“Submitted for your approval: Captain Brian Engle, a pilot with American Pride Airlines. Captain Engle is a sturdy soul, but he’s just been shaken to the core by an in-flight pressurization problem that almost caused the explosive decompression of the aircraft he was piloting. He managed to land that craft safely in Los Angeles, and is now walking toward the terminal, where he’ll receive tragic news about his ex-wife. Forgoing rest, Engle will board American Pride Flight 29, a flight that is heading toward a date with destiny. Although scheduled to land in Boston, Flight 29 will be forced to make a detour, a change in flight plan that will take it directly into the heart of … the Twilight Zone.”
While The Langoliers never appeared on The Twilight Zone, it certainly feels like a lost episode of that classic show. Dedicated to “Joe, another white knuckle flier,” this story had its origins in a bizarre image that flashed through King’s mind of a woman pressing her hand over a crack in the wall of a commercial jetliner. The plot is simple—ten passengers taking a flight from Los Angeles to Boston wake up in midflight to find the crew and the majority of their cabinmates gone (one additional passenger is present, but asleep). Luckily, one of their number can pilot the craft, and takes command. Unable to contact anyone on the ground (no one responds to his
calls, and major cities below are blacked out), Captain Brian Engle makes an executive decision to land the plane at Bangor International Airport. There they discover they are the only living things in the immediate vicinity. Nothing feels right to them; even the air smells different. Then they hear sounds in the distance, crunching sounds, as if someone is literally chewing up the landscape. Before the day is through, these unlucky souls discover where all our yesterdays go.
This unique tale of time travel contains several links to the Stephen King Universe. Debating what has occurred, one passenger mentions similar events in history, mainly the disappearance of the entire crew of the Mary Celeste, and of the colonists at Roanoke Island, Virginia, two historical events that have fascinated the author for years. The same passenger wonders if he and his fellow travelers may be guinea pigs of an experiment conducted by a top-secret outfit like The Shop (a ruthless “black ops” government agency, first introduced in Firestarter). Finally, most of the action of the story takes place at the Bangor International Airport, located in King’s hometown in Maine.
THE LANGOLIERS: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
THE LANGOLIERS: According to Craig Toomey’s father, the Langoliers are horrid monsters who prey on lazy, time-wasting children. The passengers of Flight 29 adopt Toomey’s name for the creatures he’s convinced are coming to destroy them. They are described as black balls that contract and then expand again. According to the narrative, “They shimmered and twitched and wavered like faces made of glowing swamp gas. The eyes were only rudimentary indentations, but the mouths were huge: semicircular caves lined with gnashing, whirring teeth.” The Langoliers use those teeth to literally chew up the scenery of the world—they are reality’s scavengers, complete consumers of yesterday.
CAPTAIN BRIAN ENGLE: Brian Engle is proof that bad luck does come in threes. As the tale begins, Engle has just safely landed a plane that almost suffered an explosive decompression. Arriving at the airport, he is informed that his ex-wife has been killed in a fire. Last, and most important to the story, he boards American Pride Flight 29 for the trip back to Boston to deal with his wife’s remains. Exhausted, Engle falls asleep the minute he
sits in his seat on the plane. Awakened by Dinah Bellman’s screams, he realizes that the crew and most of his fellow passengers are no longer aboard. After breaking down the door to the cockpit with the help of Nick Hopewell, he assumes control of the plane and, indirectly, of the group. Engle survives the incredible events of the Langoliers—he’s among those who wink back into existence before the eyes of a startled little girl at the end of the journey.
DINAH BELLMAN: A blind girl with telepathic powers (she can see through others’ eyes, and speak to them via telepathy across great distances), Dinah is on Flight 29 with her Aunt Vicky, traveling to Boston to have an operation that might restore her sight. The first to stir after the plane literally crosses over into yesterday, she awakens the remaining passengers with her frightened screams. Dinah demonstrates her powers when she views the other passengers through Craig Toomey’s eyes (he sees them as monsters). Frightened by this vision, she clings to Laurel Stevenson during the rest of the ordeal. Despite being stabbed by the paranoid Toomey, the little girl plays an important part in the group’s eventual escape, mentally luring the near-dead Toomey to reveal himself to the ravenous Langoliers. The creatures then veer toward him, giving those on the plane valuable time to take off. Mortally injured, Dinah passes away before the aircraft safely crosses back across the border between yesterday and today.
ALBERT KLAUSNER: An exceedingly bright young man who, along with Robert Jenkins, represents the brains of the beleaguered group. It is Albert who realizes that, coming from the future, they and their craft are far more real than their present surroundings at Bangor Airport. Applying his theory, the group refuels their plane with the flat (other-dimensional) mixture contained in the fuel tanks at the airport. Once inside Flight 29’s fuel tanks, the fuel becomes more real, allowing them to take off at the approach of the Langoliers. Albert also survives the Langoliers. He is presumed alive and well, perhaps pursuing a romantic relationship with Bethany Sims.
LAUREL STEVENSON: A schoolteacher, Laurel is taking the flight to Massachusetts to meet with a man she only knows through letters. During
her adventures in the world of the Langoliers, she and Nick Hopewell fall in love. Before Nick sacrifices himself to save the rest of the group, he asks Laurel to pass a message on to his estranged father. She agrees.
NICK HOPEWELL: An operative of the British government, Nick describes himself as Her Majesty’s Mechanic. On his way to Boston to assassinate the paramour of an outspoken supporter of the IRA, Nick instead becomes involved in the adventure of a lifetime. He becomes the de facto leader of the group once Captain Engle lands the plane. His sure manner and quick thinking make him a good leader; his no-nonsense attitude keeps human time bomb Craig Toomey in line long enough for Engle to safely touch down. Attempting to return home the way they came, the group realizes that they need to be asleep to cross the barrier safely. Nick, knowing it could mean his death, offers to remain awake and see the craft through the temporary portal safely. Nick is gone when his fellow passengers emerge from their brief sleep and is presumed dead.
DON GAFFNEY: Don takes charge of Craig Toomey after Nick calms his initial outburst (Hopewell grabs Toomey by the nose, threatening to break it if he doesn’t back off). Toomey later kills Don with a letter opener.
CRAIG TOOMEY: In introducing this character, King references certain fish that live near the ocean floor, thriving despite the tremendous pressure. Bring these fish up to the surface, however, and they explode: “Craig Toomey had been raised in his own dark trench, had lived in his own atmosphere of high pressure.” Raised by a domineering father and castrating mother, Toomey has grown into a paranoid, insecure, Type A adult. An employee of Desert Sun Banking Corporation, the self-destructive Toomey has made a disastrous investment, costing the company millions.
Waking up on board the nearly empty plane, Toomey begins his final descent into madness. Utterly panicked, he starts bullying his fellow passengers until Nick Hopewell forcibly convinces him to back off. His paranoia reaches epic proportions; he attacks the group at the Bangor Airport. First he shoots Albert point-blank in the chest, an attempt that fails because the bullet, subject to the laws of this reality, is not propelled with enough
force to hurt the boy. He later stabs Dinah with a letter opener, giving her the wound that eventually kills her; he uses the same weapon to dispatch Don Gaffney shortly thereafter.
Toomey then tries to kill Albert but fails, taking a heavy beating in the process. Albert leaves him in the airport, but a dying Dinah rouses Craig telepathically, forcing him to rise and walk out to the airfield. Once there, he is then attacked and devoured by the Langoliers.
ROBERT JENKINS: Introducing himself to Albert (who eventually comes to play Dr. Watson to Jenkins’s Sherlock Holmes), Jenkins says, “I write mysteries for a living. Deduction is my bread and butter, you might say.” Jenkins is thrilled by the intellectual challenge his predicament provides—his theories are usually right on the money, helping the others to remain calm and to survive in their strange new environs. Jenkins saves the day late in the game when he realizes that he and his fellow passengers must be asleep to safely cross the divide. Jenkins is presumably alive and well, still writing mystery novels.
BETHANY SIMS: Bethany’s mom is sending her to visit her Aunt Shawna, who would most likely have placed her in a rehab center to dry out. Bethany forms a romantic bond with Albert Klausner, who becomes her knight in shining armor. Bethany is presumably alive and well, perhaps pursuing a romantic relationship with Albert.
RUDY WARWICK: A.k.a. “the bald man,” Rudy’s main preoccupation is eating. At the Bangor Airport, he finds to his horror that the food is tasteless and all but inedible. One of the six people who survive the trauma of the journey to the land of the Langoliers, Rudy is presumed to be alive and well.
THE LANGOLIERS: ADAPTATIONS
Stephen King’s The Langoliers was made into a four-hour TV miniseries in 1995. Directed by Tom Holland (who also helmed the lackluster feature version of Thinner a year later), this ABC production is faithful to its source
material, but comes off as an overly long episode of The Twilight Zone. The acting is competent, but surprisingly wooden for the most part. There are bright spots, however: David Morse and Dean Stockwell turn in convincing performances as Captain Engle and Bob Jenkins, and Bronson Pinchot is downright brilliant as Toomey. Like the 1990 television miniseries version of It, however, The Langoliers is diminished by cheap special effects—all the carefully wrought tension evaporates when the Langoliers, strange hybrids of Pac Men and Tasmanian Devils, appear.
Look closely for Stephen King’s cameo as Tom Holby, senior vice president of Desert Sun Banking; the author appears in a fantasy sequence which occurs near the end of the show.