When the men are discussing the Battle of the Little Bighorn, they reference the name Benteen, referring to Captain Frederick Benteen.
I just realized that this is the same last name of the leader in "On Thursday We Leave for Home" - "Captain" William Benteen. Did Serling borrow this name from history? Was he making some sort of analogy?
According to Wikipedia Frederick Benteen has been criticized by military analysts because he failed to obey Custard's instructions. Perhaps Serling was drawing a comparison between Frederick Benteen's inability to obey Custard's instructions and his TV counterpart's inability to see that his people wished to return to Earth and while thankful for his leadership would no longer need it once back on Earth.
shareI looked at that too. Unfortunately, we can't ask Rod if that was his intention. I looked through all of my TZ books and none of them mention this connection.
shareDid you consult Martin Graham's "Unlocking The Door To A Television"? If an answer to your query could be found anywhere it's probably there.
shareYup. (I have seven TZ books, and that's one of them.) It goes into lots of detail about the location and how much it cost to rent the tanks, etc., but there's no mention of a connection to the "Thursday We Leave for Home" episode. The comments for that episode don't say anything either.
shareI would imagine there is a connection on some level. It would be different if it was something like Smith or Jones, but Benteen is uncommon enough that it was probably on purpose.
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