One of the Twilight Zone's quietest episodes, 'The Changing of the Guard' belongs to a sub-category within the series marked by shows like 'Walking Distance' and 'A Stop At Willoughby.' These are all stories, inevitably written by Rod Serling, which are ruminations on life and what is truly important. The main character, always an ordinary average man, usually begins the episode unhappy with his life and by the end finds some reason to feel fulfilled. So it is with Donald Pleasance's Professor Ellis Fowler, who finds himself forced into involuntary retirement and is convinced his life's work has been meaningless, until he is told otherwise by the ghosts of dead students. There's no denying it's a sweet, sentimental episode with a gentle performance by Pleasance, but it needed something more substantial to make it memorable. One gets the impression that Serling could write these kinds of stories in his sleep, and that's almost where the episode puts us. This was the last episode of the third season; it seems the show and Sterling were beginning to run out of steam.
Review of The Changing of the Guard
