The Twilight Zone (TV Series)

The Placebo Effect (2003)

Sydney Tamiia Poitier: Dr. Leslie Coburn

Photos 

Quotes 

• Rhonda Harrington : How do you spread a fictional disease?

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : [takes off her coat and finds welts on her arms]  Question is, how do you cure a fictional disease?

• Rhonda Harrington : How did they beat it in that book?

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : They didn't.

  Rhonda Harrington : So we're going to die because some lousy writer couldn't come up with a happy ending?

• Dr. Leslie Coburn : It's the placebo effect. An imaginary illness calls for an imaginary cure.

  Rhonda Harrington : We're dying, Leslie! We need a real cure!

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : [picks up the newspaper]  What do we know about meteors?

  Rhonda Harrington : What?

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : They're NOT of this earth!

• Forest Whitaker - Host : [closing narration]  Dr. Leslie Coburn had a brilliant idea using an imaginary cure for an imaginary illness. But like the virus itself, Harry took her cure to heart and he made it real.

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : What have I done?

  Forest Whitaker - Host : A testament to the amazing powers of the mind in the Twilight Zone.

  Harry Radditch : It's a disaster. Total disaster.

• Dr. Leslie Coburn : Mission to Zebulon? I don't get it.

  Harry Radditch : My virus is not from this earth.

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : Your virus is from planet Zebulon?

  Harry Radditch : No, it's from the book. The story, read the back cover.

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : This is ridiculous.

  Harry Radditch : Please, just read it.

  Dr. Leslie Coburn : 'Mission to Zebulon takes a disastrous turn when crew members contract a hostile virus whose first symptoms include uncontrollable bleeding and a strange pattern of black skin protrusions. Their only hope is to find an antidote, something that will reverse the process before the virus starts purging all the blood from the bodies of its victims'. This is a fictional virus, Harry!

  Harry Radditch : I said you wouldn't believe me.