Favorite Twilight Zone

a reply to: Unresponsible

Now that one was a nightmare. Conditioned throughout to consider just how we would cope with all that intensive heat omg. Imagining dying like that and then whappo, a complete twist leaving us at the end with no preparation what so ever for the deep freeze.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I think in a large post apocalyptic city a pair of glasses could be found

One of my all time favorite tv shows, but very hard to pick an absolute favorite episode, so I will list some of my favorites:

1. Mute - a little girl whose parents raised her as an experiment, teaching her to read minds but not to speak ends up an orphan after a house fire. She is taken in by a couple whose daughter drowned in a lake. The wife quickly becomes attached to her, and things get complicated when the husband tries to find relatives for the girl to live with.

2. Valley of the Shadow- a reporter gets lost while on a road trip in New Mexico. He ends up in a small town full of people acting in a very suspicious manner. His attention is drawn by a beautiful but evasive woman at the hotel, and he soon finds he is being held prisoner by the town to safeguard their secret.

3. In His Image- an introverted scientist creates a duplicate of himself who is outgoing and friendly. The duplicate even has a girlfriend, however, something starts to go wrong with his wiring and he ends up back in the very laboratory where he was 'born' confronting the scientist who made him.

4. Third From the Sun- two scientists at a missile plant hatch a scheme to get their families into a spaceship to leave their planet after finding out there is shortly to be a war which would obliterate life as they know it.

5. The Chaser- a man in love buys a magic potion to get the object of his affection to love him in return.

6. Two - 2 soldiers, one male, one female, find themselves in a deserted town after the war ends. But one of them was with the invaders, the other with the invaded!

7. Midnight Sun- 2 women try to endure the end of the world together as the Earth moves closer and closer to the sun.

8. A Piano in the House- a critic buys a player piano as a gift for his wife's birthday. When he finds out the music played by the piano causes people to lose control, he decides to play a variety of music at his wife's birthday party to have some devilish fun with the guests.

9. Come Wander with me- Floyd "rock-a-billy boy" Burney goes to the back woods of Appalachia to find old songs he can record for his act. A solemn woman in the woods shares her song with him, but it turns out to be a rather sad song.

10. The Hitch-hiker- a woman driving cross country becomes increasingly disturbed when she sees the same gray, shabby hitch-hiker beckoning her for a ride in every town where she stops for food or gas.

Whew! It wasn't even easy to pick 10 episodes.

Sal

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Yep, there's no clever science breakthrough or "we'll be okay, humanity will survive somehow" optimism when the Earth breaks out of its orbit.

Just a cold dead world drifting through space for eternity.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire


One week it would tell the tale of a little boy with psychic powers holding a household of adults in abject fear..

Classic TV show and very disturbing episode Terry!

Originally broadcast Nov. 3, 1961

Based on the classic short story by Jerome Bixby, "It's a Good Life" features the most horrifying creature you can imagine: A cute, six-year-old tyke (Billy Mumy) who can read your thoughts - and if you're not thinking really good thoughts, he can magically wish you off to the cornfield, or worse.

Also really liked 'And When The Sky Was Opened' - "I don't know Ed Harrington!"

www.imdb.com...

a reply to: SallieSunshine

What I hold from TZ was that it was not just ''entertainment''. There was serious substance to many of the episodes. The way it encouraged viewers to think, to place themselves in the place of the characters. Remember Battling Maxo? Lee Marvin as the owner of a dilapidated boxing robot. Maxo breaks down just before a bout and rather than forfeit the needed money, Marvin paints himself up to look like the robot and takes the match. What a frikken statement on the lengths we might go to to survive.

And the one where Jack Warden I think it was was a convict sentenced to isolated imprisonment on an planet with contact only once a year or so. One of the contacts brings him an android(Jean Marsh) for companionship and when his sentence is commuted the AI robot needs to be left behind. He had fallen in love with an artificial intelligence. I mean that kind of speculative writing took decades longer to be touched by anyone. I can never forget the android dying as he was led away crying Cory Cory Corrrryy Corrrrrrrry.

The Outer Limits was cheap fan fare compared to the Zone. A copy cat program designed to move on the popularity of the Zone. And yes, there were some very good OL episodes but over all it didn't even come close to the provocative speculative nature of TZ.

And don't even try to get me started on Night Gallery. What a complete waste that was after the Zone.

Anyway, been nice reminiscing with you.

a reply to: karl 12

Yes it was. How do we limit ourselves in the face of power. In this case the power of the little kid was psychic but the way the adults cow towed to him exemplified the way that employees knuckle under to a powerful boss, the way weak kneed politicians subvert themselves to a powerful person or system. The Zone dealt with fears on every level which like no other I can recall. Existential fears. Great show.

"The Lonely" was a great episode! I always wondered why they didn't just bring him a puppy, though ; )

I admit to being a fan of "The Outer Limits" - I own the dvd set of this series. I know some refer to it as a "monster of the week" series, but it was just so freaky and bizarre, like the writers were "on something". That was what I liked about it.

They say Rod Serling actually had little to do with "Night Gallery" in a creative sense. There were some good episodes but it was not on the level of TZ.


Sal

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

What I hold from TZ was that it was not just ''entertainment''. There was serious substance to many of the episodes. The way it encouraged viewers to think,

Well said !

It was not something you just watched..It sparked real thought , Something that is severely lacking in today's television.

But I must admit , I'm no highbrow, I also really enjoyed the unrefined episodes of " the tales from the dark side"



Thanks for the trip down memory lane!



Respectfully,
~meathead