This is one of my all time favorite TZ episodes. It explores the fascinating topics of how to escape the pain in your life and move to a happy, serene place, even if it is temporary. Temporary escapes are still better than none at all. Even if it's not an escape from pain, the adventure of visiting a surreal land and/or a peaceful and serene place is always something which makes things more nice and interesting. Gart is great as a 40 something Ad executive stuck in a stressful, miserable job, made that way by the combination of never- ending work pressure and a boss from hell. "This is a push business! Push! Push! Push! Push and drive! All the way! All the time! Straight on down the line!" Then at home with his gold digger wife who's only with him for the money and does not care the tiniest bit in the world what his lifestyle is doing to him. And his health is now suffering as well. And she's incredibly unsympathetic when Gart tells her he is having a great dream of Willoughby and his wishing to be somewhere like Willoughby. She tells him "this is my tragic misfortune to be married to someone who's big dream in life is to be Huckleberry Finn!"
Gart passes out twice on the commuter train coming home from work, finding himself on a late 1800s train at a station at warm, peaceful, picturesque Willoughby, warmly greeted by all including conductor saying "This is Willoughby. It's July, 1888, it's a warm one. Willoughby, peaceful, restful, where a man can slow down to a walk, live his life full measure. You oughtta try it sometime". After failing to get off and waking up in his grim reality twice, he tells himself " next time, I'm getting off".
After more stress and getting yelled at ("Push!Push!Push!" by his boss again) at work, telling his wife he cannot handle his job anymore and her reaction being her leaving him, he gets back on the commuter train and plans to go back to Willoughby, this time one-way.
Rod Sterling didn't make clear on what Willoughby really was, I think he left that up for the viewer to decide. I'm an afterlife believer, and I think that Willoughby was heaven to Gart. When he "dreamt" of Willoughby the first two times, he actually had two near death experiences on the train, but he then came out of them. They happened because his heart had gotten so run down and weak from so much termoil, which he really felt right after leaving his job each day, and his heart almost gave out twice and he had two NDEs. The third time, his heart failed completely and he passed away, and he entered Willoughby, or Heaven to stay. This is how I see it; Only Gart's soul saw Willoughby. Each time Gart's soul saw Willoughby from inside the Willoughby train, his body was still on the commuter train and was still a little bit alive. When Gart's soul was getting off the Willoughby train, it was at the exact same time his body was jumping off the commuter train. His body passed away the second he jumped off the commuter train (even the commuter train conductor mentioned that), and every moment after that, his dead body was lying on the ground while his soul was walking from the Willoughby train into Willoughby being very happy to be there. He went to a pleasant afterlife because Gart really was a good person, a good soul who put up with a lot of hardship (his job, wife, and bad health) he didn't deserve. I don't believe in heaven in the old Christian sense, we don't float around clouds playing harps. I believe that heaven can be different for different souls, for Gart's soul, it was Willoughby. For someone else's soul, it may be a different kind of peaceful land, could be mountains, oceans, it would be whatever makes that particular soul happiest.
Gart passes out twice on the commuter train coming home from work, finding himself on a late 1800s train at a station at warm, peaceful, picturesque Willoughby, warmly greeted by all including conductor saying "This is Willoughby. It's July, 1888, it's a warm one. Willoughby, peaceful, restful, where a man can slow down to a walk, live his life full measure. You oughtta try it sometime". After failing to get off and waking up in his grim reality twice, he tells himself " next time, I'm getting off".
After more stress and getting yelled at ("Push!Push!Push!" by his boss again) at work, telling his wife he cannot handle his job anymore and her reaction being her leaving him, he gets back on the commuter train and plans to go back to Willoughby, this time one-way.
Rod Sterling didn't make clear on what Willoughby really was, I think he left that up for the viewer to decide. I'm an afterlife believer, and I think that Willoughby was heaven to Gart. When he "dreamt" of Willoughby the first two times, he actually had two near death experiences on the train, but he then came out of them. They happened because his heart had gotten so run down and weak from so much termoil, which he really felt right after leaving his job each day, and his heart almost gave out twice and he had two NDEs. The third time, his heart failed completely and he passed away, and he entered Willoughby, or Heaven to stay. This is how I see it; Only Gart's soul saw Willoughby. Each time Gart's soul saw Willoughby from inside the Willoughby train, his body was still on the commuter train and was still a little bit alive. When Gart's soul was getting off the Willoughby train, it was at the exact same time his body was jumping off the commuter train. His body passed away the second he jumped off the commuter train (even the commuter train conductor mentioned that), and every moment after that, his dead body was lying on the ground while his soul was walking from the Willoughby train into Willoughby being very happy to be there. He went to a pleasant afterlife because Gart really was a good person, a good soul who put up with a lot of hardship (his job, wife, and bad health) he didn't deserve. I don't believe in heaven in the old Christian sense, we don't float around clouds playing harps. I believe that heaven can be different for different souls, for Gart's soul, it was Willoughby. For someone else's soul, it may be a different kind of peaceful land, could be mountains, oceans, it would be whatever makes that particular soul happiest.