The Odyssey of Flight 33

The Odyssey of Flight 33
Season 2, Episode 54 (S02E18)
Episode information
Series:	The Twilight Zone (original series)
Airdate:	February 24, 1961
Episode guide
Previous	Twenty-Two
Next	Mr. Dingle, the Strong

"The Odyssey of Flight 33" is an episode of the The Twilight Zone.

From the CBS Video Library cover:

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Episode Details

Opening Narration

"You're riding on a jet airliner en route from London to New York. You're at 35,000 feet atop an overcast and roughly fifty-five minutes from Idlewild Airport. But what you've seen occur inside the cockpit of this plane is no reflection on the aircraft or the crew. It's a safe, well-engineered, perfectly designed machine. And the men you've just met are a trained, cool, highly efficient team. The problem is simply that the plane is going too fast, and there is nothing within the realm of knowledge or at least logic to explain it. Unbeknownst to passenger and crew, this airplane is heading into an uncharted region well off the beaten track of commercial travelers - it's moving into The Twilight Zone. What you're about to see we call 'The Odyssey of Flight 33.'"

Episode Summary

The episode takes place on Global Airlines Flight 33, en route from London to New York City. About 50 minutes from Idlewild Airport (now called JFK), Captain Farver and his crew notice that their Boeing 707 is drastically increasing speed, repeatedly crossing some kind of barrier. With much of their equipment malfunctioning, including radio communications, they eventually realize they have been thrown back in time when they see no signs of civilization but spot a grazing Sauropod Dinosaur. They increase altitude in an attempt to cross the barrier again and to return to 1961, but arrive above the 1939 New York World's Fair instead. Realizing that they can't land all the passengers in 1939 at LaGuardia Airport, and low on fuel, the captain decides to keep trying to return "home" to 1961. "All I ask is that you remain calm", he informs the passengers over the P.A. system, "...and pray". This is one of the few episodes using an ending with neither a twist nor a resolution.

Closing Narration

"A Global jet airliner, en route from London to New York on an uneventful afternoon in the year 1961, but now reported overdue and missing, and by now, searched for on land, sea, and air by anguished human beings, fearful of what they'll find. But you and I know where she is. You and I know what's happened. So if some moment, any moment, you hear the sound of jet engines flying atop the overcast - engines that sound searching and lost - engines that sound desperate - shoot up a flare or do something. That would be Global 33 trying to get home - from The Twilight Zone."

Preview for Next Week's Story

I've only got about 18 seconds to tell you that next week, Mr. Burgess Meredith returns to The Twilight Zone as "Mr. Dingle, the Strong". He plays the role of an incredible little man who's given the strength of about 500 men and comes out of it as a kind of a 20th-century Hercules and Samson all rolled into one. It's designed to send you right from your set into a fast bowl of spinach. (A timer goes off and Serling crushes it) It's catching.

Background Information

Production Companies

• Cayuga Productions
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (in association with)

Distributors

• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1959) (USA) (TV) (original airing)

Trivia

• It was made into a graphic novel of the same name.