Peter Jenson (William Bendix) is in the office of Dr. Arnold Gillespie (Martin Balsam).  Gillespie is a psychiatrist.  Jenson haltingly tells Gillespie about a reoccurring dream he has been having for the last several nights. 

In the dream when he goes to bed at the “Benjamin Willard Hotel” it is October 4th, 1958, and he is in New York City.  The next day he awakes with a hangover from drinking the night before.  He finds that he is in the “Imperial Hawaiian Hotel”.  The calendar says that it is December 6th.  Jenson begins to believe that he lost at least two entire months from being on a bender.  Then the chamber maid tells him that he is in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

Trying to figure out how he got to Hawaii, Jenson goes downstairs to the hotel bar to mull it over with a few drinks.  At the bar he meets Ensign Janoski (Darryl Hickman) and his new bride, Edna (Carolyn Kearney).  Janoski tells Jenson that he is serving on the USS Arizona.  Jenson tells Janoski that the Arizona was sunk on December 7th, 1941.  That’s when Jenson finds out that he is in Hawaii and it is December 6th, 1941, the day before Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese.

Jenson attempts to tell the editor of the local paper, Mr. Gibbons (Bartlet Robinson), about the attack but they think he is crazy.  He ends up back at the bar and getting plastered to the point where he passes out.  When he wakes, he is still in Honolulu and the Japanese Air Force is flying overhead.  That is where his dream ends.    

Gillespie asks what happens then.  Jenson says that is the point where he wakes up back in 1958.  He tells Dr. Gillespie that he doesn’t believe it was a dream but that he was actually in 1941.  He firmly states that he was going back in time.  Gillespie explains to Jenson the problem with time travel, especially paradoxes.  After hours of discussion, while lying on Dr. Gillespie’s couch, Jenson falls asleep.        

“The Time Element” was released in 1958 and was directed by Allen Reisner.  The film was released as episode 6, season 1 of the television series “Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse”.  The series was an anthology type series where each episode was a different story. 

This particular episode was written by Rod Serling and Dorothy Hechtlinger.  It is credited as being the unofficial pilot for Serling’s monumental series “The Twilight Zone”.  The host of the episode was Desi Arnez Sr.  This episode is not considered as part of the “Twilight Zone” cannon, but it is excellently done and would fit right in.  The episode got so much attention that CBS authorized an official pilot for the “Twilight Zone” series.  Still, Serling had to write four pilots before the series was actually sold.  “The Twilight Zone” then went on to create 156 episodes over its five-year run.

Based on this episode alone, I’m not surprised that Rod Serling got his series.  It was a fascinating story with Serling’s twist at the end.  It seems that audiences weren’t used to stories with a twist at the end, so the ending shown on television had Desi give an explanation of “what really happened”.  The offer of an “alternate ending” was a bit of a detraction to Serling’s wonderful script and criticized by critics.    

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