The Trade-Ins

At the end of a long and happy marriage, John and Marie Holt (Joseph Schildkraut and Alma Platt) gather up their life savings and pay a visit to The New Life Corp., where one can replace an old, worn out body with a physically perfect, young model - for the right price. Unfortunately, the Holt's $5K will only buy them one 'unit'...

Serling dedicates this episode to all the sentimentalists in The Twilight Zone, and it sure is a soppy tale, a schmaltzy ode to true love and happiness that has spanned a lifetime. However, we only arrive at this dedication after a desperate attempt by seriously ill John to double his money in a poker game - a tense scene that allows screen heavy Theodore Marcuse to display some considerable acting chops - and after the old man has taken a new body for a test run. When hunky young John bounds out of the operating theatre and sees his elderly wife in the waiting room, the couple realise that they will no longer be compatible, and so John gets a refund.

Worth seeing for the poker game, the outcome of which succeeded in bringing a lump to my throat, but the rest of the episode is forgettable.