Cavender Is Coming

"**Cavender Is Coming**"
"Cavender Is Coming"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 3; Episode 36
Directed by	Christian Nyby
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Horst Jankowski's A Walk in the Black Forest
Production code	4827
Original air date	May 25, 1962
Guest appearances
	Jesse White; Carol Burnett; Howard Smith; Roy N. Sickner; Frank Behrens; John Fiedler; Sandra Gould; Donna Douglas; Maurice Dallimore;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "I Sing the Body Electric"	Next →; "The Changing of the Guard"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 3)
	List of episodes

"Cavender Is Coming" is episode 101 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on May 25, 1962 on CBS.

Opening narration

Small message of reassurance to that horizontal young lady: Don't despair. Help is en route. It's coming in an odd form from a very distant place, but it's nonetheless coming.

The narration continues after Cavender is assigned as Agnes' guardian angel.

Submitted for your approval, the case of one Miss Agnes Grep, put on Earth with two left feet, an overabundance of thumbs and a propensity for falling down manholes. In a moment she will be up to her jaw in miracles, wrought by apprentice angel Harmon Cavender, intent on winning his wings. And, though it's a fact that both of them should have stood in bed, they will tempt all the fates by moving into the cold, gray dawn of the Twilight Zone.

Plot

Angel Harmon Cavender is assigned to Agnes Grep, a clumsy woman routinely fired from work for her clumsy antics, and tasked with improving her life in 24 hours to earn his wings. As he has taken longer than any other angel to do so, failure in this case means demotion.

Cavender appears beside Agnes on her bus ride home and tries to prove he is her guardian angel by changing the bus into a horse and buggy, then a convertible, and finally back to a bus. Once at home, Agnes is greeted by cookie-loving kids and neighbors who sympathize with her ongoing work woes. When she enters her apartment, she finds Cavender on her couch.

He provides her a mansion, high society friends, and a large bank account to fund it all. Instead of bowling, her former social "high point", she finds herself hosting a lavish party. However, she is uncomfortably overwhelmed by the high society chatter, largely incomprehensible to her, and by the obsequious affections of the men. Cavender, meanwhile, indulges himself in alcoholic drinks.

Cavender wakes up on Agnes' mansion couch. He does not see Agnes anywhere and zaps himself to her old apartment, where she glumly tells him that none of her old apartment neighbors recognize her. She tells him she does not want to go back to the mansion and wants her old life back. Cavender argues against the idea, but eventually gives in and zaps her back to her normal life. With excitement, she greets and jokes with all her old friends. She thanks Cavender and he realizes that she is "the richest woman [he] know[s]" and that money does not necessarily equal happiness.

Cavender returns to Heaven to see his boss, who reprimands him for his behavior at the party and for making no change to Agnes' life. However, after looking down on Earth, the boss sees that though her circumstances are unchanged, Agnes is now happy. He realizes Cavender did complete his mission by making Agnes appreciate what she had, and instead of being demoted, he will now help "other deserving subjects". Cavender takes out a cigar and happily leaves the 3rd Celestial Division Angel Placement.

Closing narration

A word to the wise now to any and all who might suddenly feel the presence of a cigar-smoking helpmate who takes bankbooks out of thin air. If you're suddenly aware of any such celestial aids, it means that you're under the beneficent care of one Harmon Cavender, guardian angel. And this message from the Twilight Zone: Lotsa luck!

Cast

Jesse White as Harmon Cavender
Carol Burnett as Agnes Grep
Howard Smith as Polk
Frank Behrens as Stout
Roy N. Sickner as Bus Driver
Sandra Gould as Woman
Donna Douglas as Woman #1
Adrienne Marden as Woman #2
Maurice Dallimore as Man

Episode notes

This episode was originally broadcast with a laugh track – the only Twilight Zone episode to feature one – because this episode was intended as a backdoor pilot for a regular comedy series featuring the Cavender character. The version included in The Twilight Zone – The Complete Definitive Collection DVD set has the laugh track removed. Reruns airing in the U.S. on Syfy and MeTV also have the laugh track removed as does the version on Netflix.

"Cavender Is Coming" bears strong similarities to the first-season episode "Mr. Bevis". Both episodes are comedies about guardian angels who try to help kindhearted but hapless human beings by giving them everything they think they desire, only to discover that the humans are happier with the way life had been previously. Both episodes were written by Rod Serling.

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

"Cavender Is Coming" at IMDb

v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"