
What about Rod? He seemed to be hanging around Cook’s crashed ship.
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