This episode seems to me after several viewings a critical self questioning of existence, the feeling one would have being kicked out of an organization that one felt totally at home, for instance the human race. When as Harrington, the first to "Go Away", got the feeling that he wasn't supposed to be here anymore; maybe he was echoing what most folks of older age feel when they lose all their friends and family, feeling they don't belong here anymore. The premise of the episode, "something got the plane and it's operators for 24 hours, let them come back, then..." slowly snatched them back one by one is storying a science fiction angle to explain an earthbound reality.
Review of And When the Sky Was Opened
