episode #23, segment 1: Shadowplay

#23a: SHADOWPLAY written by James Crocker based on Charles Beaumont's original
Directed by Paul Lynch
This was one of the REMAKES; the original episode on the old show starred Dennis Weaver as a man sentenced to die by electric chair by a jury. In this one, actor Peter Coyote takes over the role, sentenced to death by hanging.
If you get the feeling you've been through all this before - maybe you have (if you've seen the older version, for example) - deja vu? The central character claims to have been through this many times before. The jury's decision, the verdict, the last day in his prison cell, his lawyer & the prosecutor debating on what is happening, the visit from the priest and the final walk to the hangman's noose - this is all, according to the condemned man, the same dream he is having, over & over.
The dream replays with the same characters, though the faces change; a face which had been a prison guard (William Smith) may end up as the prosecutor in the next version of the dream. This new version of the episode also adds in hints of the main character's problems in the 'real' world, with his sister & father, who both show up as characters in this so-called dream. When the condemned man drops through the trap door during his hanging, the dream ends and begins again in the courtroom.