An agrarian society on the other side of a mysterious portal which is being secretly researched by the military.  Night Visions knew what to do with that premise — an awesome episode entitled A View Through the Window.  Twilight Zone once again drops the ball to create a feel-good episode.  They don’t even get the title right.  The Wall?  How about The Gate, The Portal, The Doorway, The Window, Das Fenster?  It’s not about a freakin’ wall!

Major Alex McAndrews is escorted to an underground facility.  We know it is Top Secret because it uses facial recognition technology.  It is either very good or very bad because it allows John Beck without a moustache, and I have never seen him without a moustache.  Some people, you just expect to have hair on their upper lip, like John Beck, Tom Selleck, Joy Behar.

He meets with General Slater.  Not to get all Cinema Sins, but does it makes sense that he is wearing a 1st Cavalry Division patch?  I mean, I know they don’t still fight on horses, but how did their mission evolve into manning underground bunkers?  But it’s still a cool patch, so I’m deducting one sin.  Gnib.

Slater says two months ago, this facility was a particle physics lab, nothing unusual.  During a wormhole experiment, there was an explosion and they discovered this phenomenon.  They put on some welding goggles and Slater opens the vault door.  The awe-stricken McAndrews gasps. “My God!”, even though all he can really see is a bright light.  Slater says they brought in top scientists from all over the place — Cornell, NASA, JPL — but they are baffled by the quantum fluctuations, the gravitational anomalies, and talking to girls.

This gateway is being held open by equipment that somehow survived a blast that punched a hole into another dimension, but they don’t really know how it works.  Or how to turn it back on if someone spills coffee on it.  The military wants McAndrews to go through the gate and report on what is on the other side.  He is a former test-pilot, so they naturally figure he is the best guy to explore a subterranean hole in the ground.

He is not the first person to go through.  Slater shows him pictures of the people that have been sent through the gate and have not returned — a Mexican ( Emilio Perez), a Woman (Evelyn Marx), and an African-American (Henry Kincaid).  Draw your own conclusion there, I’m not touching it.  McAndrews has recently been given a desk job and his wife left him, so he volunteers to go in.

He is outfitted in a spacesuit and climbs through the gate.  He loses contact with the general within seconds and collapses.  He awakens in a wooded earth-like area, and finds one of his predecessor’s gloves.  He soon meets Captain Kincaid and a woman who appears to be Amish.  They take him into a farming community.  McAndrews asks, “What is this place?”  Kincaid answers, “Call it Heaven!” but I notice he’s stepping pretty gingerly through that cow pasture.

They meet with the other officers.  Lt. Perez is a navigational expert.  Again, the military decided this was the expertise needed by a guy going into a hole in the ground.  It worked out, though.  By studying the stars, he has determined that they are not on Earth or anywhere near it.

McAndrews figures out that Kincaid lied about them not being able to go back.  Kincaid admits it, saying that if they went back, the military would flood in and destroy this paradise.  I don’t disagree, but what the hell would they want there?  McAndrews, however, feels duty-bound to report his findings as ordered.  No wonder his wife left him.

McAndrews finds the gate and returns to the underground facility.  He reports that the other side is an agrarian society whose threat to national security is “nil”.  Of course, the military dweebs immediately begin planning an invasion.  McAndrews drops his major insignia on the floor (but only one, I notice) and walks back to the gate.

He destroys the equipment keeping the wormhole open, then jumps through.  I know he doesn’t want the military to follow, but this is all wrong.  First, how did he get back after first destroying the machine?  Second, this just sets up yet another TZ happy ending.  It would have made more sense dramatically for him to sacrifice himself to save the other society.  As is, we get a brief epilog to show that he made it back to this simple idyllic community for a happy life of polio, cholera, syphilis, and shitting in the woods.

Even though they Disneyed the ending, it was still a good episode.