Season 1, Episode 16: The Hitch-Hiker
 

Season 1, Episode 16: The Hitch-Hiker

Airdate: 22/01/60
Writer: Rod Serling (Based on a story by Lucille Fletcher)
Director: Alvin Ganzer
Starring: Inger Stevens, Adam Williams, Leonard Strong

Nan Adams sets out on a journey driving cross country. As her journey progresses, she keeps passing the same hitch-hiker at the side of the road. Panic sets in as she desperately tries to outrun the mysterious hitch-hiker.

Post your thoughts, reviews and comments about the episode and/or BD & DVD release for The Hitch-Hiker here!

Just in case anyone wants to check it out, The Hitch-Hiker was actually a radio play that was performed at least three times before it reached television. All three times Orson Welles played the lead.

If you want to download one of those adaptations and listen to it (perfectly legitimate, it's public domain now) you can check it out HERE.

I have a fondness for old radio shows, and this epsiode is pretty good.

I watched this last night. Interesting having listened to the radio play how you can really see its roots when you watch the episode; the way the lead talks to herself through a lot of the running time.

In the play the lead character was a man (obviously, as he was played by Orson Welles). It's interesting that now the lead is a woman, Serling created the situation with the sailor, and there's a very obvious sexual threat there, until he starts to think she's nuts and leaves.

Good episode, but I think I actually prefer the radio play. Orson Welles' performance is hard to top I think.

I was actually expecting it to be like a 60's version of The Hitcher with Rutger Hauer. A pretty solid episode though. And as you say TGG, there was a pretty intense sexual threat there with the sailor.

I've seen enough Twilight Zone and other such sci-fi/supernatural TV shows and films so that such an episode didn't surprise me at all. I don't know if the hitchhiker's identity was supposed to be a major twist, but I was ahead of the game the whole way and wasn't at all surprised by the ending. Top performance by Inger Stephens in the main role though.

I'm due to watch this one soon.:nod:

I should finish the first series in the next couple weeks as I'm switching between this and Prisoner but, at the moment, I'm watching the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica!

Anyway, hope you enjoy this episode and any others you watch tonight and this week.

I'm sure I will Nos!

When did the tune we all know and love start being used-season 2?

As far as I know, it began at the beginning of season two, but don't quote me on that!

Now watched this.Very good for anyone who HASN'T seen a Herk Hervey classic.....;)

for everyone who has, or is familiar with The Outer Limits/Twilight Zone story arcs, it's just a case of waiting for the main character to figure out what's going on!

I have to say... watching all these first-year shows in a row, I've really become rather fond of the Bernard Hermann theme! I think I will kind of miss it when the more familiar Marius Constant music makes its debut.

A first rate episode, although I think Serling should have relied less on the internal monologue/voiceover. Too much of a holdover from the radio play. I'm not sure how it could've been done differently, but surely a writer of Serling's calibre could have figured out how. But, as you mention, Tom, fantastic performances by all the actors involved. Even knowing the story, even having head the radio play, the episode remains really riveting.

I also liked how the opening lines of the episode "give away" the ending in plain sight -- "You're on the side of the angels," etc. I don't recall any of that in the radio play, another reason I think Serling could have done more with the source script then he actually did.

I disagree with your interpretation of the last line, though, Tom. I didn't hear any hint of malice in it. I thought he actually was acknowledging, even a little humorously, that Nan now understood the truth.

(Nice editing job on the "side-by-side" comparison of the phone call sequence -- thanks for going the extra mile to make that happen!)

excellent episode
 

I thought that this was an excellent episode and it was I think the very first episode to feature a woman as the main star. It's really interesting to see a woman as the main character as clearly back in the 50s and 60s it wasn't so common to see this. I thought that the actress was very strong indeed.

just how important do you think it was for women to be getting these sort of roles back in the 50s and 60s? I remember reading that the original incarnation of Star Trek would have had Majel Barratt as the second in command but after the pilot viewers thought a woman should be so high ranking and the role was changed to Spock. this sort of prejudice doesn't seem to have been so commonplace on the twilight zone, why might that be?

I'm looking forward to more episodes with women in the lead roles.

Maybe I'm wrong, but hadn't "The 16mm Shrine" already been broadcast at this point? All the same, I agree with your point: it is good to see a woman at the center, and this actress does an especially fine job.

Interesting question, espeially since "The Cage" (the original Trek pilot that you reference) is still 4-5 years in the future at this point. I'm also a big, unrepentant Trekkie <g>, and have always contended that Majel Barrett probably did her best Trek work -- even including her years as Lwaxan Troi -- as "Number One." I do wish that character had been allowed to stay!

correct
 

crumbs chief you're right! Barbara Jean Trenton was in the 16mm shrine. that was a good episode as well! great spot.

Barrett was great a troi but I must say I have a liking for her as nurse chapel and her love interest in spock!

Well, Nurse Chapel was so defined by her unrequited love for Spock -- which was itself a result of her doomed relationship with Roger Korby. She was simply never defined apart from men. Lwaxana Troi certainly was, but, for whatever reason, the character just never did it for me.

But I digress! Back to the Twilight Zone! :-)