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Twilight Zone Question

sbk1234

Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
I just had the pleasure of watching the classic Twilight Zone episode "The Invaders" starring Agnes Moorhead. I was wondering, was the model they used for the spaceship the same as the model used for Forbidden Planet? As I remember, it looked the same.
 
Yep, it's the C-57D.

TZ, shot at MGM beginning only three years after Forbidden Planet was completed there, made repeated use of props, costumes, "Robby The Robot" and even - I believe - landing footage of the spacecraft on several occasions.

"Third From The Sun"

EDIT to add:

I guess I was mistaken about TZ using stock footage of the C-57D landing. Here's an image from the episode in question:

"Death Ship"

The model, repurposed here as "cruiser E-89," has actually been reshot in a new, custom tabletop landscape. Pretty impressive for early '60s TV!

Interestingly enough, Gene Roddenberry produced his brief TV series The Lieutenant at MGM and - according to online sources, anyway - initially pitched Star Trek to them. MGM was a much larger, far more successful film and TV studio in those days than Desilu, and it's entirely possible that had Trek been produced there the producers would have made the same extensive re-use of available props and sets of sophisticated design as Twilight Zone did.

And that's Number6's cue to post his cool Photoshop of our gallant crew decked out in the livery of C57-D. :lol:
 
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While TZ shot new landing footage, I think they did reuse stock shots of the C-57D flying through space. And they often made use of the set component representing the ship's landing leg, boarding ramps, and underside.
 
According to Marc Zicree's The Twilight Zone Companion, they used a second, rougher model for the ending of the episode as well as the original C-57D model.
 
I thought I saw Robbie in a heap of junk in the corner of that shack Jack Warden was exiled to, in the episode where he gets a robot that looks like the housekeeper from Upstairs, Downstairs. :D
 
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