Air date: October 30, 1959
Martin Sloan (Gig Young) is an ad executive passing through town one day when his car breaks down. As he's having it serviced, he observes that he's only a mile and a half from his hometown, Homewood. He walks there, arriving to find that the year is 1934 and everyone and everything he left behind is still there, including an 11-year-old version of himself. Waxing nostalgic, he attempts to get in touch with his kid self and warn him not to waste his childhood, but his efforts only scare off young Martin. When he meets his father (dead in the present, alive here), he is met with skepticism, which is only natural. All this culminates in Martin chasing his younger self around a merry-go-round. The boy gets his leg snared in the machinery, causing the older Martin to suffer the same wound. As the panic winds down and people leave the area, Martin's father approaches, having found Martin's wallet and concluded from its contents that Martin is, in fact, from the future. Martin's father advises him that he's in this time period because his nostalgia for Homewood got the better of him, and that he shouldn't force his 11-year-old self to share his childhood, regardless of his intentions. Martin takes his father's advice and rides the merry-go-round one last time to get back to the present, carrying with him the limp his misguided attempt to meddle with his past life earned him.
Troping Distance:
- An Aesop: We all wish we could revisit good times in our lives, especially when things seem bad now, but nostalgia can also be a dangerous thing. Being caught up in it can be harmful to one's self, so as hard as it may be sometimes, it's best to live in the present.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Martin looks back fondly on his innocent youth, but being there as a 36-year-old man who doesn't belong isn't very pleasant.
- Bittersweet Ending: Martin has to return to his adult life, and ends up with a bad leg as a result of his actions, but he seems to have started letting go of his past and realizing that he can still find happiness as an adult.
- Book Ends: Rod Serling's opening and closing narrations both begin with "Martin Sloan, age thirty-six."
- Comic-Book Adaptation: This episode was adapted as a graphic novel by Walker Paperback in 2008.
- Dutch Angle: Sharp Dutch Angles are used for the entire sequence where Martin goes to the merry-go-round and has an unpleasant encounter with his childhood self. When Martin's father, who now believes him, shows up to deliver An Aesop, the picture straightens back up to vertical.
- Establishing Character Moment: At the gas station. Martin's interaction with the gas station attendant firmly establishes him as cranky and stressed-out.
- Genre Blindness: Martin meets himself as an 11-year-old boy, but he doesn't realize that he's traveled back in time until a teenager tells him that his 1934 roadster is brand new.
- Note that this takes place shortly after the scene of him seeing his parents- at least one of whom is hinted to not be alive in 1959.
- Glory Days: Martin seems to like his childhood a lot better than now.
- Growing Up Sucks: Martin tries and fails to tell this to his 11-year-old self.
- Meaningful Name: Homewood.
- Newspaper Dating: An unusual variant using the roadster described above. Martin's dad also uses the documentation in Martin's wallet to conclude that he is his son from the future.
- Time Travel Episode: The first episode that utilizes time travel, a frequent trope throughout the franchise's run. Martin's wistful memories of his childhood wind up whisking him 25 years back to said childhood.
- Title Drop: "That's walking distance, isn't it? Yeah, that's walking distance."
- Tuckerization: A sign says that Ralph N. Nelson is the proprietor of the service station where Martin stops. He is named after the series' production manager Ralph W. Nelson.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Especially when "home" is a time in the past.
