The Storyteller (The Twilight Zone)

27th episode of the 2nd season of The Twilight Zone

"The Storyteller"

The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.| Season 2
Episode 27a
Directed by| Paul Lynch
Written by| Rockne S. O'Bannon
Original air date| October 11, 1986 (1986-10-11)
Guest appearances
Glynnis O'Connor: Dorothy Livingston
David Faustino: Micah Frost
Parley Baer: Grandfather Frost
Frank Moon: Adult Mica (Man with Scar)
Episode chronology
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"Aqua Vita"  | Next →
"Nightsong"

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List of episodes

"The Storyteller" is the first segment of the twenty-seventh episode, the third episode of the second season (1986–87) of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment a young boy keeps his ancestor alive using a technique similar to that employed by Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights: telling him a story each night and going to bed in the midst of the story.

## Plot[edit]

Retired teacher Dorothy Livingston is visiting her niece when she bumps into a man she recognizes. Dorothy and her niece follow him and Dorothy tells her niece how she met the man in 1933.

Dorothy was assigned to a school in West Virginia and replaced a teacher who told her that Mica Frost, one of her students, should be allowed access to the library at all times. She meets Mica and discovers that he enjoys scribbling in his notebook. She believes Mica's behavior to be unusual and asks him to schedule a parent-teacher conference. Mica informs her that his parents are dead and he lives with his grandfather, who he refuses to let her meet.

Mica secretly takes extra books home. Dorothy visits and finds that the boy is reading the books to his ailing grandfather. Mica now confesses that the old man is not his grandfather but actually his great-great-great-grandfather, who he claims to be 133 years old. He says he has kept the old man alive by reading to him a story every night, but never finishing the story until the next night, claiming the suspense is the only thing keeping the old man alive. He claims he's continuing the tradition as his father and grandfather did.

The next morning at school, Mica falls from a tree, hits his head, and breaks his arm. He is taken to the town doctor to spend the night but he fights back because no one will be home to keep his "grandfather" alive. Dorothy goes to their house and tells his grandfather a story she makes up on the fly. The next day, Mica rushes home to find that his grandfather still alive and well. Dorothy tells Mica that she still does not believe in his storytelling method but thought it would not hurt to tell one just in case.

Back in the present, the adult Mica enters an apartment building followed closely by Dorothy and her niece. As they sneak into Mica's apartment, Dorothy is heard narrating the events at some future date. As she pauses in the narrative, her mother asks excitedly, "Is the old man there? Is he 200 years old?" Dorothy answers: "I can't say, mother. Not until tomorrow." and leaves with the old woman waiting for tomorrow’s story.

## External links[edit]

* "The Storyteller" at IMDb

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The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes

Season 1|

* "Shatterday"
* "A Little Peace and Quiet"
* "Wordplay"
* "Dreams for Sale"
* "Chameleon"
* "Healer"
* "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"
* "The Burning Man"
* "Dealer's Choice"
* "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium"
* "The Shadow Man"
* "Opening Day"
* "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty"
* "Her Pilgrim Soul"
* "I of Newton"
* "Night of the Meek"
* "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"
* "The Leprechaun-Artist"
* "Profile in Silver"
* "Button, Button"
* "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"
* "What Are Friends For?"
* "Aqua Vita"
* "The Storyteller"
* "Nightsong"
* "The After Hours"
* "Lost and Found"
* "The World Next Door"
* "The Toys of Caliban"
* "The Road Less Traveled"
* "The Card"
* "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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