It's the far far future -- 1988 -- and Robert Lansing is the astronaut selected to spend forty years in hibernation traveling to and from a distant planet. When he returns he'll be only a few weeks older than when he left. That notion of time slowing down with speed comes from Einstein. I know he's a Big Man in the physics business, but that's a lot of baloney. I know people who break speed limits all the time and they're getting old like everybody else.
In any case, Lansing suffers the misfortune of falling in love with Mariette Hartley in the short time before he's scheduled to leave. It's easy to see why. Hartley is not only attractive and nicely assembled, she's the granddaughter of John B. Watson, one of the founders of the behavioral school of psychology. She was also the granddaughter of Harold Ickes. (Kids: You'll have to look those two up. And look up Einstein while you're at it.)
See, the difficulty that Lansing and Hartley are faced with is this. During the long journey through space, Lansing will be in a state of hibernation and when he returns he'll be only thirty-one years old, whereas Hartley, not having such an advantage, will be in her seventies, "an old lady in a lace shawl." But, as someone put it, technology is in the driver's seat, not the humans who are supposed to control it. After Lansing shoves off, a method of suspended animation is invented on earth and Hartley puts herself into it, so that when he returns at the age of thirty one, she'll still be only twenty six.
I don't want to give away the ending but something goes awry. When Lansing returns to earth, having emerged from hibernation, he has turned into a grizzly bear and Hartley's aestivation has morphed her into a Malagasy fat-tailed dwarf lemur . Well, not really.
It's a neat story, though, and it's nicely, if inexpensively, packaged. Good cast. Not just Lansing and Hartley but George MacReady and Edward Binns, both sterling utility players. But Rod Serling must have thrown the script together in a hurry because much of the dialog sounds more stylized than usual. "I shall take your love with me," etc. And the aged Lansing's make up looks pretty bad, so he appears not to be old but to have been dead for the last three days.
Still, it's poignant, with a melancholy, ironic, and quite touching O. Henry sort of ending.
In any case, Lansing suffers the misfortune of falling in love with Mariette Hartley in the short time before he's scheduled to leave. It's easy to see why. Hartley is not only attractive and nicely assembled, she's the granddaughter of John B. Watson, one of the founders of the behavioral school of psychology. She was also the granddaughter of Harold Ickes. (Kids: You'll have to look those two up. And look up Einstein while you're at it.)
See, the difficulty that Lansing and Hartley are faced with is this. During the long journey through space, Lansing will be in a state of hibernation and when he returns he'll be only thirty-one years old, whereas Hartley, not having such an advantage, will be in her seventies, "an old lady in a lace shawl." But, as someone put it, technology is in the driver's seat, not the humans who are supposed to control it. After Lansing shoves off, a method of suspended animation is invented on earth and Hartley puts herself into it, so that when he returns at the age of thirty one, she'll still be only twenty six.
I don't want to give away the ending but something goes awry. When Lansing returns to earth, having emerged from hibernation, he has turned into a grizzly bear and Hartley's aestivation has morphed her into a Malagasy fat-tailed dwarf lemur . Well, not really.
It's a neat story, though, and it's nicely, if inexpensively, packaged. Good cast. Not just Lansing and Hartley but George MacReady and Edward Binns, both sterling utility players. But Rod Serling must have thrown the script together in a hurry because much of the dialog sounds more stylized than usual. "I shall take your love with me," etc. And the aged Lansing's make up looks pretty bad, so he appears not to be old but to have been dead for the last three days.
Still, it's poignant, with a melancholy, ironic, and quite touching O. Henry sort of ending.