‘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.)

[spectre]

Even tho the earwig was a Night Gallery, it has haunted me forever...along with "The Sin Eater"...shudder, shudder.

sw

[tophat9000]

One for our times

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mirror_(The_Twilight_Zone)

Closing narration...

“ Ramos Clemente, a would-be god in dungarees, strangled by an illusion, that will-o'-the-wisp mirage that dangles from the sky in front of the eyes of all ambitious men, all tyrants—and any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental, whether it be here or in the Twilight Zone.

[SevenofNine]

I just read recently that Rod Serling wrote most of TZ script at night he was chronic insomanic he couldn’t sleep he has nightmare of being battle in WW2

So this like writing for TZ therapy for him

[SevenofNine]

STOP You Freepers you killing me ROFL

[Nervous Tick]

Thanks!

But FREE is better than $1.

[ETL]

[NCC-1701]

There is, or was, a book titled “Twilight Zone Companion”. It talked about every episode. Had the cast along with their character name, the opening and closing monologue by Rod Serling, and some behind the scene info. Really interesting for TZ aficionados. I have a copy and pull it out every now and then.

Great series. Rod Serling hack a nack of turning the ending on its ear. It was never a normal ending. The writing was top shelf as well.

[SunkenCiv]

The Shatner episode, the one where he sees the gremlin on the wing of the plane. Also, I like the one where something creepy happened that time.

[Henry Bemis]

Ahem

[lainie]

It inspired Soylent Green and others, too.

Or, we could say those stole from TZ.

[ReagansShinyHair]

Even when I was little I thought, “Why can’t he just read them through a pinhole in a card?” I don’t need glasses so I’ve never tried it out myself, but it’s supposed to work. If he was so smart he should have know that.

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

Little Known Fact:

The father of Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go’s, Michael Caffey, was a well-known director of some 1970s TV shows, like “Mannix” and the “Rockford Files”, and many others. Charlotte grew up watching these shows as well as “The Twiligth Zone”.

Charlotte has said that late one night in 1979, she came back home drunk and turned on on the TV and the “Twilight Zone” was on. She took a pen & pad, and started writing all sorts of stuff to the beat of the music being played in that specific episode that she was watching, an episode that to this day she cannot recall which one it was.

When it was all said & done, Charlotte had penned what we now know to be one of the greatest hits of the 1980s, “WE GOT THE BEAT”. Charlotte says that had it not been for that TZ episode and her being drunk that night, that she might have not ever penned that tune.

[Perdogg]

Actually there was an episode of the Outer Limits which was called “The 100 days Of the Dragon”.

[Perdogg]

wow

[Ann Archy]

THAT’s the ONE for me!!!

[fieldmarshaldj]

My favorite ep ? I dunno, but my least favorite ep is the one I’ve been living in recently.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yeah, that’s real creepy, especially since that song really gets on my nerves.

[fieldmarshaldj]

He died following heart bypass surgery at 50.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Remember Miss Nan ain’t a native to SF, but the daughter born and raised in a family of a corrupt political rodent machine, the D’Alesandros of Bawlamer.

[dr_lew]

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

A good one. I saw it not too long a ago ( a year or so? ) The cause in each case was cosmic. The sun was flaring up, or else the earth was falling into the sun, and then conversely for the switcheroo ending. Each case was a complete doom for the earth.