Queen of the Nile - Twilight-Tober Zone

"Queen of the Nile" is an entertaining watch with engaging characters, a worthy mystery, and a memorable grim ending. Click now and find out more about this Twilight Zone episode!
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"Queen of the Nile" is episode 143 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a journalist becomes romantically involved with a dangerous, secretly immortal movie star.
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[@trinaq]

Ann Blyth is still alive, at 96 years old, though she's long retired from the entertainment industry. She's one of the last surviving Hollywood stars of her generation.

[@GnuHopper]

Hmmm....has anyone checked her for scarabs lately?

[@Cubfan2240]

Maybe she really does suck the life from victims 😂

[@himoverthere6716]

You sure she don’t still have that damn beetle? 😅

[@kingsodashark2194]

Wait really?

[@racheljackson4428]

Impressive. What is she doing now?

[@jasondowns940]

Learning that Beaumont was only 38 was heartbreaking. He was one for the ages

[@osterro]

I think it's very touching that his friends helped him out with the scripts

[@racheljackson4428]

And i thought that Liam Payne's Death was tragic.

[@kdusel1991]

​@@racheljackson4428 it's so sad!!

[@johnnynevermind8595]

Me too! 😢I didn’t know until this day! November 21, 2024 😢

[@Omar-wq9dz]

This was a good episode. I always liked the fact it was Cleopatra all along, as opposed to some random woman who happened to be immortal

[@trinaq]

I agree, though the title gives away the twist, I thought that it was clever.

[@melissacooper8724]

She makes Mother Gothel from Tangled a Saint by comparison!

[@Sojoboscribe]

Objectively, while Cleopatra would be a good choice, I always thought she might be Nefertiti, on the grounds that she was also a pretty ruthless schemer.

[@theshenpartei]

That quote from Beaumont’s son just haunts me for a lot of reasons.

[@claytonrios1]

Well it's more accurate to Cleopatra than the Netflix documentary!

[@TheSufferingDarkness]

Clone High was more accurate to Cleopatra than the Netflix…flick

[@BeeDub57]

I remember my grandmother saying to me, "I don't care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was an ageless movie star!"

[@claytonrios1]

​@@BeeDub57Who's grandma was that?

[@tankmaverick99]

@@BeeDub57 I remember my daughter... Err I mean grandma saying that too!

[@Wildcat_Media]

I like the implication that she is actually THE Cleopatra. She even looks a bit like Elizabeth Taylor, who famously played the Egyptian queen in 1963. I could see that being a deliberate choice by the actress, along with the hair/makeup and costuming departments.

[@fredrikcarlstedt393]

He was along with Richard Matheson and George Clayton Johnson truly one of the Zone Lords with Serling as their one Master to rule them all . RIP, Mr Beaumont .

[@johnsweet8508]

Ann Blyth was terrific in her role as Veda in "Mildred Pierce." Arguably her greatest role. Btw, at 8:14 is that the same swimming pool used in The Bewitchin' Pool? I think it is.

[@RockySamson]

I feel like the fact that it’s Cleopatra is a more compelling twist than if it had been some random ancient Egyptian. At least with Cleopatra, you can see her having access to such power. I feel like any other random figure would leave open so many questions.

[@aliciabell6688]

Um, Isis was queen of the Nile. Read about her husband Osiris whom she mummified. I think this character was Isis.

[@stardusth2o]

Never realized that was Oscar-nominee Ann Blyth!!! How cool. She’s a marvelous actress.

[@Oppeldeldoc1]

Not many episode have a "Golden Age" horror film feeling to them, but this one does. That's only one reason I'm fond of it.

[@jessicamoreland5929]

This is a highly underrated episode

[@cherylcampbell9369]

Mrs. Draper, Celia Lovsky, was in Star Trek TOS as the Vulcan Elder D'Pau in the episode Amok Time. She was married to Peter Lorre. She also spilled the beans to Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green.

[@thEannoyingE]

I remember this one really sticking with me, that shot of him turning to sand is chilling.

[@JAM4077]

The twist of this episode reminds me of the Werecats and their curse from Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. I wonder if the writers of that film took inspiration from this episode.

[@shainewhite2781]

I enjoyed this episode quite a lot, as the title tells you who the character really is.

[@wakeangel2001]

There is this thing about immortality, it's a curse. Especially if there is some condition on it, you lose the ability to connect to others until you're a complete sociopath, and you're guaranteed to become obsessed with your condition, I HAVE to be within driving distance of a lazarus pit, I NEED to secure another person to drain life force from, gotta have some souls in reserve for my soul gem, etc

[@jeremytung1632]

I don’t know, Hob Gadling from The Sandman seems to be doing okay.

[@louisduarte8763]

That part did not come up in this story. I think a better ending should have been the journalist finding out how the scarab works, stopping the actress from using it, and instead SHE ages rapidly and crumbles to dust.

[@Sayrden]

​@jeremytung1632 True, but Hob doesn't need to do anything to stay immortal (other than maybe choosing not to die, depending on your interpretation).

[@benjaminwakefield9509]

Depends what the conditions are I guess. In general don’t see how it’s any different from having to eat food or take medication to stay alive.

[@shenloken2]

The cross dissolves showing Jordan turning into a crumbling skeleton did jar me a bit first time I saw it. I always wondered since “Long Live Walter Jameson” what that particular sequence would have looked like.

[@cliftonchurch6039]

I can see Cleopatra morphing into Patricia then finally settling on Pamela as times change.

[@Elephant2024]

As soon as Jordan was told by the elderly woman that she is the daughter and the Ann Blyth character is her mother, I would have ran the hell away from there.😆🤣

[@moggridge1]

So when Pamela developed this attraction to the prolific columnist was she interested in his prolific column? 🤔

[@melissacooper8724]

I believe her main motive was to get his life force so that she would remain young and beautiful forever. If she couldn't use her methods to keep herself young and beautiful, then she would've ended up like Jordan Herrick!

[@BeeDub57]

Hey-oh!!!

[@allisonlee428]

One of my favorite episode

[@michaelharrington7656]

I love this episode. I have watched it more than any other. BTW, the tomb of Cleopatra has never been founnd. Ann Blyth is perfect.

[@danielcharland1374]

Nefertiti was an Egyptian queen renowned for her beauty even more than Cleopatra, who was more renowned for her political savvy with Romans and had a reputation for beauty tacked on to that, from what I understand. It's also worth pointing out that, as far as I know, no one knows for sure if Nefertitti's mummy has been found, so it would make sense with a story saying she's still arround.

[@ShadowFireclaws]

I originally thought it was her that was being implied in this episode too. i can how both Cleopatra VII and Nefertiti would work here.

[@debbieanne7962]

@@danielcharland1374 Cleopatra was of Greek heredity and apparently was no beauty

[@miroslavtomic7038]

6:42 This is very obviously the same shot used in Season 1 episode Long live Walter Jameson.

[@CrypticCharm]

I love, love, love this episode. i love how she was the real Cleopatra since she never had a tomb...the Romans burned the body also having Ann Blyth was a genius bit of casting, she was amazing in Mildred Pierce, and i loved her in Mr Peabody and the Mermaid

[@WildMen4444]

She had a tomb. Her and Marc Antony were buried together (though it's unknown if Antony was cremated or mummified). The tomb however is lost (possibly because it was in part of Alexandria that flooded over at one point)

Doug, you've done an excellent job on this series. I hope you'll review some of the TZ radio plays that didn't make it to the screen, particularly Beaumont's "Gentlemen, Be Seated"!

[@dannyschaible7112]

Did he slide the steering column to the side? He slid the whole steering column! That's a wild feature, I must say.

[@barryon8706]

I had to watch that part twice.

[@julieporter7805]

I love this episode. Ann Blyth is so deliciously evil in this episode. What amazes me is how much Blyth looked and acted like her one time on-screen mother, Joan Crawford (she played the conniving Vida Pierce in Mildred Pierce) when she did at that age it's uncanny. Beaumont's death was so haunting and you could see the terror and recognition of fleeting time in his episodes.

[@Alejandroigarabide]

Of course she denies being an ageless Egyptian queen. She's the queen of Denial after all.

[@ianr.navahuber2195]

1:04 Charles Beaumont's last script, and summary of his decline and eventual demise 2:28 reviewing beaumont's contributions

[@ShadowFireclaws]

To be more specific, the closing narration implies that she's Cleopatra VII, though when I first saw this episode on Syfy's annual "The Twilight Zone New Year's Eve Marathon", I thought it was implying that she was Queen Nefertiti.

[@mikechicago6200]

Man i love the Twilight Zone.....i so hope they'd do a review for the 1990s Twilight Zone!

[@WebMonkey741]

They gotta do the 1980s one first tho... or the 70s "The Night Gallery". 😊

[@ShadowFireclaws]

And then maybe the 2019 Twilight Zone series as well!

[@charitysghost1207]

This episode definitely teaches kids nowadays how people researched things before the internet. 😊

[@jamesgarrett8833]

This is one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes. I remember seeing it like it was yesterday. It was the summer of 2009, their was a Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-fi channel and this episode stood out to me because of all the shocking things: the daughter older than the mom, the actress having dual identities (on paper) and the actress being Cleopatra, meaning she lived over 4000 years 😮

[@zanemartin6699]

Cleopatra (the most well known one) was born in the last century BC. Her official death date is August 10, 30 BC. She’d only be a little over 2000 years old (which is still very old)

[@kdusel1991]

Another great episode!!

[@jamesgarrett8833]

I say it’s quite obvious that the movie star actress is Cleopatra because she said it herself by once being Queen of the Nile, Cleopatra nickname and also using a beetle from ancient Egyptian mythology to stay alive. So if she just some random woman, how would she know about the beetle?

[@christophertheriault3308]

She wouldn't be a random person, she'd be a random Egyptian queen like Hatshepsut or Nefertiri

[@jlev1028]

​@@christophertheriault3308Only the ethnically Greek queen makes sense as a candidate.

[@WildMen4444]

​@@christophertheriault3308Considering that Pamela has very clear European features, the only way it could make sense is if she was either Cleopatra or some other woman from the Ptolemaic Dynasty. The Ptolemaic Dynasty was the only dynasty with female pharaohs that was also of European descent. Someone like Hatshepsut would look more Middle Eastern. I'd also argue that the fact that Pamela's MO is to seduce handsome men lines with Cleopatra since She famously seduced both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. Perhaps Pamela's origin is that as Augustus was closing in, she absorbed Marc Antony's life force and the stories of how the two died were made up to keep Augustus from looking for Cleopatra? It's definitely interesting to ponder...

[@christophertheriault3308]

@@WildMen4444 given the realities of when this show was made I'd be wary of assigning any meaning to the actress' actual appearance beyond the fact that they picked somebody with dark hair. Unless you want to go with the theory they intended to evoke Liz Taylor.

[@WildMen4444]

​@@christophertheriault3308Sure. That's true too. Though I still think she's Cleopatra VII. We know it can't be Nefertiti because the various images of Egyptian Gods in her house would go against her husband's beliefs (they were Atenists). And I'm just not willing to believe that she's Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut is cool but how many people back then knew who that was?

[@brendakrieger7000]

Oh wow,so sad to hear about the tragic life of Charles Beaumont 💔 May he RIP

[@pkmntrainermark8881]

Kruger suggested that the "two" actresses looked alike because they were playing the same character. They'd go for similar looking actresses and put them in similar makeup and so forth.

[@kyleg1464]

It is absolutely Cleopatra that Rod is implying.

[@punkyu_fyb.7]

THE WALL

[@CaptainCJ97]

Happy Friday yall

[@Dendarang]

I mean, it has to be Cleopatra. She's the only ancient Egyptian queen that literally everyone has heard of. If given enough time or clues, a lot of people would probably also eventually remember Hatshepsut and Nefertiti but, besides those three, all others are unknown to average modern person not specifically interested in ancient Egyptian history.

[@WildMen4444]

Not to mention those two are Middle Eastern whereas Cleopatra is European (like the actress)

[@thabigben1]

Charles Beaumont was the writer for two of George Pal's movies. The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in 1962. And 7 Faces of Dr. Lao in 1964. The latter has a Twilight Zone type of feel to it.

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Love this seríes guys! You're the Best 🎃🎃🎃

[@jessicamoreland5929]

Love this episode 😍

[@TramiNguyen-oi3kp]

Awesome The Twilight Zone episode!

[@ashb7846]

Considering Cleopatra’s tomb still hasn’t been discovered after all these years the idea in the twist does match up to a certain sense of reality.

[@Myself-yf5do]

Now that you've done Disneycember, Dreamworksuary, Bat May, and this, you should do Nickuly/Aprilodeon.

[@mleighqs]

This one gave me some Death Becomes Her vibes :)

[@nvm9040]

Immortality is always a interesting topic for the zone which this episode gives me Long Live Walter Jameson vibes but completely different characters and plot in a way Last Beaumont script and he was one the great writers for TZ

[@meganshaw1949]

This sounds like the plot of Death Becomes Her.

[@majinsole8554]

Damn, I didn’t know that’s what was going on with Beaumont and that he does so young. Tragic. ~_~

[@melissacooper8724]

The part where Viola revealed to Herrick that she is really Pamela's daughter reminded me of the biopic Chaplin starring Robert Downey Jr. The movie seemed Twilight Zone worthy because the actress who played Hannah Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's mother was his daughter Geraldine!

[@theproplady]

I do think Ann Blyth's character was supposed to be a thinly disguised version of Elizabeth Taylor, who was known for playing Cleopatra and for having several husbands. She also had a long career in Hollywood, starting in the 1940s.

[@melissacooper8724]

I believe you're right. I recall that Elizabeth Taylor had played Cleopatra in a movie.

[@aidanhever3369]

It's no wonder making a movie about Cleopatra is cursed, especially the last one.

[@mmem4264]

So she never once considered prolonging her daughter's life...?

[@jlev1028]

Vain immortals are like that, not wanting to share their gifts with their offspring. Had Ra's Al Ghul not transferred his consciousness to Talia, he would've left his daughter old and feeble.

[@zanemartin6699]

Maybe only one person at a time can use the beetle. So if her daughter used it, she’d lose her immortality and die

[@melissacooper8724]

Since Cleopatra, alias Pamela Morris is over two thousand years old, she most likely had numerous sons and daughters who grew old and died!

[@rogue7723]

The reveal of Viola being Cleopatra’s daughter kinda reminds me of Jonah Hex being Ras Al-Ghul’s son in _Batman The Animated Series._ I wonder if they were at least partially inspired by this episode?

[@WildMen4444]

Jonah isn't Ras' son. It was the guy he was fighting who was his son

[@kali3665]

Fun fact: Playing Viola - Pamela's "mother" - is Celia Lovsky, best known today as T'Pau from the original Star Trek. She was married to Peter Lorre from 1934 to 1945. Ironically, another wife of Peter Lorre appeared on Twilight Zone: Karen Verne was the concierge at the start of the episode Deaths-Head Revisited. Would that Peter Lorre himself had appeared on Twilight Zone.... Not one of my favorite episodes - it ends rather suddenly and there's not much of a twist once you link Pamela to her ... earlier self. Indeed, this is very much the reverse of Long Live Walter Jameson. But Jameson realized that eternal life is not a gift and can be a curse. Pamela is a woman who puts more value in eternal youth. She will never see that as a curse. It does take Jordan a long time to put two and two together, and when he does, it is way too late. We figured it out far sooner, of course, so I found this episode less than satisfying. Good aging effects, though.

[@FucTrump]

The age of Adalaine one hundred percent ripped this off.

[@ReconViper1]

I can't look at, or hear, Celia Lovsky without seeing T'Pau.

[@julianmitchell2186]

There's a lot of, "if we change one thing on this woman, no one will know it's the same actor!" But we know

[@christophertheriault3308]

One of my favorite episodes, but yes it bothers me also that the editor blows off what should obviously be seen as the same person in both photos. I'll give him some benefit in that his brain would be expecting the people to be different so that colors his perception.

[@TheNotverysocial]

Unlike Walter Jameston, this ageless person doesn;t finally get killed after thousands of years. Rare Karma Houdini.

[@loganja2208]

One of my favorite episodes. Keep your heads on a swivel, fellas… there are femme fatales out there in droves even today’

[@dabestyoutube5433]

Honestly shocked you liked this one,not all that well filmed and the twist is obvious from the beginning

[@melissacooper8724]

I wasn't shocked about Pamela's revelation about being Cleopatra. I was more shocked when Viola revealed to Herrick that she was Pamela's daughter!

[@deandreushayes9836]

4:39 Twist

[@kevbarty2081]

I dont know if "signs sort of point to that" is accurate. Ive always taken when she says she was once the true of the nile to confirm it 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@Bardic_Knowledge]

Rather than Cleopatra, I'd vote for Hatsheput, since she got pretty badly treated by her successor Pharaohs.

[@jlev1028]

That facr doesn't really matter to the plot.

[@Bardic_Knowledge]

@@jlev1028 Nor would being Cleopatra matter to the plot all that much. I was just bringing up an alternative and explaining why I brought her up.

[@WildMen4444]

I wouldn't be so sure. She seems more like she's one of the Ptolemies. I'd go with Cleopatra

[@johnnynevermind8595]

Cleopatra for sure

[@dupersuper1938]

T'Pau!!

[@jlev1028]

These kind of episodes where an immortal pretends to be their offspring's offspring always creep me out. There's a similar episode in the '80s series but on a wider scale. "Our Selena is Dying" I think it was called.

[@williamcrowe2576]

So we got kinda a double twist; the actress was not only Cleopatra and immortal, she's also a human leech.

[@bigk9000]

Has anyone looked into Paul Rudd's background recently?

[@talmun]

Is that T'Pau?

[@RialVestro]

I don't think the twist on this one really works. There's not much of a mystery here as I pretty much predicted the ending the moment all the Egyptian decorations at her house were shown. The only thing I didn't predict is that she would kill the guy and feed on his life to extend her own. I think a story like this could have worked but they shouldn't have had the old woman warning him, the Egyptian decorations, and even the title of the epidode itself all give away the ending.

[@konst80hum]

Hashepsut duh. The only real Egyptian pharaoh

[@Dope-Bomb]

Can you review Shaun of the dead as a halloween video?

[@lowrider993]

I thought this one was pretty good, the only Egyptian one I remember

[@ztslovebird]

Could’ve been Cleopatra. Or Nefertiti. Or Hapshetsut.

[@jlev1028]

Only the first one makes sense.

[@TheYoungDoctor]

8:12 He said Egyptian name but Cleopatra is a Greek name.

[@blairscartoonshistory7477]

Could be Nefertiti

[@jlev1028]

​@@blairscartoonshistory7477She wasn't white.

[@blairscartoonshistory7477]

@@jlev1028 true, so maybe it is Cleopatra

[@WildMen4444]

Rod probably said Egyptian because it would have thrown most people off if he said Greek. I don't think most people would have recalled that Cleopatra's family is from Macedonia

[@spikeoramathon]

Forget Cleopatra, she was a Ptolemy and thus part of a Greek occupation. You want a real queen of the Nile, go for Hatsheput!

[@WildMen4444]

Greek or not, Cleopatra was queen and She was worshipped as such by the people. Also, why Hapshepsut? Don't get me wrong. She's great but how come nobody ever talks about Sobekneferu or Khentkawes I?

[@spikeoramathon]

@@WildMen4444 I was just being a silly goose. But love your response!

[@samus88]

Solid episode, but as most of season 5, save for a few masterpieces, even the better episodes of the season are not on par with mid-tier episodes of earlier seasons.

[@scientistservant]

Crazy Beaumont died so young, and from Alzheimer's too :(

[@louisduarte8763]

1:59 38? FUCK, that's young! And I thought 40 is the start of getting old.

[@melissacooper8724]

Hey! I'm 45! And I don't consider myself old!

[@CaptianComet]

She says she was queen of the nile, not necessarily cleopatra she could be some other queen such as nefertiti

[@jlev1028]

No brown woman could make it to Hollywood stardom at the time. Anyone other than Cleopatra would have more success in Egypt's film industry.

[@ExplorerDS6789]

More like Queen of Denial, amma right?

[@jessetorres8738]

This is 1 of the most depressing Episodes of the original Twilight Zone Era.

[@Vladislak]

Much as I like this episode, the ending always irked me a bit. The guy has a ton of evidence to confirm or nearly confirm his suspicions about how she's killed many young men but he willingly drinks the tea she has served to him without any suspicion. It turns what was a smart and clever character into a complete fool without any valid explanation. Sure there was an attraction towards her, but that didn't stop him from confronting her on her lies before. Why would he throw away his caution now?

[@themaninblack7503]

The investigator was kind of dumb.

[@jlev1028]

Also, I don't get people who hypothesis Pamela's real identity as Egyptian queens other than Cleopatra. Think about it: Who could successfully pose as a Hollywood star at that time other than a white person?

[@Cassadinegirlaz]

Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian. She was Greek.

[@WildMen4444]

You are correct. However, She was the Pharaoh of Egypt

[@ChrisTalkz]

Eternals ripped this off! Next time What's In The Box!

[@astrowolvez]

Could have also had the older picture have her aged a bit because she hasn’t stolen a life force in a while.

[@bocowan9106]

Was the character supposed to be a spoof of Elizabeth Taylor?

[@Wolfcreed117]

"The white Queen of the Nile Archer?" - Lana Kane God I miss Archer.❤😢

[@Torgo-and-the-Lucifer-Cat]

And by all accounts, cleopatra was not pretty, at all. She was charming, and also a mass murderer, killed most of her own siblings! ❤

[@WildMen4444]

Saying She wasn't pretty is a bit of an overstatement. The texts that talk about Her say that it was more so Her personality than Her looks that won Caesar and Antony over. They never say She was ugly. Also, I wouldn't really call Cleopatra a mass murderer. Out of all of Her siblings, only one is believed to have been murdered. Ptolemy XIII was killed in battle, Arsinoe IV was executed, Berenike IV was already dead by the time Cleopatra was on the throne due to a conflict with Their father, and we don't even know if Cleopatra VI was even a real person (or if she wasn't actually just Cleopatra V). The only one that we can say Cleopatra VII truly murdered was Ptolemy XIV and that's only because there's not really a better explanation for how He died. Though considering that Caesarion had just been born, I think it's pretty likely Cleopatra killed Ptolemy XIV to make way for Her son

[@Torgo-and-the-Lucifer-Cat]

@@WildMen4444 she also experimented with poisons and tested them on slaves.

[@2prize]

Half of this video is bts

[@gaminggoof1542]

Ending kind of sucks. That entire story just for him to drink drugged coffee and die like an idiot.

[@goldenfiberwheat238]

This episode is garbage. They spoil that she’s cleopatra by telegraphing it hard within the first 5 mins. I figured it out when I saw the title card (the website I was watching it on didn’t have episode titles). The ending is dumb. This reviewer is a hack