Posted on 09/29/2009 5:41:50 AM PDT by JoeProBono
The one where the pretty girl is considered ugly, in a world where everyone else looks like Helen Thomas on a good day or Michelle Obama on a bad one...
Another classic episode, submitted for your consideration: “To Serve Man,” starring Lloyd Bochner. “It’s a cookbook!”
My fav is the one with the atomic bomb and the guy is finally alone so he can read to his heart’s content but then breaks his glasses.
As big a fan as I am of “The Twilight Zone”, 1959 also saw the introduction of “One Step Beyond”. I always found that creepier because the episodes were supposedly based on actual events.
In a similar vein, another great episode is “The Shelter,” starring Jack Albertson. A group of suburban neighbors gathers at the home of a physician, to celebrate his birthday. It is also revealed that the doctor has installated a bomb shelter in his basement.
The party is interrupted by news of a pending nuclear attack; the physician and his family retreat into the small shelter while their friends stand outside, pleading for admittance. In the end, the neighbors use an improvised battering to gain entry into the shelter—just as the attack warning is cancelled. While the neighborhood has survived (physically), the fabric of the community has been forever changed.
Sterling’s closing comment: “For civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight’s very small exercise in logic from The Twilight Zone.”
I still find it incredible that Serling wrote two-thirds of the episodes himself, and he was only 35 when the series debuted.
You got that right. And definitely one of the longer episodes.
So many were great, but “Walking Distance” with Gig Young remains my favorite. Especially now!
from a bygone era where talented people actually regarded television as literature. Nothing on the air today comes close to approaching this quality.
You better remember "It's a Good Life" or Billy Mumy will make this thread go to the cornfield.
The Shelter (Season 3, Episode 68) Message: As Rod Serling put it, “For civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized”.
Serling was a genius. He also wrote the screenplay for the original “Planet of the Apes.” Love that guy.
Time Enough at Last (Season 1, Episode Eight) Message: “Be careful what you wish for”, with underlying themes of anti-intellectualism. This episode is one of most well-known episodes in Twilight Zone history and one of the most-loved, coming in 1st place in a ‘favorite episode’ poll in a recent issue of Twilight Zone Magazine. The story involves Henry Bemis (played by the great Burgess Meredith), a spineless and cuckolded bookworm who is constantly teased and harassed by his shrewish wife and slavedriving boss regarding his love for books. An H-bomb detonates while Henry is stealing a moment to read in the vault at the bank where he works, destroying all nearby civilization and killing everyone but him. Henry goes through a gamut of emotions from horror at the destruction to jubilation that he is finally alone and unbothered. This eventually turns to intense loneliness when he realizes that he is the only one left on Earth. He is near suicide when he notices that a nearby library seems mostly intact. Again overjoyed, Henry enters the library and discovers thousands of books that survived the explosion. He happily sorts through the contents and is about to sit down for the first of many leisurely reading sessions when he stumbles and breaks his glasses. The episode ends with Henry crying out, thwarted forever from reading his beloved books.
“Walking Distance” is all the more profound when you consider the real-life story of Gig Young’s own death: murder-suicide.
Yes, I’m familiar with it. Knowing he was so tortured explains the poignancy in his wonderful performance, doesn’t it? And the musical score was sheer perfection.
That is my #1 favorite!
I’ve got the entire dvd collection. One of the best purchases ever made. Hours of quality viewing. Nothing compares to The Twilight Zone. There are some dog epis but those are few and far between. Rod Serling left us with some great tv.
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