"On Thursday We Leave for Home" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Opening Narration

This is William Benteen, who officiates on a disintegrating outpost in space. The people are a remnant society who left the Earth looking for a millennium — a place without war, without jeopardy, without fear — and what they found was a lonely, barren place whose only industry was survival. And this is what they've done for three decades: survive, until the memory of the Earth they came from has become an indistinct and shadowed recollection of another time and another place. One month ago, a signal from Earth announced that a ship would be coming to pick them up and take them home. In just a moment, we'll hear more of that ship, more of that home and what it takes out of mind and body to reach it. This is the Twilight Zone.

Synopsis

An expedition has been stranded on planet V9-Gamma for 30 years. The expedition's leader, Captain Benteen, has maintained strict discipline, refusing to allow his people to give up hope in the harsh, desolate environment. When rescue finally arrives, Benteen is unable to relinquish his iron control and tries to convince the others to stay. Everyone else eventually chooses to return home, but he stubbornly elects to remain behind.

On the day the people board the ship, Colonel Sloane and Benteen's second-in-command Al Baines search for Benteen to give him one last chance to change his mind, but he is nowhere to be found. After they finally give up and leave, Benteen emerges from the top of the cave that had sheltered his people. As the ship prepares for takeoff, Benteen pretends his people are still there. Then, remembering the beauty of Earth, he realizes that he wants to go home. He rushes out screaming for the ship to come back, but it is too late. He is now stranded on the planet, completely alone in the bleak, empty landscape of the Twilight Zone.

Closing Narration

William Benteen, who had prerogatives; he could lead, he could direct, dictate, judge, legislate. It became a habit, then a pattern, and finally a necessity. William Benteen; once a god, now a population of one.

Preview for Next Week's Story

Next on Twilight Zone, an exercise from the typewriter of Charles Beaumont. A sea voyage into the darker regions of the Zone. Our stars in alphabetical order: Gladys Cooper, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Cecil Kellaway, Lee Philips, and Joyce Van Patten.

Critical response

Rod Serling quoted in The Twilight Zone Companion:

Our shows this season were too padded. The bulk of our stories lacked the excitement and punch of the shorter dramas we intended when we started five years ago and kept to for a while. If you ask me, I think we had only one really effective show this season, “On Thursday We Leave for Home”... Yes, I wrote it myself, but I overwrote it. I think the story was good despite what I did to it.

References

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links

• TV.com episode page

Twilight Zone links

• The Twilight Zone
• Episode List
• Season 4