***SPOILERS*** Physicist Paul Driscoll,Dana Anrews, has just about had it with the twentieth century with its wars pollution and the threat of nuclear annihilation and wants if at all possible to change it for the better. Having together with his good friend and confidant Harvey,Robert F.Simms, secretly invented a time machine Paul plans to do just that.
Going back in time Paul tries to prevent the bombing of Hiroshima the sinking of the Luitania and the accent to power in Germany of Adolph Hitler. Because of his either stupidity in him thinking that those he tries to convince of impending doom would bother listening to him or just his big and uncontrollable mouth in Paul shooting it off in how he hated Hitler and his Nazi regime to a maid at the hotel he was staying in Berlin Paul fails miserably in every attempt.
Back to the present,1963,Paul comes up with another not so bright idea in him going back to a time when things were peaceful and beautiful in America and, through the time machine, is brought back to the sleepy little town of Homeville Indiana in the summer of 1881. It's there that Paul realizes, by checking out the local newspaper, that within 24 hours that the then President of the USA President James Garfield would be gunned down by a lone assassin! Knowing from previous experience that he can't change history Paul just lets history,and Garfirld's assassination, take it's course.
Still while in Homeville Paul keeps on shooting his big mouth off,in order to impress everyone with his new found knowledge, telling anyone who would bother to listen to him about future wars that the US would be involved in like WWI WII Korea as well as the obscure, in the future history books,Spanish-American War! This has the people listening to him think that Paul has completely gone of his rocker. It's only Abigail Sloan, Patricia Breslin, the local schoolteacher who takes a liking to the very outspoken Paul and, in her losing a number of family members in the Civil War, and finds his passionate anti-war attitude very appealing to her.
***SPOILERS*** Even though Paul did nothing to save President Garfield's life he for some strange reason tried to prevent a 4th of July fire at the Homeville high school that he knew, by reading a book about the towns history, was going to happen! This time around Paul not only didn't prevent the school from catching fire but in fact was the person who, by trying to prevent it, started it!
Now back to 1963,the date this "Twilight Zone" episode was filmed, Paul has become both older and wiser in the fact that the past will always be the past and nothing on earth, not even traveling back to it, can ever change it! And with that it will always remain what it always was and always will be: The Past!
Going back in time Paul tries to prevent the bombing of Hiroshima the sinking of the Luitania and the accent to power in Germany of Adolph Hitler. Because of his either stupidity in him thinking that those he tries to convince of impending doom would bother listening to him or just his big and uncontrollable mouth in Paul shooting it off in how he hated Hitler and his Nazi regime to a maid at the hotel he was staying in Berlin Paul fails miserably in every attempt.
Back to the present,1963,Paul comes up with another not so bright idea in him going back to a time when things were peaceful and beautiful in America and, through the time machine, is brought back to the sleepy little town of Homeville Indiana in the summer of 1881. It's there that Paul realizes, by checking out the local newspaper, that within 24 hours that the then President of the USA President James Garfield would be gunned down by a lone assassin! Knowing from previous experience that he can't change history Paul just lets history,and Garfirld's assassination, take it's course.
Still while in Homeville Paul keeps on shooting his big mouth off,in order to impress everyone with his new found knowledge, telling anyone who would bother to listen to him about future wars that the US would be involved in like WWI WII Korea as well as the obscure, in the future history books,Spanish-American War! This has the people listening to him think that Paul has completely gone of his rocker. It's only Abigail Sloan, Patricia Breslin, the local schoolteacher who takes a liking to the very outspoken Paul and, in her losing a number of family members in the Civil War, and finds his passionate anti-war attitude very appealing to her.
***SPOILERS*** Even though Paul did nothing to save President Garfield's life he for some strange reason tried to prevent a 4th of July fire at the Homeville high school that he knew, by reading a book about the towns history, was going to happen! This time around Paul not only didn't prevent the school from catching fire but in fact was the person who, by trying to prevent it, started it!
Now back to 1963,the date this "Twilight Zone" episode was filmed, Paul has become both older and wiser in the fact that the past will always be the past and nothing on earth, not even traveling back to it, can ever change it! And with that it will always remain what it always was and always will be: The Past!