Jeremy Wickwire is the main antagonist of "Elegy", the 20th episode in the first season of The Twilight Zone, which aired in 1960. He is the robot caretaker of Happy Glades, a cemetery spanning a habitable asteroid in a binary star system. While stated to be 655 million miles away, this would place Happy Glades within the Sol System, so it must be an error. Jeremy Wickwire externally resembles an elderly human man and appears to be sapient, usually displaying an amiable attitude. However, he believes that as long as there are men, there can be no peace, a belief which leads him to kill any living being that lands on the asteroid.
He was portrayed by the late Cecil Kellaway.
Biography[]
In 1973, in the face of an impending nuclear war, a group of humans found a habitable asteroid that orbited two stars, making the asteroid into an exclusive cemetery, where the rich could "live" out their greatest fantasies after death. The deceased brought to the asteroid were preserved in a manner that kept them from rotting over centuries, and positioned in prop environments made in the image of their fantasies, such as winning beauty contests, being the best at poker games, being a knight in medieval times, and more, surrounded by fake humans and animals meant to enhance the illusion, giving the entire asteroid a creepy image of appearing frozen in time. Jeremy Wickwire was constructed during this time, made to be a caretaker of the asteroid, and appeared to know of the impending war. He would only activate occasionally, just to perform some routine maintenance, and for the rest of the time, he would be a part of the façade, appearing as just another prop person. In 1985, the nuclear war finally happened.
200 years later, in the late 22nd century, a trio of human astronauts were forced to land on the asteroid after running out of fuel. The astronauts wandered the asteroid, finding the prop humans and the preserved humans, but missing Jeremy Wickwire, who activated after an astronaut walked past him, going to the center of the prop town. When the three astronauts arrived, Wickwire greeted them, inviting them inside a stately building and explaining the truth of the cemetery, and that he is a robot. The astronauts then inform him of the war and the fact that it took 200 years to recover from it. Hearing that, Wickwire offered the astronauts a toast to their safe arrival, asking where they would like to be. The astronauts responded that they would like to be on a ship heading home before drinking, then realizing that the drinks were poisoned. Wickwire, revealing that he laced the drinks with the substance that preserved the dead, apologized to the astronauts for the deception, but then ominously explained that his purpose was to ensure Happy Glades remained a peaceful place, saying that the astronauts are men, and while there are men, there can be no peace. After the astronauts died, Wickwire positioned them inside their ship, as if they were setting a course for Earth. After dusting them off, Wickwire returned to the stately building, taking a seat within and shutting down again.
