Probe 7, Over and Out

Description: Season 5, Episode 9

Air Date: November 29, 1963

Plot Summary: A pilot crash lands on an alien planet just as his world enters a mutually destructive war.

Review: Although this episode boils down to nothing more than a novel twist, I've always enjoyed it and appreciated the concept. Also, because of said twist, it makes describing the story difficult as the vagueness needed to convey the premise actually alludes to that very revelation. Anyway, we meet an injured pilot named Cook who has crashed on some random planet. Conveniently enough, the planet is hospitable, but it is implied that a creature may be lurking nearby his ship. When asking for help from home, Cook learns that the military has more pressing issues regarding an all out world war. Sure enough, a war does begin with a general explaining to Cook how they're entering a state of mutual destruction.

For whatever reason, Cook decides to take a little stroll outside his wrecked ship when he has a seizure or something; I honestly don't know what the hell happened to him. While unconscious, that general transmits to Cook that their world is toasty toast, and he may be the last survivor of their world. When Cook comes to his senses, he is startled by the unknown creature locking itself within his ship. Waiting outside the ship, the creature eventually sneaks away as Cook chases after it. We then realize the creature is actually a disheveled woman. By some impossible twist of fate, this woman is also the last survivor of a totally different planet that was destroyed. Unable to communicate, Cook scares the woman away and later hears that final transmission. Accepting that this planet must become his new home, the woman returns and the two try to get along. The twist is finally revealed that Cook's first name is Adam and the woman's name is Eve. The planet is Earth, Cook has a broken rib referring to that part of Genesis, and Eve offers Cook an apple as that is the food she has been living off of since she arrived on the planet.

I know this probably sounds corny, but they present it well enough and it was a mostly original twist at the time. Obviously you have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit to enjoy this ending. I mean, two separate, yet perfectly similar, human species from across the galaxy cross paths on a livable planet at the exact same point in time?! If such a scenario happened, that would absolutely convince me that it was divine intervention at work. Who knows, maybe that's half the point.