Valley of the Shadow

"Valley of the Shadow" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. A reporter named Philip Redfield (Ed Nelson) finds himself unable to leave a small town when he learns too much about a secret mechanical device which can control and rearrange atoms, making things appear and disappear, assemble and reassemble. The town refuses to share this and other amazing technology that had been given to them by a "great man o... more

"Valley of the Shadow" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. A reporter named Philip Redfield (Ed Nelson) finds himself unable to leave a small town when he learns too much about a secret mechanical device which can control and rearrange atoms, making things appear and disappear, assemble and reassemble. The town refuses to share this and other amazing technology that had been given to them by a "great man of science" from an unknown land (implying a super intelligence from most likely an alien world) until "men learn the ways of peace." The town elders tell Redfield their law states that he has either the choice of staying forever in Peaceful Valley as a citizen, where all of his needs and wants will be taken care of, and where he will live in constant harmony, or he must be executed to ensure he will never take their technology to the outside world. He ultimately chooses to stay in the town, or what he describes as a prison, and yearns for the... less