The Twilight Zone (TV Series)

The Long Morrow (1964)

Robert Lansing: Commander Douglas Stansfield

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Quotes 

• Commander Douglas Stansfield : Something?

  Sandra Horn : A month from now, you'll be off to space. And by the time you come back down again...

  Commander Douglas Stansfield : You want to talk about that now?

  Sandra Horn : Only for the following absurd reason. I've known you for exactly three and half hours. That's what it's been. Three and a half hours. A long dinner, and a short dance. And already, already...

  Commander Douglas Stansfield : Already what, Sandy?

  Sandra Horn : Already--I feel a sense of... loss.

• Commander Douglas Stansfield : [Voice over in suspended animation]  I move now, I streak across the sky, I leave an Earth behind that changes beyond my closed eyes. From a warm place of leaves and trees to a cold orb hanging in a dark sky and growing smaller and smaller and smaller. And time passes. It inexorably passes. And I can do nothing about it.

• Commander Douglas Stansfield : [Voice over in suspended animation]  My life had been space. It had been missions, projects, and expeditions. There had been no time for intrusions that took the form of a woman's face, a voice, a short month of a man and a woman drawing together, becoming a part of one another, reaching tentatively into that strange and mysterious pond of love and then watching the ripples that came from it. But now I think of these things. Now they come to mind, now in the darkness, in the cold, the solitude, the... stillness, the loneliness. Now there comes a feeling of warmth. Sandy, where are you now, Sandy, across the void? My dear Sandy, through the millions of miles of cold, empty space. Through the vastness of a naked desert of sky and stars, I love you. I love you, Sandy.

• Commander Douglas Stansfield : [Voice over in suspended animation]  I remember things. It's more than just void, darkness, or unconsciousness. The mind does work. There are images, patterns, things to recollect. It's not just the long, deep sleep that comes when the fear has left. The cold is felt, the slipping away of feeling is noted and then succumbed to. The mind functions. Time is distorted, jumbled, telescoped, accordioned, but there is a sense of time even so, and I remember things. I remember the way it began. I remember the way it was in the beginning.

• Dr. Bixler : [Points to a photograph of a galaxy]  You recognize this, don't you?

  Commander Douglas Stansfield : Well, this is our solar system. This is the Sun. And here is the Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Pluto, Mars...

  Dr. Bixler : And what do we know about our neighbors, Commander? Mars is a vast, scrubby desert with an unbreathable atmosphere. Pluto is poisonous and extremely cold. The Moon is barren, Jupiter volcanic. In short, Commander, our neighbors offer us only one asset: They're accessible. They're within reach. Beyond that, they offer us nothing. Scientific, social, economic, anything. They're the Mount Everest of space. Once, they offered us challenges.

  Commander Douglas Stansfield : Where is the next Mount Everest, Doctor?

  Dr. Bixler : That's perhaps the most pertinent question you've ever asked.

• Commander Douglas Stansfield : [Indicating a new planetary system]  That's where I'm going. When?

  Dr. Bixler : In about six months. The ship's being built now. It's off the drawing board. The keel is being laid. But it'll take only one man, and that man should be right there watching every rivet, every bolt, every item of equipment going in there. You are that man, Commander. You will be the sole occupant, and you will be its pilot.

  Commander Douglas Stansfield : Doctor, I--I like this assignment very much.

  Dr. Bixler : That's precisely why you were chosen. Of course there will be the usual dangers, the usual unknowns. In the past, you've had meteor showers to contend with. You've had the usual calculated risk of mechanical difficulties, landing difficulties, ejection troubles and the rest of it. Well, you'll still have those. Compounded. We have another factor here. Another problem.

  Commander Douglas Stansfield : Distance.

  Dr. Bixler : Distance.