Favorite TV shows: The Twilight Zone
While I was writing for the website, I ran an idea past them that I had been thinking about doing here. It was a series of articles about some of my favorite TV shows - why I liked them, what they meant to me, why I thought others would like them. I had hoped that some of the other writers might join in and write about some of their favorite shows, but it didn't work out that way. I ended up writing four articles. One, unfortunately, has been lost to the ether, but hey, I can fix that. So I'm going to eventually repost those articles here, where I had originally intended them to be. After all, this blog is me on a tablet (or PC or laptop) and these shows tell more about me, so they belong here. But first, I'm going to talk about probably my all-time favorite TV show, The Twilight Zone.
Yeah, it's *super* old. Sometimes it looks a little cheesy. Some of the stories are dated, although with our current climate, all the ones about nuclear war might not seem so far off the mark again. But some of the themes are universal and timeless. We still fear some of the same things, we've just gotten more technologically advanced that we can present those fears in a more realistic fashion in films and television. But death, loneliness, feeling out of place in the world around you, the unknown - we'll never stop fearing these things. While appearing quaint now, The Twilight Zone presented these fears in a captivating way, with some of the best science fiction writers of the time writing the scripts. If you want a more current equivalent, try Black Mirror. But I hope, if you haven't seen the episodes below, that you check them out and maybe that will lead you to checking more out. And I'm gonna try reeeeaaal hard not to spoil it.
I'm not sure any of these episodes are going to be a surprise to anyone who has watched the show; I think they're on everyone's list. But that's not going to stop me. It's my blog. MWAHAHAHA!
1. TO SERVE MAN (season 3, episode 24)
This could be a toss up with the second one on my list but I'm going with this one b
ecause even years later, if I talk about this episode with someone, I still get the chills when revealing the twist. Just thinking about it now has the hairs on my arms tingling. "To Serve Man" was written by Rod Serling from a story by Damon Knight. In this episode, aliens called Kanamits come to Earth. Everyone is quite naturally freaking out. They come to the UN so they can address all the nations of the world at one time. They say they've been observing us and they see how we war with each other and how much poverty and starvation and illness there is in the world, and they want to help solve our problems. They leave us a book in their language that is eventually translated into To Serve Man. The Kanamits do exactly what they promise, and with the book's help, nuclear weapons are rendered useless, starvation and disease are wiped out, and Earth becomes a better place to live. Being the curious souls we are, we begin to take vacations to the Kanamits home planet. I'll just let you watch it from here.
2. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (season 2, episode 6)
Here's one of those universal themes I was talking about, the never-ending pursuit of beauty. The Today Show recently speculated that American women spend about $200,000 on beauty products in a lifetime. And let's not even think of what is spent on plastic surgery and the weight loss industry. We have always been obsessed with how we look, and Serling took that idea and ran with it. We meet poor Janet Tyler. Her face is swathed in bandages. She's undergone her eleventh and final legally mandated operation to try and become a normal looking person. She's so frightened of what will happen. She won't be able to return to society if this one doesn't work. Her doctors and nurses feel so sorry for her, one even expressing the wish that people shouldn't be judged for their appearance but a nurse shushes him, saying he's talking treason if anyone should hear. The
best thing about this episode is Maxine Stuart, the actress who plays Janet. She has such a beautiful, calming voice, and that's really all you get of her through the entire episode. You truly pity her situation. She does more with that voice in a TV episode than some highly paid film actors do with their entire bodies through a feature length film. If you only watch one episode, watch this one to see the incredible acting she does. Anyway, as fate would have it, her surgery is a failure, and she is banished to a village with others who look like her, so society won't have to be bothered. Plus there's music by Bernard Herrmann, who composed the score for Psycho.
3. TIME ENOUGH AT LAST (season 1, episode 8)
Of course this is on a bibliophile's list. Burgess Meredith is Henry Bemis who only wants to get some reading done. His job at a bank, his boss, his wife, everything conspires to keep him from returning to his novel. He locks himself in his bank's vault to get a little quiet time when there is a nuclear blast. He's knocked unconscious, and when he wakes up, he stumbles from the vault to find the world is in ruins. He despairs of his loneliness and is on the verge of killing himself when he spies the city library, which is still fairly intact. He thinks he now has all the time in the world now, but, well, this is the Twilight Zone.
4. THE INVADERS (season 2, episode 15)
Agnes Moorehead stars in this episode, and like Maxine Stuart, she gives another amazing performance in spite of limitations. She is the only actor in the episode. She has no dialogue. She makes grunts and screams, but that's it. And yet she is believable. A woman is in her lonely cabin when she hears odd noises. She investigates and finds tiny aliens have invaded her home. They begin attacking her and she starts fighting back trying to survive. The script was written by Richard Matheson, who also wrote I Am Legend and Duel.
5. NIGHT CALL (season 5, episode 19)
This one was also written by Matheson. During a storm late at night, an elderly, disabled recluse named Elva Keene receives a phone call. There's nothing but static on the other end. She hangs up, but the calls keep coming, gradually becoming a bit clearer, so that she can definitely hear someone, just not very clearly. She complains to the phone company and to the police, but there's nothing they can do, because she can't be receiving calls - the storm knocked the line down. While out one day, she is driven past the cemetery, and she sees the phone line down across one of the graves, that of her long-dead fiancée. This is one of those episodes that may be too dated for modern viewers, but anyone who has ever had to make calls from a landline and not solely connecting via cell towers and satellites should understand the creepiness of this episode. I remember watching this one at maybe 1:00 am during a marathon and it creeped me out so bad I couldn't sleep. It's another one of those that still gives me goosebumps when I think about it.
6. THE HITCH-HIKER (season 1, episode 16)
Inger Stevens plays Nan Adams. She's driving across country from New York to Los Angeles when she has a blow out in Pennsylvania resulting in a really bad accident, so bad she shouldn't have survived. As she's about to head out on to the road again once her car is repaired, she sees a hobo-looking guy staring intently at her, but the mechanic doesn't appear to see him. As she progresses on her journey, she keeps seeing the guy, once even in the back seat of her car. The script was adapted by Serling from a radio play by Lucille Fletcher, who also wrote Sorry, Wrong Number. Bernard Herrmann also wrote the score for this episode.
7. TWENTY TWO (season 2, episode 17)
This is one of six episodes that were recorded on videotape as opposed to film in a cost-cutting measure by CBS. They were difficult to film and didn't really save much money (in TV terms) so it was eventually abandoned. These six episodes have a far different look to them because of this method. Liz Powell is a dancer who has been hospitalized for nervous exhaustion. She has a recurrent nightmare where she follows a nurse downstairs to Room 22, which happens to be the morgue. The nurse then opens the door and says "Room for one more, honey."
8. NOTHING IN THE DARK (season 3, episode 16)
An elderly lady lives alone in a basement apartment. She hasn't been out in decades because she's afraid that if she opens the door, she'll let death in. One day a young police officer is shot outside her door. Despite her fears, her compassion wins over and she opens the door to bring the officer inside. Since she doesn't die, but now she can't let the officer leave, even though he needs medical attention. Eventually someone else comes to her door, trying to get in, even breaking down the door. This was one of Robert Redford's first acting roles.
9. THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET (season 1, episode 22)
On a typical American street in a typical neighborhood, strange electrical occurrences begin happening just as news of an alien invasion begin to spread. Everyone begins to suspect each other and they devolve to their more baser instincts.
And there is no 10. Because that would be just what you would expect.
Yeah, it's *super* old. Sometimes it looks a little cheesy. Some of the stories are dated, although with our current climate, all the ones about nuclear war might not seem so far off the mark again. But some of the themes are universal and timeless. We still fear some of the same things, we've just gotten more technologically advanced that we can present those fears in a more realistic fashion in films and television. But death, loneliness, feeling out of place in the world around you, the unknown - we'll never stop fearing these things. While appearing quaint now, The Twilight Zone presented these fears in a captivating way, with some of the best science fiction writers of the time writing the scripts. If you want a more current equivalent, try Black Mirror. But I hope, if you haven't seen the episodes below, that you check them out and maybe that will lead you to checking more out. And I'm gonna try reeeeaaal hard not to spoil it.
I'm not sure any of these episodes are going to be a surprise to anyone who has watched the show; I think they're on everyone's list. But that's not going to stop me. It's my blog. MWAHAHAHA!
1. TO SERVE MAN (season 3, episode 24)
This could be a toss up with the second one on my list but I'm going with this one b
ecause even years later, if I talk about this episode with someone, I still get the chills when revealing the twist. Just thinking about it now has the hairs on my arms tingling. "To Serve Man" was written by Rod Serling from a story by Damon Knight. In this episode, aliens called Kanamits come to Earth. Everyone is quite naturally freaking out. They come to the UN so they can address all the nations of the world at one time. They say they've been observing us and they see how we war with each other and how much poverty and starvation and illness there is in the world, and they want to help solve our problems. They leave us a book in their language that is eventually translated into To Serve Man. The Kanamits do exactly what they promise, and with the book's help, nuclear weapons are rendered useless, starvation and disease are wiped out, and Earth becomes a better place to live. Being the curious souls we are, we begin to take vacations to the Kanamits home planet. I'll just let you watch it from here.
2. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (season 2, episode 6)
Here's one of those universal themes I was talking about, the never-ending pursuit of beauty. The Today Show recently speculated that American women spend about $200,000 on beauty products in a lifetime. And let's not even think of what is spent on plastic surgery and the weight loss industry. We have always been obsessed with how we look, and Serling took that idea and ran with it. We meet poor Janet Tyler. Her face is swathed in bandages. She's undergone her eleventh and final legally mandated operation to try and become a normal looking person. She's so frightened of what will happen. She won't be able to return to society if this one doesn't work. Her doctors and nurses feel so sorry for her, one even expressing the wish that people shouldn't be judged for their appearance but a nurse shushes him, saying he's talking treason if anyone should hear. The
best thing about this episode is Maxine Stuart, the actress who plays Janet. She has such a beautiful, calming voice, and that's really all you get of her through the entire episode. You truly pity her situation. She does more with that voice in a TV episode than some highly paid film actors do with their entire bodies through a feature length film. If you only watch one episode, watch this one to see the incredible acting she does. Anyway, as fate would have it, her surgery is a failure, and she is banished to a village with others who look like her, so society won't have to be bothered. Plus there's music by Bernard Herrmann, who composed the score for Psycho.
3. TIME ENOUGH AT LAST (season 1, episode 8)
Of course this is on a bibliophile's list. Burgess Meredith is Henry Bemis who only wants to get some reading done. His job at a bank, his boss, his wife, everything conspires to keep him from returning to his novel. He locks himself in his bank's vault to get a little quiet time when there is a nuclear blast. He's knocked unconscious, and when he wakes up, he stumbles from the vault to find the world is in ruins. He despairs of his loneliness and is on the verge of killing himself when he spies the city library, which is still fairly intact. He thinks he now has all the time in the world now, but, well, this is the Twilight Zone.
4. THE INVADERS (season 2, episode 15)
Agnes Moorehead stars in this episode, and like Maxine Stuart, she gives another amazing performance in spite of limitations. She is the only actor in the episode. She has no dialogue. She makes grunts and screams, but that's it. And yet she is believable. A woman is in her lonely cabin when she hears odd noises. She investigates and finds tiny aliens have invaded her home. They begin attacking her and she starts fighting back trying to survive. The script was written by Richard Matheson, who also wrote I Am Legend and Duel.
5. NIGHT CALL (season 5, episode 19)
This one was also written by Matheson. During a storm late at night, an elderly, disabled recluse named Elva Keene receives a phone call. There's nothing but static on the other end. She hangs up, but the calls keep coming, gradually becoming a bit clearer, so that she can definitely hear someone, just not very clearly. She complains to the phone company and to the police, but there's nothing they can do, because she can't be receiving calls - the storm knocked the line down. While out one day, she is driven past the cemetery, and she sees the phone line down across one of the graves, that of her long-dead fiancée. This is one of those episodes that may be too dated for modern viewers, but anyone who has ever had to make calls from a landline and not solely connecting via cell towers and satellites should understand the creepiness of this episode. I remember watching this one at maybe 1:00 am during a marathon and it creeped me out so bad I couldn't sleep. It's another one of those that still gives me goosebumps when I think about it.
6. THE HITCH-HIKER (season 1, episode 16)
Inger Stevens plays Nan Adams. She's driving across country from New York to Los Angeles when she has a blow out in Pennsylvania resulting in a really bad accident, so bad she shouldn't have survived. As she's about to head out on to the road again once her car is repaired, she sees a hobo-looking guy staring intently at her, but the mechanic doesn't appear to see him. As she progresses on her journey, she keeps seeing the guy, once even in the back seat of her car. The script was adapted by Serling from a radio play by Lucille Fletcher, who also wrote Sorry, Wrong Number. Bernard Herrmann also wrote the score for this episode.
7. TWENTY TWO (season 2, episode 17)
This is one of six episodes that were recorded on videotape as opposed to film in a cost-cutting measure by CBS. They were difficult to film and didn't really save much money (in TV terms) so it was eventually abandoned. These six episodes have a far different look to them because of this method. Liz Powell is a dancer who has been hospitalized for nervous exhaustion. She has a recurrent nightmare where she follows a nurse downstairs to Room 22, which happens to be the morgue. The nurse then opens the door and says "Room for one more, honey."
8. NOTHING IN THE DARK (season 3, episode 16)
An elderly lady lives alone in a basement apartment. She hasn't been out in decades because she's afraid that if she opens the door, she'll let death in. One day a young police officer is shot outside her door. Despite her fears, her compassion wins over and she opens the door to bring the officer inside. Since she doesn't die, but now she can't let the officer leave, even though he needs medical attention. Eventually someone else comes to her door, trying to get in, even breaking down the door. This was one of Robert Redford's first acting roles.
9. THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET (season 1, episode 22)
On a typical American street in a typical neighborhood, strange electrical occurrences begin happening just as news of an alien invasion begin to spread. Everyone begins to suspect each other and they devolve to their more baser instincts.
And there is no 10. Because that would be just what you would expect.
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