"The Library" is the third segment of the twenty-second episode of the first season (1985–86) of the American television series The Twilight Zone.
Plot[]
Ellen Pendleton, an aspiring writer, takes a job at a private library. The librarian, Gloria, admits her employer has in fact not given her permission to hire an assistant, but she feels incapable of managing the massive responsibility on her own: the library contains one book for every person alive, with a complete account of their life, accurate to the latest second. When a person dies, that book is removed. No one is allowed to read the books.
While trying to write, Ellen is disturbed by her noisy neighbors, Edwin and Carla, who have just moved into Edwin's apartment from a room downstairs. Using correction fluid and a pen, Ellen rewrites a passage in Edwin's book to make him a Catholic priest, rendering him ineligible to share an apartment with Carla and preventing all their boisterous lovemaking. When Ellen gets home that night, she finds her sister Lori consoling the now-single Carla, who is nearly suicidal from loneliness.
To repair the damage done, Ellen rewrites Carla's book to make her happily married to another neighbour, Doug. Now the problem is that Doug is bankrupt from buying gifts for Carla. Ellen changes Doug's book by giving him real estate wealth, but now he is her landlord and her sister is organizing a rent strike.
Ellen rewrites her own book so that she and Lori live in a house by the sea instead. She returns home to find that Lori drowned while rescuing a boy from the ocean. Ellen dashes back to the library and is caught by Gloria, who is incensed when she learns Ellen tampered with the books. She orders Ellen to gather all the books she rewrote and ushers her out of the library.
Ellen is met outside by Lori, alive and well. Ellen tries to return to thank Gloria, but the door is answered by a man who claims he has been living there for the past ten years and that no one named Gloria is there.
Background information[]
Cast[]
- Frances Conroy as Ellen Pendleton
- Uta Hagen as Gloria
- Lori Petty as Lori Pendleton
- Joe Santos as Doug Kelleher
- Candy Azzara as Carla
- Alan Blumenfeld as Edwin
| v • e The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes | |
|---|---|
| Season 1 | "Shatterday" • "A Little Peace and Quiet" • "Wordplay" • "Dreams For Sale" • "Chameleon" • "Healer" • "Children's Zoo" • "Kentucky Rye" • "Little Boy Lost" • "Wish Bank" • "Nightcrawlers" • "If She Dies" • "Ye Gods" • "Examination Day" • "A Message From Charity" • "Teacher's Aide" • "Paladin of the Lost Hour" • "Act Break" • "The Burning Man" • "Dealer's Choice" • "Dead Woman's Shoes" • "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" • "The Shadow Man" • "The Uncle Devil Show" • "Opening Day" • "The Beacon" • "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" • "Her Pilgrim Soul" • "I of Newton" • "Night of the Meek" • "But Can She Type?" • "The Star" • "Still Life" • "The Little People of Killany Woods" • "The Misfortune Cookie" • "Monsters!" • "A Small Talent for War" • "A Matter of Minutes" • "The Elevator" • "To See the Invisible Man" • "Tooth and Consequences" • "Welcome to Winfield" • "Quarantine" • "Gramma" • "Personal Demons" • "Cold Reading" • "The Leprechaun Artist" • "Dead Run" • "Profile in Silver" • "Button, Button" • "Need to Know" • "Red Snow" • "Take My Life...Please!" • "Devil's Alphabet" • "The Library" • "Shadow Play" • "Grace Note" • "A Day in Beaumont" • "The Last Defender of Camelot" |
| Season 2 | "The Once and Future King" • "A Saucer of Loneliness" • "What Are Friends For?" • "Aqua Vita" • "The Storyteller" • "Nightsong" • "The After Hours" • "Lost and Found" • "The World Next Door" • "The Toys of Caliban" • "The Convict's Piano" • "The Road Less Traveled" • "The Card" • "The Junction" • "Joy Ride" • "Shelter Skelter" • "Private Channel" • "Time and Teresa Golowitz" • "Voices in the Earth" • "Song of the Younger World" • "The Girl I Married" |
| Season 3 | "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" • "Extra Innings" • "The Crossing" • "The Hunters" • "Dream Me a Life" • "Memories" • "The Hellgramite Method" • "Our Selena is Dying" • "The Call" • "The Trance" • "Acts of Terror" • "20/20 Vision" • "There Was an Old Woman" • "The Trunk" • "Appointment on Route 17" • "The Cold Equations" • "Stranger in Possum Meadows" • "Street of Shadows" • "Something in the Walls" • "A Game of Pool" • "The Wall" • "Room 2426" • "The Mind of Simon Foster" • "Cat and Mouse" • "Many, Many Monkeys" • "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" • "Special Service" • "Love is Blind" • "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" • "Father and Son Game"
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