‘The Twilight Zone’ Turns 50: What’s Your Favorite Episode?

NY Times ^ | 10.02.09 | By Dave Itzkoff

[Perdogg]

Hard to believe, but Friday marks the 50th anniversary of “The Twilight Zone,” the twisty-turny, highly influential science-fiction anthology series. (Or does it? No, wait, it does.)

[acoulterfan]

Ad there was always a moral to the story!!

[Red in Blue PA]

And, (2) the one about the neighborhood where the lights go out, and rumors spread about alien invaders. Only one neighbor’s lights are on, and the others suspect him and finally turn on him and each other. In the distance, we see at the end that the aliens are playing with the electricity - that’s all they have to do to conquer us - just sit back and watch people turn on each other.

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.

[thesearethetimes...]

And it brings to mind the movie, “The Bad Seed”, and that awful little blonde girl! Eeeeee.

Tatt

[Red in Blue PA]

ROFL! Never saw that one.

[Poe White Trash]

There’s an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” with Savalas as the leader of a ring of none-too-bright car thieves and Darren McGavin as a man who murders his wife and puts her corpse in a car... which is then stolen. Mayhem ensues.

Very funny! Savalas was a great comic actor.

[Shethink13]

Another one that sticks out in my mind, and I don’t know the title, was one where a man is about to be hung, it might have been during the civil war, for treason or something, and he ends up escaping and getting away, only to find at the end that the escape was just a dream. Just when he’s about to embrace his wife his neck snaps back and he’s hung.

[Reagan Man]

Almost all of the original TZ’s were good.

“To Serve Man” and “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up” come to mind.

[acoulterfan]

Serling was always sitting on a stool and smoking a cigarrette. Is this what he died from?

[InvisibleChurch]

You’re a very bad man!

[Tired of Taxes]

Thanks! I’ll have to look up that episode. I read the short story before I saw the episode. I don’t know if the Twilight Zone picked stories already written and made them into episodes, or if TZ episodes were made into short stories.

Another short story I read was called, “The Lottery”, and I think it was a TZ episode, too.

I never thought about letting my kids watch the series, but it’s pretty clean, if I remember correctly. Some good moral lessons in it, too.

[Red in Blue PA]

Third from the sun.

[Political Junkie Too]

There were a couple of switcheroo episodes that were good.

1) The U-boat commander who wakes up as a passenger on the ocean-liner that's about to be torpedoed by a U-boat.

2) The gung-ho WWII Lieutenant in the Pacific who's about to storm a cave, who wakes up as the Japanese Lieutenant holed up in a cave about to be stormed.

There were the twisted ending stories.

1) Mickey Rooney as the jockey who wants to be the biggest man in town, and wakes up a giant.

2) The Shelley Berman story as a grouch who wishes everyone else was just like him.

3) The crooks who steal an instant camera that takes pictures of 30 seconds in the future.

4) The Martin Landau story as an iron-curtain spy who defects, and wakes up in a motel room that is booby-trapped by an assassin out to get him.

5) The army Lieutenant who can see who is about to die when they have a glowing aura around their face.

-PJ

[Dallas59]

The Lonely 1959

Allenby, the captain of a supply ship, takes pity on Corry, and leaves him Alicia, a robot that looks and sounds like a woman. Corry is repelled by the robot, but eventually falls in love with her. Allenby returns one day and tells Corry he's been pardoned, and they've come to get him. Corry can only take fifteen pounds of gear, and Alicia weighs more than that.





The Lonely@Youtube

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Three that haven’t yet been mentioned:

1. A criminal (Cory?) is sentenced to solitary on a deserted planet. Every so often a space ship brings him supplies. One trip, they bring him a female robot. He hates her at first, but eventually comes to love her and she “loves” him.

Finally, the ship comes one day and says that the prisoner has been pardoned. They will take him back to earth, but there is no room for the female robot so they shoot her.

I think Ted Baxter (or was it Ted Knight) played in this episode.

2. Several characters, a clown, a soldier, a ballerina, ... are trapped in a giant cylinder with no doors and no windows. Every so often, they hear a ringing from outside. Finally, one climbs out only to be thrown back in.

Turns out it’s a can with little toy dolls inside. It’s Christmas and the Salvation Army is ringing a bell and collecting the toys.

3. One of my least favorites is with Billy Mumy who plays Anthony, a child (monster) who has supernatural powers - he turns one guy into a jack-in-the-box. Cloris Leachman was in this episode.

[Tired of Taxes]

#110 above was supposed to be sent to you, too. Thanks for the title.

[Sybeck1]

[Kenny500c]

The one about the earth heating up but it was really someone’s feverish nightmare because the earth was going into an ice age?

[Rightly Biased]

We Watched that one last new years day and my 10 year old wouldn’t sleep for a week

[elcid1970]

I remember the episode of the young woman in a wheelchair and the deaf man (this is the first mention in decades!) but I don’t recall which program it was.

You’re not alone!

[buccaneer81]

Third from the sun.

That was a great one, too. Reminded me of "Doppelganger."