episode #24 - Long Live Walter Jameson

Air Date: 3/18/60 written by Charles Beaumont Director: Tony Leader

Serling's opening narration speaks of a nightmare - it shouldn't be as it involves mankind's dream of immortality, but..
This was an interesting take on immortality - the acquirement of such by an otherwise average-seeming man (Kevin McCarthy of Invasion of the Body Snatchers-1956). He plays the part of a college professor, but it's only one of many he's played over the course of centuries. Most of the episode involves the conversations he has with another professor (Edgar Stehli), whose daughter he is engaged to and who has figured out the immortal man's secret (mostly due to a photo from the Civil War years). Their discussions and the revelations are interesting (see also Man From Earth-2007). There's also some unexpected plot developments towards the end.
There was another famous TV episode about an immortal man a few years later on Star Trek TOS - Requiem For Methuselah - and it touched upon many of the same facets of such an existence: the loneliness, the weariness, the inscrutability and the drawbacks of such a long life. For this one, McCarthy's character reveals that a mysterious alchemist treated him lo those centuries ago.  McCarthy was pretty good here - he had to project an almost incomprehensible age and mostly succeeded. I was also struck by the comments of the older-looking but still much younger other professor, about how a man can age considerably in the last decade of his life. He fears death and feels life is too short, but it's established that that is the natural order, despite our misgivings & frustrations. BoG's Score: 7 out of 10