TV Shows – Page 21 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Twilight Zone – Once Upon A Time

★★★1/2 December 15, 1961 Season 3 Episode 13

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode stars my favorite silent movie film maker and comedian Buster Keaton. It doesn’t rank as one of the best episodes but it has its moments. It’s a comedy time travel episode and when they are in 1892 it is a silent movie with subtitles…when they travel to 1962 it goes back to normal dialog. This episode will not be for everyone but a 66 year old Buster Keaton is worth it to me. The man was in great shape to do the things he did in this one.

Buster Keaton’s popularity had been rising again since James Agee did an article in Life magazine in 1948 about the silent movie comedians Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon.

For me this one is a 5 star episode because of Buster Keaton alone. Him and Chaplin made the best silent comedy films of the twenties.

It’s really interesting how Serling portrays the past and future. When someone from the past comes into the future…the noise is always noted…how noisy we are today comparted to the past. He did this in an earlier episode called Execution.

According to Rod Serling’s promo in the previous episode, Richard Matheson wrote this script especially for Buster Keaton.

The old-fashioned clothes wringer that Buster Keaton is using to wash his pants in the beginning is the same kind of wringer that crushed his right forefinger when he was 3 years old. A curious little boy, he got his finger caught in the rollers and a doctor had to amputate it at the first knuckle. In this short, he gets the same finger caught in the wringer for laughs.

This marks the 78th episode overall…that means with this post/episode we are half the way through to 156…again I appreciate everyone who has been along for the ride.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Mr. Mulligan, a rather dour critic of his times, is shortly to discover the import of that old phrase, ‘Out of the frying pan, into the fire’—said fire burning brightly at all times—in The Twilight Zone.

Summary

In 1890, janitor Woodrow Mulligan uses his employers’ invention to transport himself to the future. He imagines an Eden but finds a polluted, busy world that he doesn’t find at all attractive. He meets Rollo who is also disgusted with the world he lives imagining life in the 1890s as idyllic. When Woodrow goes back to his own time Rollo goes with him but he is soon bored without any of the conveniences of modern life.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

‘To each his own’—so goes another old phrase to which Mr. Woodrow Mulligan would heartily subscribe, for he has learned—definitely the hard way—that there’s much wisdom in a third old phrase, which goes as follows: ‘Stay in your own backyard.’ To which it might be added, ‘and, if possible, assist others to stay in theirs’—via, of course, The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling… Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Buster Keaton… Woodrow Mulligan
Stanley Adams… Rollo
James Flavin… 1962 Policeman
Gil Lamb… Officer Flannagan
Jesse White… Repair Man
Harry Fleer… 1962 Policeman #2 (uncredited)
Norman Papson… Trumpeter (uncredited)
Warren Parker… Clothes Store Manager (uncredited)
Milton Parsons… Prof. Gilbert (uncredited)
George E. Stone… Fenwick (uncredited)
Arthur Tovey… Sidewalk Onlooker (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – The Jungle

★★★★ December 01, 1961 Season 3 Episode 12

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode is very eerie and suspenseful. It combines environmentalism and a voodoo curse that reaches around the world from Africa to New York City. The character actor John Dehner plays Alan Richards who has come back from Africa, where he’s helped organize the construction of a dam. The dam will destroy homes and the land of the local tribes.

The local witch doctors put a curse on everyone connected with the dam project. Richard’s wife knew about the curse and collected items from Africa to protect them but Richards throws them away…calling her superstitious. This is not among the best episodes by any stretch of the imagination but is entertaining.

John Dehner was in about everything in the 60’s-90’s…he had 288 acting credits to his name.

From IMDB: Rod Serling personally shared Alan Richards’ disbelief in superstition and the supernatural. According to Reverend Ernest Pipes of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church, “Theologically speaking, Rod was what we call a naturalistic humanist, and that was the underlying philosophy of my pulpit.”

The original story by Charles Beaumont was first published in the December 1954 issue of the pulp magazine If: Worlds of Science Fiction.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

The carcass of a goat, a dead finger, a few bits of broken glass and stone, and Mr. Alan Richards, a modern man of a modern age, hating with all his heart something in which he cannot believe and preparing – although he doesn’t know it – to take the longest walk of his life, right down to the center – of The Twilight Zone.

Summary

Alan Richards and his wife are back in New York after living in Africa where he was in charge of a major construction project. His wife was deeply affected after a local witch doctor placed a curse on them and has taken to keeping charms to ward off evil spirits. While Richards doesn’t discount the power of the witch doctor entirely, he dismisses her fears as unfounded. Having a drink in a bar one evening he finds that his wife left a protective amulet in his coat pocket. He leaves it on the bar when he leaves – and as a result has a dangerous and frightening walk home, only to find something there waiting for him.

The Full Version of the episode on Dailymotion

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Some superstitions, kept alive by the long night of ignorance, have their own special power. You’ll hear of it through a jungle grapevine in a remote corner of the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
John Dehner…Alan Richards
Walter Brooke…Chad Cooper
Jay Adler…Tramp
Emily McLaughlin…Doris Richards
Hugh Sanders…Templeton
Howard Wright…Hardy
Donald Foster…Sinclair
Jay Overholts…Taxi Driver
Zamba…Lion (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – Still Valley

★★★1/2 November 24, 1961 Season 3 Episode 11

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I’ve always liked The Devil and Daniel Webster… a deal with the devil that The Twilight Zone explored more successfully on other occasions. This one starts with lot of potential but the plot gets weak. It’s very well acted as always but an actor is as good as the writing. Gary Merrill plays Sgt. Joseph Paradine and his acting conveys the soldier’s weariness. Vaughn Taylor plays the crazy old demonic man Teague and he acts the part well.

I really liked this episode on first viewing but on repeated viewings it loses something. The best part of the episode is the moral conflict that Paradine has to decide on. Does defeating the Union in the Civil War worth what is asked of him? It’s far from the worst episode of the series and is worth a viewing.

Based on “The Valley Was Still” by Manly Wade Wellman, first published in the August 1939 issue of Weird Tales.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Manly Wade Wellman

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

The time is 1863, the place the state of Virginia. The event is a mass blood-letting known as the Civil War, a tragic moment in time when a nation was split into two fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

After some dialogue between two characters, the narration continues:

This is Joseph Paradine, Confederate cavalry, as he heads down toward a small town in the middle of a valley. But very shortly, Joseph Paradine will make contact with the enemy. He will also make contact with an outpost not found on a military map—an outpost called the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Confederate Sergeant Joseph Paradine goes into the nearby town and finds that the Union forces there seem to be frozen in time. He learns from an old man that being a male witch he cast a spell on them using his book of magic. The old man sees the Yankees as invaders and is keen that the South win the war. Anticipating that he is going to die by sunset, he gladly gives his book of witchcraft to Paradine to support the cause. When he returns to camp, Paradine’s commanding officer is far more concerned about the battle they will enter into the next morning than about the book his Sergeant has in his possession.

FULL EPISODE AT DAILYMOTION

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

On the following morning, Sergeant Paradine and the rest of these men were moved up north to a little town in Pennsylvania, an obscure little place where a battle was brewing, a town called Gettysburg, and this one was fought without the help of the Devil. Small historical note not to be found in any known books, but part of the records in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Gary Merrill…Sgt. Joseph Paradine
Vaughn Taylor…Teague
Mark Tapscott…Lieutenant
Jack Mann… Mallory
Ben Cooper… Dauger
Addison Myers…Sentry (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – The Midnight Sun

★★★★★ November 03, 1961 Season 3 Episode 10

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is a great episode with a wonderful twist. The third season was uneven but it did have some remembered episodes. During the first season, Serling had explored the end of the world in Time Enough at Last. In The Midnight Sun he returned to that theme, but with mother nature as the culprit. Lois Nettleton plays Norma who is a painter living in an apartment and looking after her neighbor Mrs. Bronson as the earth is hurdling toward the sun.

The Twilight Zone can make you feel the discomfort of the characters more than most shows. In this one… extreme heat. The episode plays on our fears of the stability of our natural environment. Something we cannot control takes over and we are left for it… to decide our fate.

Tony Leader Director: In those days, they had no air conditioning on the set and we shot in summer, so it was hot enough to give you the initial feeling. I remember that there were a couple of scenes in which I asked the electrical grip to add heat, not so much heat that it would show on the film, but heat that we would feel on the set. It made us distinctly uncomfortable, but I think it helped us develop the feeling that we had of heat. I didn’t do that throughout, because its effect would have been lost eventually. We would have just been plain simply miserable and angry with each other for being involved in this thing.

To create the melting painting effect, the painting was reproduced in wax and mounted to a hotplate.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is ‘doomed,’ because the people you’ve just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man’s little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries—they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight it’s high noon, the hottest day in history, and you’re about to spend it in the Twilight Zone.

Summary

In a world that is getting ever nearer to the sun, people are trying to find ways to deal with the extreme heat. Most people have gone north with Norma and Mrs. Bronson the only two people left in their apartment building. There is little or no infrastructure remaining and water is one commodity that is very much in demand. They panic when an intruder breaks into Norma’s apartment and holds them, at least for a few moments, at gunpoint. All is not as it seems however.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The poles of fear, the extremes of how the Earth might conceivably be doomed. Minor exercise in the care and feeding of a nightmare, respectfully submitted by all the thermometer-watchers in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Lois Nettleton…Norma
Betty Garde…Mrs. Bronson
Tom Reese…Intruder
Jason Wingreen…Mr. Shuster
Juney Ellis…Mrs. Shuster (as June Ellis)
William Keene…Doctor
Ned Glass…Fridge Repairman (uncredited)
John McLiam…Cop (uncredited)
Robert Stevenson…Radio Announcer (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – Deaths-Head Revisited

★★★★★ November 10, 1961 Season 3 Episode 9

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

In the previous episode we met a young monster named Anthony. In this episode we meet a realistic monster named Gunther Lutze…in the past… known as SS Captain Gunther Lutze who wants to relive his glory days. This is a powerful episode made less than twenty years after WWII. Oscar Beregi Jr plays the Captain in all of his infamous glory. Joseph Schildkraut plays Afred Becker, a figure from Luntz’s past, a figure he knows all too well.

We last saw Oscar Beregi Jr in the The Rip Van Winkle Caper but in this one he takes it up a level. He is so convincing as Lutze that you hate this character and everything he represents. The set is very impressive and realistic. CBS had made a pilot for a western, and they had built a four-sided frontier fort. This set cost around $200,000 and it was standing out on Lot 3 at MGM. The crew downgraded it for this episode and it works well.

This episode is chilling for what it represents. Serling did an excellent job with this story. It was satisfying to see the tables turned, and the sadist finds himself on trial with Alfred Becker in charge.

From IMDB

The title refers to the “Totenkopf” or Death’s Head symbol used by the SS during World War II depicting a skull and crossbones. It is distinguished from similar traditions of the skull and crossbones and the Jolly Roger by the positioning of the bones directly behind the skull.

Beregi and Schildkraut both hailed from distinguished Yiddish stage families, and had lost most of their European relatives in the Holocaust.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Mr. Schmidt, recently arrived in a small Bavarian village which lies eight miles northwest of Munich… a picturesque, delightful little spot one-time known for its scenery, but more recently related to other events having to do with some of the less positive pursuits of man: human slaughter, torture, misery and anguish. Mr. Schmidt, as we will soon perceive, has a vested interest in the ruins of a concentration camp—for once, some seventeen years ago, his name was Gunther Lutze. He held the rank of a captain in the SS. He was a black-uniformed strutting animal whose function in life was to give pain, and like his colleagues of the time, he shared the one affliction most common amongst that breed known as Nazis… he walked the Earth without a heart. And now former SS Captain Lutze will revisit his old haunts, satisfied perhaps that all that is awaiting him in the ruins on the hill is an element of nostalgia. What he does not know, of course, is that a place like Dachau cannot exist only in Bavaria. By its nature, by its very nature, it must be one of the populated areas… of the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Gunther Lutze, a former captain in Hitler’s SS, decides to return to the area that contains the remnants of Dachau concentration camp. As he revels in the memories of the days when he had tortured prisoners, prisoner Alfred Becker appears before his eyes. What he does not realize is Becker is an ghostly apparition, and plans to put Lutze on “trial” for crimes against humanity for the torture and killing of the prisoners that were held in the camp. It is one trial Lutze may regret.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

There is an answer to the doctor’s question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes – all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and to remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God’s Earth.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Joseph Schildkraut…Alfred Becker
Oscar Beregi Jr…SS Capt. Gunther Lutze (as Oscar Beregi)
Kaaren Verne… Innkeeper (as Karen Verne)
Robert Boon… Taxi Driver
Ben Wright… Doctor
Gene Coogan… Victim (uncredited)
Chuck Fox… Victim (uncredited)
Jimmie Horan… Victim (uncredited)
David O. McCall…Victim (uncredited)
Arthur Tovey…Victim (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – It’s A Good Life

★★★★★ November 03, 1961 Season 3 Episode 8

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

Meet the monster…it won’t look like a real monster but yes it is real…just ask relatives, friends, and neighbors stuck in the cornfield. This is one of the best known episodes of The Twilight Zone and a 5 star classic. It also is the start of a 5 star classic 3 episode run. The brightest part of the 3rd season.

Keep happy thoughts and whatever you do…be nice to Anthony.

Lets look at the cast. Cloris Leachman plays Agnes Freemont and would appear in many movies and play the role of Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Bill Mumy would portray Anthony and would later be best known for the role of Will Robinson in Lost In Space. Most of the others are faces that you have have seen in movies and tv shows as character actors during that time.

This episode was remade in the 80s as part of The Twilight Zone movie but it doesn’t match this. Bill Mumy does make a brief appearance in the movie.

The episode caught on with the stagehands and the crew. Around the set, when somebody would goof, people would say, Well, that’s a good thing you did, which they would always say to Billy Mumy when he killed a cow or what not That’s a good thing you did.

The first Serling script to be produced this season was an adaptation of Jerome Bixbys classic short story, Its a Good Life, which originally appeared in 1953 and was reprinted in Science Fiction Hall of Fame (Doubleday, 1971). Telling the story of a monstrous, conscienceless child with enormous powers and no restraints, it is truly a horrifying story.

I remember I showed this to my dad…he downright hated Anthony…”I would sneak up behind the little ****** and crack his head.”

Bill Mumy: I’ve always liked Anthony, and I’ve kept Anthony with me. Ill send people to the cornfield when I’m really pissed at them. I mean, Ill do it. Not that it works, but its a release for me.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Jerome Bixby

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Tonight’s story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States, and there’s a little town there called Peaksville. On a given morning not too long ago, the rest of the world disappeared and Peaksville was left all alone. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world was destroyed and only Peaksville left untouched or whether the village had somehow been taken away. They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing: the cause. A monster had arrived in the village. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines—because they displeased him—and he moved an entire community back into the dark ages—just by using his mind. Now I’d like to introduce you to some of the people in Peaksville, Ohio. This is Mr. Fremont. It’s in his farmhouse that the monster resides. This is Mrs. Fremont. And this is Aunt Amy, who probably had more control over the monster in the beginning than almost anyone. But one day she forgot. She began to sing aloud. Now, the monster doesn’t like singing, so his mind snapped at her, turned her into the smiling, vacant thing you’re looking at now. She sings no more. And you’ll note that the people in Peaksville, Ohio have to smile. They have to think happy thoughts and say happy things because, once displeased, the monster can wish them into a cornfield or change them into a grotesque, walking horror. This particular monster can read minds, you see. He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion. Oh yes, I did forget something, didn’t I? I forgot to introduce you to the monster. This is the monster. His name is Anthony Fremont. He’s six years old, with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes. But when those eyes look at you, you’d better start thinking happy thoughts, because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge. This is the Twilight Zone.

Summary

In a small farming community in Ohio, a young boy by the name of Anthony Fremont terrorizes those around him. Anthony has the ability to command anything he wants simply by thought. The community is cut off from the outside world and the boy insists that those around him think only pleasant thoughts, and if they don’t, he eliminates them. Everyone walks in fear of the lad who ably demonstrates what he’s prepared to do at a small party in his home.

This is the best I could find…someone tried to colorize the Twilight Zone…NO NO NO…it doesn’t work as well in color.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

No comment here, no comment at all. We only wanted to introduce you to one of our very special citizens, little Anthony Fremont, age six, who lives in a village called Peaksville, in a place that used to be Ohio. And, if by some strange chance, you should run across him, you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled at your own risk, because if you do meet Anthony, you can be sure of one thing: you have entered The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Bill Mumy…Anthony Freemont
Cloris Leachman…Agnes Freemont
Liliana Mumy…Audrey Freemont
Chilton Crane…Lorna
Robert Moloney…Joe
Kerry Sandomirsky…Cynthia
Samuel Patrick…Timmy
Paul McGillion…Chu George
Kirsten Kilburn…Timmy’s mother

Twilight Zone – The Grave

★★★★1/2 October 27, 1961 Season 3 Episode 7

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This one is chock full of good actors. Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, and my personal favorite Strother (what we have here is failure to communicate) Martin. It also features recognizable actor James Best and with the risk of sounding like a broken record…great casting! It’s set in the old West in a dried up dusty little town with bored towns people.

Lee Marvin…as always, is great as the tough guy. He plays Conny Miller who was paid to hunt down a man named Pinto Sykes. The towns people ambushed Sykes and killed him. Sykes with his last breath…claimed that Miller was a coward and avoided him. Miller comes into town and the action starts there. This is a creepy Twilight Zone and I’ve always enjoyed it…an incredible cast.

Lee Marvin, Strother Martin and Lee Van Cleef all appeared in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which was released six months after this episode was broadcast.

This show was written by Montgomery Pittman and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Normally, the old man would be correct: this would be the end of the story. We’ve had the traditional shoot-out on the street and the badman will soon be dead. But some men of legend and folk tale have been known to continue having their way even after death. The outlaw and killer Pinto Sykes was such a person, and shortly we’ll see how he introduces the town, and a man named Conny Miller in particular, to the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Lawman Conny Miller rides into a small dusty town not long after the townsfolk have gunned down the man he’s been tracking for four months. He feels like he’s wasted that four months and someone bets him $20 he hasn’t the nerve to visit the dead man’s grave. He takes that bet and has little difficulty going to the grave. Leaving it however proves to be another matter.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Final comment: you take this with a grain of salt or a shovelful of earth, as shadow or substance, we leave it up to you. And for any further research, check under ‘G’ for ‘ghost’ in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Lee Marvin…Conny Miller
James Best…Johnny Rob
Lee Van Cleef…Steinhart
Strother Martin…Mothershed
Stafford Repp…Ira Broadly
Elen Willard…Ione Sykes
Dick Geary…Pinto Sykes
William Challee…Jason
Larry Johns…Townsman

…

Twilight Zone – The Mirror

★★★1/2 October 20, 1961 Season 3 Episode 6

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

Peter Falk, later of Columbo, is in this episode of the Twilight Zone. He plays a caricature of Fidel Castro. The episode plays heavily on paranoia…especially in the situation of one Ramos Clemente (Peter Falk)…where he questions who to trust. He overtakes a small Latin nation and the former General De Cruz (Will Kuluva) tells him of a certain mirror that will show Clemente his future assassins.

One of the highlights to me was the dialog between De Cruz and Clemente. De Cruz has seen this all before. He knows what’s going to happen and what is going through Clemente’s mind because he has been there. Once Clemente gets power he starts turning into what he was fighting against. All of his loyal comrades are seeing it and try warn him.

The Bay of Pigs happened around 6 months before this episode aired.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“This is the face of Ramos Clemente, a year ago a beardless, nameless worker of the dirt, who plodded behind a mule furrowing someone else’s land. And he looked up at a hot Central American sun, and he pledged the impossible. He made a vow that he would lead an avenging army against the tyranny that put the ache in his back and the anguish in his eyes. And now one year later, the dream of the impossible has become a fact. In just a moment, we will look deep into this mirror and see the aftermath of a rebellion – in The Twilight Zone.”

Summary

When the peasant Ramos Clemente leads a successful revolution in his undefined country, the former dictator General De Cruz advises that his mirror is magic and can anticipate who will murder him. Clement becomes paranoid and kills each one of his revolutionary comrades believing that they want to murder him.

Sorry I could find no video preview of this episode.

Rod Serling’s 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.”

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Peter Falk…Ramos Clemente
Will Kuluva…De Cruz
Richard Karlan…D’Alessandro
Vladimir Sokoloff…Father Tomas
Antony Carbone…Cristo
Rodolfo Hoyos Jr….Garcia
Arthur Batanides…Tabal

Twilight Zone – A Game Of Pool

★★★★★ October 13, 1961 Season 3 Episode 5

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

A classic episode. A Game of Pool has the great comedian Jonathon Winters and character actor Jack Klugman. This was Winters first dramatic role. The director Buzz Kulik thought his inexperience at a serious role would bring a freshness to his role…and it did. This was Klugman’s second Twilight Zone (his favorite) and he would end up in four of them.

The two characters share one thing. They both are great at pool… but Klugman’s character is obsessed with the game but doesn’t stop to enjoy life. Fats Brown lived life fully and pool was just part of it. Being the best carries a weight of where you are always looking over your shoulder to see who is gaining.

Jackie Gleason was approached about playing Fats Brown but turned it down.

SPOILERS

George Clayton Johnson’s script originally featured an alternate ending in which Jesse loses the game. Seeing that Jesse is bedazzled that he has lost a life-or-death game and is still alive, Fats explains that he will die “as all second-raters die: you’ll be buried and forgotten without me touching you. If you’d beaten me you’d have lived forever.” This ending was eventually filmed for The Twilight Zone: A Game of Pool in the 1989 reboot version.

This show was written by George Clayton Johnson and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Jesse Cardiff, pool shark, the best on Randolph Street, who will soon learn that trying to be the best at anything carries its own special risks. In or out of the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Jesse Cardiff is a frustrated pool player. He’s very good at his game but his frustration comes from the fact that no matter how well he plays or how often he wins, onlookers always conclude that he’s not as good as the late, great James Howard “Fats” Brown. He says he would give anything to have had the chance to play Fats and his wish comes true when the man himself suddenly appears. They agree to a game but Fats warns his eager opponent that winning has its consequences as well

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. Jesse Cardiff, who became a legend by beating one, but who has found out after his funeral that being the best of anything carries with it a special obligation to keep on proving it. Mr. Fats Brown, on the other hand, having relinquished the champion’s mantle, has gone fishing. These are the ground rules in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Jack Klugman…Jesse Cardiff
Jonathan Winters…Fats Brown

Twilight Zone – The Passersby

★★★★ October 6, 1961 Season 3 Episode 1

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I’ve always liked this episode. It takes place at the end of the Civil War. James Gregory plays the Sergeant and he would later appear on Barney Miller. Joanne Linville played Lavinia Godwin later appeared as a Romulan commander on Star Trek. Godwin is a lonely widowed southern woman watching the soldiers come home.

The Sergeant comes wandering by and just wants some water from Godwin. He spends some time with her and he finds out something that he didn’t expect. Again the acting is very good in this and there is not only a twist but a cameo at the very end.

From IMDB: Another Twilight Zone featuring multiple actors from Star Trek: The Original Series (1966). James Gregory portrayed Dr. Tristan Adams in Season One’s Star Trek: The Original Series: Dagger of the Mind (1966). Joanne Linville was the Romulan Commander in Star Trek: The Original Series: The Enterprise Incident (1968) and Rex Holman played Morgan Earp in Star Trek: The Original Series: Spectre of the Gun (1968), both from Season Three. In addition, Rex Holman later appeared in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) as J’onn.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

As the episode starts, a group of Civil War soldiers are walking down a road as Rod Serling narrates:

This road is the afterwards of the Civil War. It began at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and ended at a place called Appomattox. It’s littered with the residue of broken battles and shattered dreams.

After a brief opening dialogue between the Sergeant and Lavinia Godwin, Rod Serling resumes:

In just a moment, you will enter a strange province that knows neither North nor South, a place we call—The Twilight Zone.

Summary

In April 1865, at the end of the American Civil War, a Confederate Sergeant with other wounded Union and Confederate soldiers, stops to ask the Lavinia Godwin for some water. He asks to rest for a while and they talk about the damages of war as she now lives in her destroyed mansion.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Incident on a dirt road during the month of April, the year 1865. As we’ve already pointed out, it’s a road that won’t be found on a map, but it’s one of many that lead in and out of the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
James Gregory…The Sergeant
Joanne Linville…Lavinia Godwin
Warren Kemmerling…Jud Godwin
Rex Holman…Charlie Constable
David Garcia…Union Lieutenant
Austin Green…Abraham Lincoln
Jamie Farr…oldier (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – The Shelter

★★★★★ September 29, 1961 Season 3 Episode 3

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is human nature driven story with no supernatural things happening. This is a great episode. It is similar to “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” and looks like it could have been on the same street. Unlike that more well known episode though… this one has no alien pulling the strings…man pulls his own strings in this harsh look at human nature.

Larry Gates portrays Dr. Bill Stockton, a man who built a bomb shelter for him and his family. In 1961 a bomb shelter was not an uncommon addition to a house. A manufacturing industry grew up around the fact that the world could be destroyed by a push of a couple of buttons.

The actor that is the most noticeable among all of these great character actors is Jack Albertson of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Chico and the Man and many other shows. He plays Jerry Harlowe who becomes very interested in the Doctor’s bomb shelter along with the neighborhood. It is a powerful story.

Rod Serling described the inspiration for the episode as stemming from his own family’s interest in building a fallout shelter. Serling stated that the episode received 1,300 letters and cards over a two day period after the initial broadcast.

Sandy Kenyon’s character mentions going over to Bennett Avenue to get a pipe for a battering ram. Bennett Avenue is where creator Rod Serling grew up as a child in New York.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

What you are about to watch is a nightmare. It is not meant to be prophetic, it need not happen, it’s the fervent and urgent prayer of all men of good will that it never shall happen. But in this place, in this moment, it does happen. This is the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Dr. Bill Stockton has prepared well for any eventuality. He’s built a bomb shelter for himself, his wife and his child. His neighbors on the other hand have done nothing to prepare. During a dinner party, there is an emergency announcement on the radio that unidentified objects have been sighted en route to the US and they may be under attack. As the Stockton’s prepare to use their shelter their neighbors panic asking to be let into the shelter with them. Stockton refuses leading to an angry confrontation.

If you have the time this is the FULL episode

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

No moral, no message, no prophetic tract, just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight’s very small exercise in logic from the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Larry Gates…Dr. Bill Stockton
Jack Albertson…Jerry Harlowe
Sandy Kenyon…Frank Henderson
Peggy Stewart…Grace Stockton
Michael Burns…Paul Stockton
Joseph Bernard…Marty Weiss
Jo Helton…Martha Harlowe
Moria Turner…Mrs. Weiss
Mary Gregory…Mrs. Henderson
John McLiam…Man

Twilight Zone – The Arrival

★★★★ September 22, 1961 Season 3 Episode 2

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is a good episode. It’s not a 5 star episode but it’s a good mystery. The plot is a perfect setup for a Twilight Zone. A plane arrives and there is only one thing missing from it…the passengers! Harold J. Stone portrays Grant Sheckly who is determine to unravel this mystery.

Flight 107 out of Buffalo lands and taxis to a perfect stop, with no luggage, no passengers, no crew and no pilot. Sheckly, an FAA investigator with a record of no unsolved incidents in twenty-two years is on the case. One case comes back to haunt him in this episode…as the names of the would be passengers seem familiar to him.

A similar incident actually happened several years earlier in Missouri in 1957. A US Air Force DC-3 – the same type as used in the show – ran out of fuel while carrying people, who all bailed out to safety. The plane glided itself, landing on an empty cornfield, intact.

The exterior shots and hangar scenes were filmed at Santa Monica Airport in California. All other scenes were filmed on an MGM sound stage.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

This object, should any of you have lived underground for the better parts of your lives and never had occasion to look toward the sky, is an airplane, its official designation a DC-3. We offer this rather obvious comment because this particular airplane, the one you’re looking at, is a freak. Now, most airplanes take off and land as per scheduled. On rare occasions they crash. But all airplanes can be counted on doing one or the other. Now, yesterday morning this particular airplane ceased to be just a commercial carrier. As of its arrival it became an enigma, a seven-ton puzzle made out of aluminum, steel, wire and a few thousand other component parts, none of which add up to the right thing. In just a moment, we’re going to show you the tail end of its history. We’re going to give you ninety percent of the jigsaw pieces and you and Mr. Sheckly here of the Federal Aviation Agency will assume the problem of putting them together along with finding the missing pieces. This we offer as an evening’s hobby, a little extracurricular diversion which is really the national pastime in the Twilight Zone.

Summary

A commercial airliner makes a normal landing at an airport and taxis to its normal stop. The only problem is that when the doors are opened, there are no passengers and no pilots. An experienced FAA investigator, Grant Sheckly. is assigned to the case. Sheckly has a good reputation and good track record at solving crashes but this case is a difficult one explain. It all begins to get clearer when he realizes that not everyone is seeing exactly the same thing. For some the seats are blue, others see brown and others see red. They all see different registration numbers on the aircraft. Sheckly can only come to one conclusion: what they are seeing is an illusion

Here is the FULL episode for those who want to see it.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Picture of a man with an Achilles’ heel, a mystery that landed in his life and then turned into a heavy weight, dragged across the years to ultimately take the form of an illusion. Now, that’s the clinical answer that they put on the tag as they take him away. But if you choose to think that the explanation has to do with an airborne Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship on a fog-enshrouded night on a flight that never ends, then you’re doing your business in an old stand in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Harold J. Stone …Grant Sheckly
Fredd Wayne…Paul Malloy
Noah Keen…Airline Executive Bengston (as Noah Keene)
Robert Karnes…Robbins
Bing Russell…George Cousins
Jim Boles…Dispatcher
Robert Brubaker…Tower Operator (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – Two

★★★★ Sept 15, 1961 Season 3 Episode 1

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

On this one I do give spoilers away…this one is hard not to…

Like the closing narration says…it is a love story of two on different sides of a war…in the Twilight Zone. The cast was small but brilliant. Elizabeth Montgomery and Charles Bronson. They were known, but not stars…Bewitched and Death Wish was still in the future for both at this time.

This episode is an optimistic story set in an extremely bleak world. The time is presumably after World War III, the setting a devastated town inhabited only by the dead, with the exception of two enemy soldiers. Bronson seems to represent an American soldier and Montgomery a Russian.

Her single line (Prekrasny) is Russian for pretty. This is a gritty and realistic story, told without much dialogue with the emphasis always on characters. In this Bronson is more of a pacifist and Montgomery is suspicious and quick to violence.

Before season 3 was starting…Rod Serling had this to say. I’ve never felt quite so drained of ideas as I do at this moment. Stories used to bubble out of me so fast I couldn’t set them down on paper quick enough but in the last two years I’ve written forty-seven of the sixty-eight Twilight Zone scripts, and I’ve done thirteen of the first twenty-six for next season. I’ve written so much I’m woozy.

This show was written by Montgomery Pittman and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

This is a jungle, a monument built by nature honoring disuse, commemorating a few years of nature being left to its own devices. But it’s another kind of jungle, the kind that comes in the aftermath of man’s battles against himself. Hardly an important battle, not a Gettysburg, or a Marne, or an Iwo Jima; more like one insignificant corner patch in the crazy quilt of combat. But it was enough to end the existence of this little city. It’s been five years since a human being walked these streets. This is the first day of the sixth year, as man used to measure time. The time: perhaps 100 years from now, or sooner—or perhaps it already happened 2 million years ago. The place: the signposts are in English so that we may read them more easily, but the place is the Twilight Zone.

Summary

In a futuristic world a man and a woman, from opposing sides in a devastating war, meet in a deserted city. They don’t share a common language and she is quite wary of her opponent, though he doesn’t appear aggressive in any way. When she attempts to kill him, he goes off on his own. It’s obvious that society and civilization has been destroyed and she begins to reconsider.

The Entire Episode… Click Here on Daily Motion

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

This has been … a love story, about two lonely people who found each other … in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Elizabeth Montgomery…The Woman
Charles Bronson…The Man

Twilight Zone Season 2 Review

I can’t believe we are ready to start Season 3 already! Today I’ll just have this review and we will start on season 3 on Wednesday. Thank you all again for following me on this long journey. The second season was very strong with many great episodes. In the third season Serling started to burn out. He had writing credits on almost every show and was the Twilight Zones showrunner.

Of 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone, Serling wrote roughly 70 percent of them. He would write a script in less than 40 hours and then on to the next one. Serling also spent a great deal of time defending scripts against narrowminded network executives alarmed that some of the content would upset sponsors. And, with the hundreds of functions as a television producer, the workload caught up to him. By the time the series was canceled in 1964, Serling was physically and mentally exhausted.

While running the show he also fought battles with the CBS executives who complained about the darkness of the scripts among many other things. Serling wanted integrity and would even fight against some of the commercials. “However moving and however probing and incisive the drama, it cannot retain any thread of legitimacy when after 12 or 13 minutes, out comes 12 dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.“

James Aubrey, who became CBS president after the show launched, hated the show, believing programs with regular stars were more likely to grab audiences.

Aubrey canceled Twilight Zone twice, once after its third season, but it was revived when a replacement program tanked in the ratings. Later, he reduced the show’s budget to compromise its quality and axed the series in 1964. Ironically, Aubrey was fired a year later…not soon enough…and that was a good thing.

Do any of you have any different thoughts on the rankings below? What was your favorite and least favorite episode of season two?

I would like to link to two other bloggers doing tv shows. They are going through a TV series show by show like I’m doing here. I’ll continue to have the Twilight Zone every Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday.

Hanspostcard is going through the episodes of The Andy Griffith Show

John Holton is going through each episode of Hogan’s Heroes

Season 2
Episode	Date	Episode	Stars
1	Sept 30, 1960	King Nine Will Not Return	3.5
2	Oct 7, 1960	The Man in the Bottle	4
3	Oct 14, 1960	Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room	4
4	Oct 28, 1960	A Thing About Machines	3
5	Nov 4, 1960	The Howling Man	5
6	Nov 11, 1960	The Eye of the Beholder	5
7	Nov 18, 1960	Nick of Time	5
8	Dec 2, 1960	The Lateness of the Hour	4
9	Dec 9, 1960	The Trouble with Templeton	5
10	Dec 16, 1960	A Most Unusual Camera	3.5
11	Dec 23, 1960	The Night of the Meek	5
12	Jan 6, 1961	Dust	4
13	Jan 13, 1961	Back There	4
14	Jan 20, 1961	The Whole Truth	3
15	Jan 27, 1961	The Invaders	5
16	Feb 3, 1961	A Penny for Your Thoughts	4.5
17	Feb 10, 1961	Twenty-Two	4
18	Feb 24, 1961	The Odyssey of Flight 33	5
19	Mar 3, 1961	Mr. Dingle, the Strong	3.5
20	Mar 10, 1961	Static	3.5
21	Mar 24, 1961	The Prime Mover	4
22	Mar 31, 1961	Long Distance Call	5
23	April 7, 1961	A Hundred Yards Over the Rim	5
24	April 21, 1961	The Rip Van Winkle Caper	4
25	April 28, 1961	The Silence	5
26	May 5, 1961	Shadow Play	5
27	May 12, 1961	The Mind and the Matter	2.5
28	May 26, 1961	Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up	5
29	June 2, 1961	The Obsolete Man	5

…

Twilight Zone – The Obsolete Man

★★★★★ June 2, 1961 Season 2 Episode 29

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode is a cautionary tale of a totalitarian state of the near future. This one ranks as one of the best of the series. The government in The Obsolete Man determines if you are necessary or as the title states…obsolete. The plot was running theme with Serling who wrote about the fascist governments of World War II that he encountered while in the war…and the suppression of the inherent rights of a human being.

.It has two main characters. Romney Wordsworth, a Christian librarian played by Burgess Meredith. The second is the Chancellor, played by Fritz Weaver. Both of them play off each other with sharp, powerful dialogue. Wordsworth is the victim in this but slowly turns the tables on the Chancellor until him, not the state, is in charge of the situation although it comes at a great cost. Casting again hit a homerun with this episode.

A five star classic and a grand finale to the 2nd season. This episode is not only a classic…but an important one to watch and learn…and should not to be forgotten

After the classic Meredith episode Time Enough at Last…books were again Meredith’s character main focal point.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace. This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He’s a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he’s built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in The Twilight Zone.

Summary

In a futuristic totalitarian world, meek and mild-mannered librarian Romney Wordsworth finds himself on trial for being obsolete. This future society has decided on everything people need to know. There is no God and there are no books. Society doesn’t need librarians. Romney makes an impassioned plea about his rights and free will but the judge in the case, the Chancellor, will have nothing of it. The jury finds Romney obsolete and orders him to be executed. As he can choose the method of his death, Romney’s plans include a little surprise for the Chancellor.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshiped. Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man…that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under “M” for “Mankind” – in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Burgess Meredith…Romney Wordsworth
Fritz Weaver…Chancellor
Josip Elic…the Subaltern
Harry Fleer…Guard
Harold Innocent…Man in Crowd