Dead Run (The Twilight Zone)

"Dead Run"
The Twilight Zone episode
Scene from Dead Run
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 19b
Directed by	Paul Tucker
Written by	Greg Bear Alan Brennert
Original air date	February 21, 1986
Guest appearance(s)
Steve Railsback: Johnny Davis Barry Corbin: Pete John de Lancie: The Dispatcher Brent Spiner: Draft Dodger John D. LeMay: Gay Man Paul Jenkins: Trucker

"Dead Run" is the second segment of the nineteenth episode from the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone.

Plot

Johnny Davis is a truck driver, unemployed due to his many accidents. Johnny asks Pete - a friend of his father - for help finding a job. Pete is reluctant, and warns Johnny that the jobs he takes require unusual resilience and fortitude. Johnny insists he understands, and Pete agrees to take him on his next run. Johnny quickly discovers that "the run" involves delivering souls to Hell via semi-trailer truck. Johnny learns that the souls of the newly-dead have been causing disturbances in Hell, and it is making the truckers nervous.

Dropping off their cargo in Hell, Pete and Johnny witness anarchy. Souls are running around loose. Some of the dead plead with Johnny to rescue them. Other souls attack the drivers. One of the souls comes to Johnny's aid and tells him that people are being sent to Hell who do not deserve it. The soul explains that a new bureaucracy has taken over the job of deciding who goes to Hell or Heaven. Pete and one of the guards in Hell find Johnny, and the guard informs Johnny he must speak with management. Johnny discusses what he heard with a manager, and the manager explains how the process works. Johnny thinks the standards used to determine who is sent to Hell are excessively conservative and biased, and people are being damned for minor offenses. The executive reasons that they're simply using "time-honored Biblical standards".

Johnny decides to interview the dead that ride with him, and then he will decide which of the dead should go to Hell and which he should release (in hopes that they can find a way to Heaven). When one of the souls asks why he is doing this, Johnny replies that he remembered a story from the Bible: between the Crucifixion and Resurrection, Jesus went down to Hell to give the souls there another chance. Johnny reasons that he is just using his own "time-honored Biblical standard".

Closing narration

“

Centuries ago, Hell was reached by chalk-white horses pulling shuttered coaches; by Spanish galleons borne on black sails through uncharted seas. Legend has it Leonardo da Vinci was once commissioned to build a flying machine to carry souls to Hell, but it never returned from its maiden flight. But along this particular road to Hell lies redemption for the damned as well as for drivers who have found work... in The Twilight Zone.

”

Note

This episode is based on the short story "Dead Run" by Greg Bear, first published in Omni (April, 1985).

References

Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

"Dead Run" at the Internet Movie Database
"Dead Run" at TV.com

The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes

Season 1	"Shatterday" "A Little Peace and Quiet" "Wordplay" "Dreams for Sale" "Chameleon" "Healer" "Children's Zoo" "Kentucky Rye" "Little Boy Lost" "Wish Bank" "Nightcrawlers" "If She Dies" "Ye Gods" "Examination Day" "A Message from Charity" "Teacher's Aide" "Paladin of the Lost Hour" "Act Break" "The Burning Man" "Dealer's Choice" "Dead Woman's Shoes" "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" "The Shadow Man" "The Uncle Devil Show" "Opening Day" "The Beacon" "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" "Her Pilgrim Soul" "I of Newton" "Night of the Meek" "But Can She Type?" "The Star" "Still Life" "The Little People of Killany Woods" "The Misfortune Cookie" "Monsters!" "A Small Talent for War" "A Matter of Minutes" "The Elevator" "To See the Invisible Man" "Tooth and Consequences" "Welcome to Winfield" "Quarantine" "Gramma" "Personal Demons" "Cold Reading" "The Leprechaun-Artist" "Dead Run" "Profile in Silver" "Button, Button" "Need to Know" "Red Snow" "Take My Life...Please!" "Devil's Alphabet" "The Library" "Shadow Play" "Grace Note" "A Day in Beaumont" "The Last Defender of Camelot"

Season 2	"The Once and Future King" "A Saucer of Loneliness" "What Are Friends For?" "Aqua Vita" "The Storyteller" "Nightsong" "The After Hours" "Lost and Found" "The World Next Door" "The Toys of Caliban" "The Convict's Piano" "The Road Less Traveled" "The Card" "The Junction" "Joy Ride" "Shelter Skelter" "Private Channel" "Time and Teresa Golowitz" "Voices in the Earth" "Song of the Younger World" "The Girl I Married"

Season 3	"The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" "Extra Innings" "The Crossing" "The Hunters" "Dream Me a Life" "Memories" "The Hellgramite Method" "Our Selena Is Dying" "The Call" "The Trance" "Acts of Terror" "20/20 Vision" "There Was an Old Woman" "The Trunk" "Appointment on Route 17" "The Cold Equations" "Stranger in Possum Meadows" "Street of Shadows" "Something in the Walls" "A Game of Pool" "Room 2426" "The Mind of Simon Foster" "The Wall" "Cat and Mouse" "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" "Many, Many Monkeys" "Love is Blind" "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" "Special Service" "Father and Son Game"

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