Stopover in a Quiet Town

"**Stopover in a Quiet Town**"
"Stopover in a Quiet Town"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 5; Episode 30
Directed by	Ron Winston
Written by	Earl Hamner, Jr.
Featured music	Uncredited
Production code	2611
Original air date	April 24, 1964
Guest appearances
	Barry Nelson: Bob Frazier ; Nancy Malone: Millie Frazier ; Denise Lynn: Little Alien Girl ; Karen Norris: Alien Mother
Episode chronology
← Previous; "The Jeopardy Room"	Next →; "The Encounter"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 5)
	List of episodes

"Stopover in a Quiet Town" is episode 150 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone starring Barry Nelson and Nancy Malone. It originally aired on April 24, 1964.

Plot

A married couple, Bob and Millie Frazier, wake up in an unfamiliar house. Millie remembers only that Bob drank too much at a party the night before, and that while driving him home to Manhattan, a large shadow appeared over their car near Riverdale.

They discover that the house is mostly props. The telephone has no connection, the cabinetry is merely glued-on facing, and the refrigerator is filled with plastic food and empty cartons. They hear a girl's laughter and go outside to find the child. However, once outside, they discover that the town is deserted; not even birds are heard. They find a stuffed squirrel, knock on the door of another house, and since it is Sunday, search for help in a church, which is also vacant. Bob rings the bell in the church's bell tower to attract attention. When no one comes, the increasingly desperate couple discovers no one is there, all the while hearing the young girl's laughter intermittently. They find even the trees are fake. A sudden fire on the ground reveals that the grass is papier-mâché. They see a parked car, and find only a mannequin in the driver's seat. Although the keys are in the ignition, the car will not start since it has no engine.

Millie begins to lose hope, proposing that they actually had crashed and died, and that they are in Hell. They hear a train whistle and, eager to leave the town, rush to the train station and board the empty train. As the train leaves the station (revealed to be in "Centerville"), they begin a lighthearted conversation, vastly relieved, admitting that Millie had been drinking as well. However, when the train soon comes to a stop again in Centerville, they realize it has only gone in a circle, and they are back where they started.

They leave the train and begin walking out of town, once again hearing a little girl's laughter. A large shadow falls over them, and they flee, only to be scooped up by the hand of a gigantic child. The town is now revealed to be a model village with a miniature railway running around it. The little girl's mother says, "Be careful with your pets, dear. Daddy brought them all the way from Earth." At her mother's bidding, the little girl drops the couple back into the town. Bob and Millie begin to run, apparently looking for a place to hide.

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

"Stopover in a Quiet Town" at IMDb

v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"