Category: TV Shows

Twilight Zone – Elegy

★★★★  February 19, 1960 Season 1 Episode 20

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

This episode gets to me when I see it. You feel the confusion of the astronauts as they land on a planet that everything is frozen in time…literally frozen in time. Everybody on this strange planet is just standing or sitting  still. A beauty pageant is going on, men fishing and they are all still.

After exploring everywhere an older man finally talked to them…Jeremy Wickwire (I love that name). He explains what is going on and where they are… and then does something just terrible.

It’s an good episode and the Twilight Zone will explore this plot a little more in the future. We are certainly on a great streak of shows…only broken by The Fever.

The flashing dials in the spaceship seen right after landing are the same ones used in Forbidden Planet

Charles Beaumont wrote this years earlier under the guidance and influence of Beaumont’s literary mentor, Ray Bradbury…THAT is some mentor.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

The time is the day after tomorrow. The place: a far corner of the universe. A cast of characters: three men lost amongst the stars. Three men sharing the common urgency of all men lost. They’re looking for home. And in a moment, they’ll find home; not a home that is a place to be seen, but a strange unexplainable experience to be felt.

Summary

In a far corner of the universe, a spaceship with three astronauts lands on a planet with gravity and air conditions virtually identical to that on Earth. Their surroundings appear as Earth did 200 years ago but the planet has two suns so they’re fairly certain they didn’t somehow end up back home. People however seem to be frozen in time. They eventually stumble upon Jeremy Wickwire, who is the caretaker for the locale. His explanation of what he is and where they are defies belief but in the end, he does grant them their wish.

This one is a good episode. I will admit the first time I watched it…I hadn’t worked out the twist.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Kirby, Webber, and Meyers, three men lost. They shared a common wish—a simple one, really. They wanted to be aboard their ship headed for home. And fate—a laughing fate—a practical jokester with a smile stretched across the stars, saw to it that they got their wish with just one reservation: the wish came true, but only in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Cecil Kellaway … Jeremy Wickwire
Jeff Morrow … Kurt Meyers
Don Dubbins … Peter Kirby
Kevin Hagen … Captain James Webber
Walter Bacon … Beauty Contest Guest (uncredited)
Frank Baker … Hotel Guest (uncredited)
George Boyce … Minor Role (uncredited)
Barbara Chrysler Barbara Chrysler … Beauty Contestant (uncredited)
Alphonso DuBois … Minor Role (uncredited)
Joseph Glick … Rally Spectator (uncredited)
Chester Hayes … Ice Cream Man (uncredited)
Jimmie Horan … Minor Role (uncredited)
June McCall … Beauty Contestant (uncredited)
William Meader … Minor Role (uncredited)
Spec O’Donnell … Poker Player (uncredited)
Charles Perry … Spectator at Rally (uncredited)
Joe Ploski … Beauty Contest Guest (uncredited)
Paul Power … Farmer (uncredited)
Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Stephen Soldi … Minor Role (uncredited)
Jack Stoney … Finch (uncredited)
Martin Strader … Minor Role (uncredited)
Walton Walker … Minor Role (uncredited)
Sally Yarnell … Waitress (uncredited)

…

Sliders

Does anyone remember this Fox and then SyFy Channel show from the 1990’s? The show ran from 1995 to 2000.

I remember this show in the nineties but I never once saw an episode back then. I  like science fiction a lot but for some reason I never tuned in. Lately I have been able to watch this show and after a couple of seasons it started to grow on me. Then during the last part of the 3rd season it started to go downhill rapidly and by the 4 – 5th season the whole thing changed.

The plot was that a young genius Quinn Mallory creates a device that opens portals to alternative realities. After an accident leaves them lost, Mallory and his companions: his physics professor, Professor Maximillian Arturo, his work colleague and potential love, Wade Wells, and a once famous soul singer, Rembrandt Brown, “slide” from reality to reality in search of home. They go to parallel worlds where things did not develop like our world. One world Kennedy may not have been killed, the other one penicillin not invented, and etc… They don’t travel in time though…just a different earth in the same decade and time.

I’ve read up on it and as usual…the network was the culprit. Trying to appeal to the “MTV Generation” they changed the show dramatically. By the end of the 5th season only one original slider was left. They ended up doing away with all of the original characters and even the one that survived (Cleavant Derricks) til the 5th season probably would not have made it to the 6th if there had been a 6th.

The show had decent ratings but Fox couldn’t help themselves and messed around with the show and show runner at that time…Tracy Torme.  Starting in the 3rd season newer writers started to rip off movie ideas and put them in the show. Shakespearean actor John Rhys-Davies knew what kind of potential the show had and complained loudly about the awful scripts…he was the first to go…after Sabrina Lloyd left, the lead actor Jerry O’Connell soon quit

On top of everything else the network would air the action episodes first and therefore air them all out of order…so when they went into a new world they would be dressed differently than the episode that was shown before…because that could have been coming from a world in a future episode or one two or three back.

I’m very surprised that no one has rebooted this series. The possibilities are endless with that plot. Like the recent movie “Yesterday” it showed a world where  The Beatles never existed and how the world had changed.

It was cool to see what worlds they would land in…each history was like ours except for a few things…like one episode where the British had won the war.

Has anyone seen it and what do you  think of it?

….

Twilight Zone – The Purple Testament

★★★★ February 12, 1960 Season 1 Episode 19

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

A horrible “what if” power that Lt. Fitzgerald (William Reynolds) has… when he looks at his fellow soldiers… he knows which ones are about to die. A powerful episode and one that was remade in the 80s Twilight Zone reboot but it didn’t come close to this one. 

One thing that struck me about actor William Reynolds…he looks like he could have walked out of 2021. Most of the time on older shows most actors and actresses look from that time period…he looks like he could be starring in a movie or TV show today. 

Rod Serling served in the US Army’s 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 11th Airborne Division, during the liberation of the Philippines, where this episode is set.

The night of the planned air date, a plane carrying Richard L. Bare (Director) and William Reynolds crashed in the Caribbean Sea, injuring both (though not seriously). It is believed that during their swim to land, they discussed the episode that night and Bare requested Reynolds not to look at him. He later admitted that he commended Buck Houghton’s decision to reschedule rather than use the incident for publicity.

This is episode 19 of season one…we are over halfway through the first season. 

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Infantry platoon, U.S. Army, Philippine Islands, 1945. These are the faces of the young men who fight, as if some omniscient painter had mixed a tube of oils that were at one time earth brown, dust gray, blood red, beard black, and fear—yellow white, and these men were the models. For this is the province of combat, and these are the faces of war.

Summary

In the Philippines in 1945, Army Lt. Fitzgerald has developed the disturbing ability to look into his men’s faces and know who will be killed in the next battle. He says it’s like a light is shined on their faces. His superior, Capt. Phil Riker, consults the medical officer but he finds nothing conclusive. Fitzgerald passes out when visiting one of his wounded men in the hospital after he sees the light on his face. When he sees the light on Riker’s face, he begs him not to go out. After they return from the military operation, he sees that there will be one other casualty that day.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

From William Shakespeare, Richard the Third, a small excerpt. The line reads, ‘He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war.’ And for Lieutenant William Fitzgerald, A Company, First Platoon, the testament is closed. Lieutenant Fitzgerald has found the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Dick York … Capt. Phil Riker
William Reynolds … Lt. Fitzgerald
William Phipps … Sergeant
Barney Phillips … Capt. E.L. Gunther
S. John Launer … Lieutenant Colonel
Michael Vandever … Smitty
Paul Mazursky … Orderly
Marc Cavell … Freeman
Warren Oates … Jeep Driver
Ron Masak … Harmonica Man

Twilight Zone – The Last Flight

★★★★1/2  February 5, 1960 Season 1 Episode 18

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

This is one of my most watched episodes of the Twilight Zone. I love time travel and this one is wonderful. Kenneth Haigh plays Lt. William Terrance Decker a British soldier who took off in his plane in 1917 and landed in 1959 at an American Air Force base. He’s held captive with the Americans believing his actions to be a prank.

I like how this one has a resolution at the end. You find out how the event affected everyone…including old “Leadbottom.”

The show like most of the other episodes is very well written, acted, and executed. This is a great episode. I could have easily given this a 5 star rating. 

Richard Matheson wrote this episodes and he was one of my favorite writers of the show next to Serling. He would write 16 Twilight Episodes and among other things we would write for Star Trek the original series. 

On a side note…My friend Keith posted his 20 top Twilight Zones. 

This show was written by Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time – and time in this case can be measured in eternities.

Summary

Trying to find his way home after a dogfight in World War I, Royal Flying Corps Flt. Lt. William Terrance Decker lands at a U.S. Air Force base 42 years in the future. No one believes him when he claims to be from 1917, thinking someone is trying to put one over on them. Decker himself admits that before suddenly leaping into the future he was actually flying away from an serial encounter and leaving his friend in a lurch. He also realizes that he may have an opportunity to rectify that situation.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Dialog from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Dialog from a play written long before men took to the sky: There are more things in heaven and earth and in the sky than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, and the earth, lies the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Kenneth Haigh … Lt. William Terrance Decker
Alexander Scourby … Maj. Gen. George Harper
Simon Scott … Maj. Wilson
Robert Warwick … A.V.M. Alexander ‘Leadbottom’ Mackaye, R.A.F.
Harry Raybould … Corporal
Jerry Catron … Guard

Twilight Zone – The Fever

★★1/2  Janurary 29, 1960 Season 1 Episode 17

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

This is the second time I’ve published this…it vanished from the Reader.

I watched this last week and also Thursday night again just to make sure I wasn’t marking it too low.

This is the only episode so far I’ve given a lower than 3 stars to. As always the episode has a moral lesson but…it loses something. Everett Sloane plays Franklin Gibbs who is a grouchy man who with his suffering wife Flora wins a trip to Las Vegas. Flora is just excited to be there but Everett will have none of it. He reluctantly plays a slot machine and wins…from there on it’s all down hill for Franklin. He is hooked like a bass on a line.  Everett catches the gambling “fever.” I feel the episode is forced. Yes there is an important lesson but it doesn’t happen naturally at all.

Rod is preaching in this episode. Franklin goes from hating everything about gambling and fun to being a grumpy gambler in the span of a few minutes. This one needed more time to build.There is nothing wrong with Everett Sloane’s acting…the change is just too quick.

I do have sympathy with his wife… You can also tell poor Flora never gets out of the house.

The Fever was inspired by Rod Serling’s celebratory trip to Las Vegas when The Twilight Zone was first signed. His wife Carol Serling had good luck at the casino, but he himself kept losing to a slot-machine not unlike the one shown here, and battled it for a good while.

Even though the episode takes place in Las Vegas, it was filmed in California where slots were illegal at the time. The producers had to broker an arrangement with the LAPD to borrow real slot machines that had been confiscated by the police for use in the episode. Said producer Buck Houghton, “There was a policeman on the set at all times, to make damn sure that somebody didn’t take one off and set it up in his uncle’s barber shop.”

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Gibbs, three days and two nights all expenses paid at a Las Vegas hotel, won by virtue of Mrs. Gibbs’s knack with a phrase. But unbeknownst to either Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs is the fact that there’s a prize in their package, neither expected nor bargained for. In just a moment, one of them will succumb to an illness worse than any virus can produce. A most inoperative, deadly life-shattering affliction known as the Fever.

Summary

Flora and Franklin Gibbs head off to Las Vegas for a two-night, all-expense-paid vacation won by Flora in a contest. Franklin has agreed to go with her but he is unimpressed with the place, especially the casino looking down on all of those poor fools, as he calls them, playing slot machines. He severely admonishes Flora when she puts a nickel in a slot machine, accusing her of throwing away her money. When a drunken gambler gives him a dollar and insists that he play the machine, Franklin wins and there begins his descent into madness.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. Franklin Gibbs, visitor to Las Vegas, who lost his money, his reason, and finally his life to an inanimate, metal machine, variously described as a “one-armed bandit”, a “slot machine”, or, in Mr. Franklin Gibbs’ words, a “monster with a will all of its own.” For our purposes, we’ll stick with the latter definition because we’re in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Everett Sloane … Franklin Gibbs
Vivi Janiss … Flora Gibbs
William Kendis … Hansen
Lee Millar … Joe
Lee Sands … Floor Manager
Marc Towers … Cashier
Art Lewis … Drunk
Arthur Peterson … Sheriff

Twilight Zone – The Hitch-Hiker

★★★★★  January 22, 1960 Season 1 Episode 16

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

There are episodes that are hard for me to rate but some…like this one…is really easy…it’s a 5 star classic without a second thought.

A beautiful young lady is traveling across the country and has a blow out. After she gets the tire fixed she is back on the road but keeps seeing this hitch hiker everywhere she goes. The lady (Nan Adams) is perfectly played by Inger Stevens. This has everything you would want out of a Twilight Zone. Great suspense, a little horror, and a Twilight Zone twist.

Lucille Fletcher got the idea for this story in 1940 when she and her husband Bernard Herrmann were driving cross-country from New York to California. On the first day of the trip they saw the same odd-looking man on the side of the road it two different locations. She found the occurrence rather eerie and thought it might be a good concept for a story.

In the original story, the character of Nan was a male, Ronald. Rod Serling believed that a female in the situation would be reacted to with more feeling by audiences. She was named after one of his daughters.

This show was written by Rod Serling and  Lucille Fletcher

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Her name is Nan Adams. She’s twenty-seven years old. Her occupation: buyer at a New York department store. At present on vacation, driving cross-country to Los Angeles, California from Manhattan…Minor incident on Highway 11 in Pennsylvania. Perhaps, to be filed away under “accidents you walk away from.” But from this moment on, Nan Adams’ companion on a trip to California will be terror. Her route: fear. Her destination: quite unknown.

Summary

Nan Adams is driving across country from Manhattan to Los Angeles. Apart from a blown tire, the trip has been more or less uneventful. That is until she begins to see the same man, over and over again, hitchhiking along the highway. No matter how far she goes or how far she drives, the hitchhiker always seems to be ahead of her. She also seems to be the only person who can see him. When Nan decides to call home, all is revealed.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Nan Adams, age twenty-seven. She was driving to California; to Los Angeles. She didn’t make it. There was a detour… through the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Inger Stevens … Nan Adams
Adam Williams … Sailor
Lew Gallo … Mechanic
Leonard Strong … The Hitch-Hiker
Russ Bender … Counterman
George Mitchell … Gas Station Man

Twilight Zone – I Shot an Arrow Into the Air

★★★★  January 15, 1960 Season 1 Episode 15

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

Serling like to show the best and worse of people and this episode has both. Edward Binns plays the honorable Col. Bob Donlin and Dewey Martin  plays the selfish Corey who folds under pressure in the worse way.  A space ship is launched and crashes on what seems an unknown asteroid…survival will be difficult for the 4 survivors of the crash. It’s hot, rocky, and no water in sight. Cory is determined to survive no matter what. It’s a very good episode…I went back between 3 1/2 and 4 but the twist pushes it over the top.

Rod Serling was at a party when he was approached by a woman named Madelon Champion who told Serling a what if story and this was it. Serling gave her $500 dollars on the spot and gave her a co-writing credit.

Rarely did this happen… here is a quote from Rod Serling: I got 15,000 manuscripts in the first five days. Of those 15,000, I and members of my staff read about 140. And 137 of those 140 were wasted paper; hand-scrawled, laboriously written, therapeutic unholy grotesqueries from sick, troubled, deeply disturbed people. Of the three remaining scripts, all of clearly poetic, professional quality, none of them fitted the show.

This is one of only four episodes that Rod Serling did a mid-episode narration

This show was written by Rod Serling and Madelon Champion

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Her name is the Arrow 1. She represents four and a half years of planning, preparation, and training, and a thousand years of science, mathematics, and the projected dreams and hopes of not only a nation, but a world. She is the first manned aircraft into space and this is the countdown. The last five seconds before man shot an arrow into the air.

Summary

This is the story of a group of spacemen who crash on what they think is an asteroid. Since they are doomed, the Captain tries to keep military protocol. Nevertheless, Cory, one of the men, becomes a survivalist. He becomes selfish and begins to take over. He kills. He steals water. He whines. The story works toward an ironic twist, bringing out the best and the worst in everyone. Patience goes out the window over water. Remember the two men fighting at the conclusion of Von Stroheim’s Greed. There is a bit of this because when our lives are on the line, we often try to hold on to every second we can. Cory can’t see honor or morality or order. It’s just to grasp for that one more drop of precious water.

Rod Serling mid-episode narration 

Now you make tracks, Mr. Corey. You move out and up like some kind of ghostly billyclub was tapping at your ankles and telling you that it was later than you’d think. You scrabble up rock hills and feel hot sand underneath your feet and every now and then, take a look over your shoulder at a giant sun suspended in a dead and motionless sky…like an unblinking eye that probes at the back of your head in a prolonged accusation.

Mr. Corey, last remaining member of a doomed crew, keep moving. Make tracks, Mr. Corey. Push up and push out because if you stop…if you stop, maybe sanity will get you by the throat. Maybe realization will pry open your mind and the horror you left down in the sand will seep in. Yeah, Mr. Corey, yeah, you better keep moving. That’s the order of the moment: keep moving.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Practical joke perpetrated by Mother Nature and a combination of improbable events. Practical joke wearing the trappings of nightmare, of terror, and desperation. Small, human drama played out in a desert 97 miles from Reno, Nevada, U.S.A., continent of North America, the Earth and, of course, the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Dewey Martin … Corey
Edward Binns … Col. Bob Donlin
Ted Otis … Pierson
Harry Bartell … Langford
Leslie Barrett … Brandt
Boyd Cabeen … Technician (uncredited)
Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – Third From the Sun

★★★★★  January 8, 1960 Season 1 Episode 14

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

The first thing about this  episode that catches my eye is the camera work. The angles they used were really interesting and keeps this episode fresh.

I run across people who have never seen the Twilight Zone…there are a few episodes I point them to…this is one of them. This has everything a great episode has… the great casting, story, and the surprise at the end.

This one has one of my very favorite twists at the end. At the time of this episode it had to hit home for many people…The Cold War and fear of nuclear annihilation were ever-present. Fritz Weaver did an amazing job of relating the fear and paranoia of an oncoming disaster.

Edward Andrews played Carling a security officer who is unlikable at first sight. He toys with the two families determined to block their secret plans for an escape. The more I see this episode the more I really dislike this guy…he played the part very well.

Some trivia: The background noises heard aboard the ship in the final scene were later reused in Star Trek. During the closing scene, the main characters are depicted aboard a spaceship, a reuse of the ship created for Forbidden Planet

This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Quitting time at the plant. Time for supper now. Time for families. Time for a cool drink on a porch. Time for the quiet rustle of leaf-laden trees that screen out the moon, and underneath it all, behind the eyes of the men, hanging invisible over the summer night, is a horror without words. For this is the stillness before storm. This is the eve of the end.

Summary

William Sturka works as a hydrogen specialist in a highly secure plant. Conditions are tense and there are constant rumors of war. The latest is that it’s going to happen in the next 48 hours. Unbeknownst to his wife Eve and daughter Jody, he and his friend Jerry Riden have been planning an escape of sorts for themselves and their families. Jerry is a test pilot and they plan to steal the government’s latest spacecraft heading off to a planet they believe may sustain life. Their biggest challenge is Carling, a security officer who seems to be onto their plan.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Behind a tiny ship heading into space is a doomed planet on the verge of suicide. Ahead lies a place called Earth, the third planet from the Sun. And for William Sturka and the men and women with him, it’s the eve of the beginning—in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Fritz Weaver … William Sturka
Edward Andrews … Carling
Joe Maross … Jerry Riden
Denise Alexander … Jody Sturka
Lori March … Eve Sturka
Jeanne Evans … Ann Riden

…

Twilight Zone – The Four of Us Are Dying

★★★ 1/2  January 1, 1960 Season 1 Episode 13

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

The first episode of a brand new decade that would see the world change immeasurably.

This episode has a great what if story. What if… you could change your face just by looking at a picture or from memory? Many times in the Twilight Zone these talents are given to people who want more out of life than they have earned. Instead of using this for the good…we have a small time crook trying to take advantage people.

He had his own face and he ended up changing into 3 different faces. He would scanned the paper and changed into people who he could take advantage of their situation. They were going to cast the same actor and use makeup but they decided to cast 4 different actors with same eye color and build.

This show was written by  Rod Serling  and  George Clayton Johnson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

His name is Arch Hammer, he’s 36 years old. He’s been a salesman, a dispatcher, a truck driver, a con man, a bookie, and a part-time bartender. This is a cheap man, a nickel-and-dime man, with a cheapness that goes past the suit and the shirt; a cheapness of mind, a cheapness of taste, a tawdry little shine on the seat of his conscience, and a dark-room squint at a world whose sunlight has never gotten through to him. But Mr. Hammer has a talent, discovered at a very early age. This much he does have. He can make his face change. He can twitch a muscle, move a jaw, concentrate on the cast of his eyes, and he can change his face. He can change it into anything he wants. Mr. Archie Hammer, jack-of-all-trades, has just checked in at three-eighty a night, with two bags, some newspaper clippings, a most odd talent, and a master plan to destroy some lives.

Summary

Arch Hammer arrives in the city and checks into a seedy hotel. He looks like any other man but looks can be deceiving. Hammer has the ability to change his appearance at whim, a trick he definitely uses to his own advantage. He takes on the appearance of the recently deceased musician Johnny Foster. who died in a car accident. He goes to meet Maggie, a lounge singer who is mourning Foster’s death, and convinces her to run off with him. He then takes on the appearance of Virge Sterig, a gangster whose bullet-riddled body was recently found in the river. He then visits mob boss Penell who double-crossed him to get his share of the money their most recent job. An unplanned change of face doesn’t go over well, however.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

He was Arch Hammer, a cheap little man who just checked in. He was Johnny Foster, who played a trumpet and was loved beyond words. He was Virgil Sterig, with money in his pocket. He was Andy Marshak, who got some of his agony back on a sidewalk in front of a cheap hotel. Hammer, Foster, Sterig, Marshak—and all four of them were dying.

CAST

Harry Townes … Arch Hammer
Phillip Pine … Virge Sterig
Ross Martin … Johnny Foster
Don Gordon … Andy Marshak
Harry Jackson … Trumpeter
Bernard Fein … Penell
Peter Brocco … Mr. Marshak
Milton Frome … Detective
Beverly Garland … Maggie

…

Twilight Zone – What You Need

★★★1/2 December 25, 1959 Season 1 Episode 12

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

This is a good solid episode but not a classic. The thing about the Twilight Zone is… even the average episodes (average for the Twilight Zone) can become personal favorites.

An old man (Pedott) with a gift that can give you what you need. It could be cleaning fluid, a bus ticket, or a pair of scissors. You would not believe so, but you would end up needing them. He doesn’t use his gift on anyone but the ones he does bestow things to…they are usually grateful. What you need could be something small or something important to save your life.

Enter Mr. Fred Renard played by Steve Cochran. He is a nobody…a nothing that wants to be a somebody and not earn it. He sees the old man with a gift and wants everything. Cochran plays this bad guy well. He is a bully and blames the world on his problems.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Henry Kuttner

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at Mr. Fred Renard, who carries on his shoulder a chip the size of the national debt. This is a sour man, a friendless man, a lonely man, a grasping, compulsive, nervous man. This is a man who has lived thirty-six undistinguished, meaningless, pointless, failure-laden years and who at this moment looks for an escape—any escape, any way, anything, anybody—to get out of the rut. And this little old man is just what Mr. Renard is waiting for.

Summary

An old street vendor goes to a bar to sell his wares. However, he foresees what each costumer will need in a short period, selling precisely what they need. After selling in the bar, the crook Fred Renard mocks him and the peddler gives a pair of scissors for him. When Fred arrives at the hotel where he is lodged, his scarf is trapped on the elevator door and he only survives due to the pair of scissors. Now Fred believes that the peddler has a gift and he decides to force the old man to tell him the name of the horse that will win a race. The greedy Fred earns a large amount and seeks out the peddler threatening him again that the old man gives him a pair of shoes to Fred. But who needs the pair of shoes?

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Street scene, night. Traffic accident. Victim named Fred Renard, gentleman with a sour face to whom contentment came with difficulty. Fred Renard, who took all that was needed—in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Steve Cochran … Fred Renard
Ernest Truex … Pedott
Read Morgan … Lefty
Arlene Martel … Girl in Bar (as Arline Sax)
William Edmonson… Bartender
Doris Karnes … Woman
Fred Kruger … Man on Street
Norman Sturgis … Hotel Clerk

Twilight Zone – And When the Sky Was Opened

★★★★★ December 11, 1959 Season 1 Episode 11

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

This is one of my favorites. Rod Taylor from the Time Machine drives this episode. I won’t give out 5 star ratings on just anything but this one does it for me. Each character goes through the same situation and there is no way they can explain it to anyone else. There is a little…just a little of “It’s A Wonderful Life” in this one. When George Bailey goes to his mother’s door and she said she didn’t know him…because he didn’t exist. What would happen if a friend you have known for years was wiped out of existence in everyone’s memory but yours?

Halfway through, you get an idea of what is going to happen but that doesn’t matter. You can feel the desperation in Lieutenant Colonel Clegg Forbes (Rod Taylor) as he tries to put together what happened to his friend and why no one else knows…and then it starts happening to him. 

  Also (Spoiler!) the character Major William Gart quickly vanished at the end. Rod Serling explained in a lecture that without his fellow astronauts to anchor him to this world, he had no way of holding on. It furthered the idea that Rod Taylor’s Forbes’s denial kept him in the world longer, and having heard the story of Harrington’s disappearance and seeing Forbes taken out, he had no way of denying the possibility.

Look for Miss. Landers (Sue Randall) from Leave it to Beaver as the Nurse.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Her name: X-20. Her type: an experimental interceptor. Recent history: a crash landing in the Mojave Desert after a thirty-one hour flight nine hundred miles into space. Incidental data: the ship, with the men who flew her, disappeared from the radar screen for twenty-four hours…But the shrouds that cover mysteries are not always made out of a tarpaulin, as this man will soon find out on the other side of a hospital door.

Summary

The X-20 experimental spacecraft recently returned after venturing into a 900 mile orbit around the Earth. At one point, the craft disappeared for about 20 seconds and then suddenly reappeared before crashing in the Mojave desert. One of the crew, Maj. William Gart broke his leg on reentry but is recovering. Another of the astronauts, Lt. Col. Clegg Forbes, visits him but is obviously quite shaken. His recollection is there were 3 astronauts in the craft but the newspaper accounts mention only two. The third was Col. Ed Harrington but Gart says he never heard of him. As Forbes remembers it, he and Harrington went out the night before and Harrington begins to have a sense of not belonging. He then vanishes. As he searches for his friend, he can find no one who ever met the man.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Once upon a time, there was a man named Harrington, a man named Forbes, a man named Gart. They used to exist, but don’t any longer. Someone – or something – took them somewhere. At least they are no longer a part of the memory of man. And as to the X-20 supposed to be housed here in this hangar, this, too, does not exist. And if any of you have any questions concerning an aircraft and three men who flew her, speak softly of them – and only in – The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Rod Taylor … Lieutenant Colonel Clegg Forbes
Jim Hutton … Major William Gart (as James Hutton)
Charles Aidman … Colonel Ed Harrington
Maxine Cooper … Amy
Paul Bryar … Bartender
Sue Randall … Nurse
Joe Bassett … Medical Officer
Lisabeth Field … Nurse (uncredited)
Logan Field … Investigator (uncredited)
John Launer … Mr. Harrington (uncredited)
Oliver McGowan … Officer (uncredited)
Gloria Pall … Girl in Bar (uncredited)
Bernard Sell … Bar Patron (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – Judgment Night

★★★1/2 December 4, 1959 Season 1 Episode 10

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

Rod Serling served in WW2 and he does have quite a few episodes about war. It’s been said that you pay for everything you do in this life. The character Carl Lanser will be paying for an eternity. World War II hadn’t been over for 15 years when Judgment Night premiered. It was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Serling had a message starting with this episode. When Nazi’s fall in the Twilight Zone they will get their comeuppance. Serling didn’t make light of Nazis, pull any punches,  or turn them into a cartoon stereotype. Carl is portrayed as someone who perpetuated a deep evil and will be punished by God for it…and punished he is.

I love the twist in this episode but I think it is a little slow moving…but still a good one to watch. There are better WWII episodes.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Her name is the S.S. Queen of Glasgow. Her registry: British. Gross tonnage: five thousand. Age: Indeterminate. At this moment she’s one day out of Liverpool, her destination New York. Duly recorded on the ship’s log is the sailing time, course to destination, weather conditions, temperature, longitude and latitude. But what is never recorded in a log is the fear that washes over a deck like fog and ocean spray. Fear like the throbbing strokes of engine pistons, each like a heartbeat, parceling out of every hour into breathless minutes of watching, waiting and dreading… For the year is 1942, and this particular ship has lost its convoy. It travels alone like an aged blind thing groping through the unfriendly dark, stalked by unseen periscopes of steel killers. Yes, the Queen of Glasgow is a frightened ship, and she carries with her a premonition of death.

Summary

During World War II, a confused Carl Lancer finds himself as one of only a few passengers on a freighter, the S.S. Queen of Glasgow, traveling from London to New York. As he sits with other passengers, he begins to realize that he is the captain of a U-Boat that is at that very moment tracking the freighter with a view to sinking it. He also knows that in just over an hour the freighter will be attacked.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“The S.S. Queen of Glasgow, heading for New York, and the time is 1942. For one man it is always 1942—and this man will ride the ghost ship every night for eternity. This is what is meant by paying the fiddler. This is the comeuppance awaiting every man when the ledger of his life is opened and examined, the tally made, and then the reward or the penalty paid. And in the case of Carl Lanser, former Kapitan Lieutenant, Navy of the Third Reich, this is the penalty. This is the justice meted out. This is judgment night in the Twilight Zone.”

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Nehemiah Persoff … Carl Lanser
Deirdre Owens … Barbara Stanley (as Deirdre Owen)
Patrick Macnee … First Officer McLeod
Ben Wright … Captain Wilbur
Leslie Bradley … Major Devereaux
Kendrick Huxham … Bartender
Hugh Sanders … Jerry Potter
Richard Peel … 1st Steward
Donald Journeaux … 2nd Steward
Barry Bernard … Engineer
James Franciscus… Lt. Mueller

…

Twilight Zone – Perchance to Dream

★★★ November 27, 1959 Season 1 Episode 9  (Episode 8 is Time Enough At Last which I covered in my top 10)

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

This one gets really creepy. Filmed in black and white works in the favor of this episode. It’s never been a favorite of mine but does have some scary scenes. I like the way they do the eerie dream scenes. A carnival at night with a cloudy atmosphere that is downright creepy. Suzanne Lloyd is stunning as Maya in Edward’s nightmares and as the secretary Miss Thomas.

The end has a nice twist but it’s not a classic episode but a good one.

This was the first Twilight Zone episode aired that was written by Charles Beaumont and also the first that was not written by Rod Serling. This episode was based upon a short story of the same name by Beaumont that was first published in the November 1958 issue of Playboy magazine.

This show was written by  Charles Beaumont

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Twelve o’clock noon. An ordinary scene, an ordinary city. Lunchtime for thousands of ordinary people. To most of them, this hour will be a rest, a pleasant break in a day’s routine. To most, but not all. To Edward Hall, time is an enemy, and the hour to come is a matter of life and death.

Summary

Edward Hall seeks the help of a psychiatrist, Dr. Rathman. He tells the doctor he hasn’t slept for days, and has been taking pills to stay awake, because he has a fear that if he does go sleep, he’ll die. He’s been having a series of dreams where each on’s part of a long story – like chapters in a book. The main character in his dream other than himself is a beautiful young woman, named Maya. He’s now reached the point of the story where he believes Maya will kill him and so he’s terrified to fall asleep.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die, and who’s to say which is the greater reality: the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the earth – in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Richard Conte … Edward Hall
John Larch … Dr. Eliot Rathmann
Suzanne Lloyd … Maya / Miss Thomas

…

Twilight Zone – The Lonely

★★★★1/2 November 13, 1959 Season 1 Episode 7

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

This one is an excellent episode. This one probably isn’t recognized as a classic episode but it’s great. Two great character actors John Dehner and Jack Warden are in this episode. Plus you have a future star in Ted Knight that would go on to star as Ted Baxter in the Mary Tyler Moore show.

This episode…you feel the heat and the guy’s loneliness being a prisoner on a distance barren planet. This show makes you think…about the loneliness of the prisoner and when Captain Allenby gives the Jack Warden character a big box to open… makes you wonder what constitutes a human being.

The Lonely was filmed on location in Death Valley. Unprepared for the terrible conditions they would face, the crew suffered extreme dehydration and heat exhaustion and director of photography George T. Clemens even collapsed, falling from a camera crane while filming continued.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Witness if you will, a dungeon, made out of mountains, salt flats, and sand that stretch to infinity. The dungeon has an inmate: James A. Corry. And this is his residence: a metal shack. An old touring car that squats in the sun and goes nowhere for there is nowhere to go. For the record, let it be known that James A. Corry is a convicted criminal placed in solitary confinement. Confinement in this case stretches as far as the eye can see, because this particular dungeon is on an asteroid nine million miles from the Earth. Now witness, if you will, a man’s mind and body shriveling in the sun, a man dying of loneliness.

Summary

James A. Corry’s a man sentenced to prison; 50 years solitary on a distant asteroid. After 4 and a half years, James anxiously waits for Captain Allenby and his crew who every now and then bring him supplies, and also give him someone to talk to. When Captain Allenby arrives, he brings a suprise box for James; the ultimate female robot, named Alicia that is human-like and has feelings. James initially rejects her but soon falls in love with her. On the Captain Allenby’s next visit, he informs James he’s been pardoned and will return to Earth. But the ship only has enough room for him.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man’s life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them. All of Mr. Corry’s machines, including the one made in his image, kept alive by love, but now obsolete—in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Jack Warden … James A. Corry
John Dehner … Captain Allenby
Jean Marsh … Alicia
Ted Knight … Adams (uncredited)
James Turley … Carstairs (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – Escape Clause

★★★★ November 6, 1959 Season 1 Episode 6 (Episode 5 is Walking Distance which I covered in my top 10)

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

In this episode we meet the Devil for the first of many times in The Twilight Zone. We also meet the sad little man…hypochondriac Walter Bedeker. This guy is so unlikable that you have no feeling for him whatsoever. You actually root for the devil.

David Wayne does a great job playing Mr. Bedeker and Virginia Christine is very good as his put upon wife. Thomas Gomez is a very business like devil who lays it out straight for Bedeker. I had it at 3 1/2 stars until I watched it again…the ending is worth it.

Saying that a Twilight Zone episode has a great twist is like saying the sun will rise but this one…is wonderful…and you feel some justice.

A couple of facts about this episode: The cast includes two actors each best known for starring in a long-running TV commercial: Virginia Christine (Mrs. Olson for Folgers Coffee) and Dick Wilson (Mr. Whipple for Charmin Bathroom Tissue).

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re about to meet a hypochondriac. Witness Mr. Walter Bedeker age forty-four. Afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, draft, and everything else. He has one interest in life and that’s Walter Bedeker. One preoccupation, the life and well-being of Walter Bedeker. One abiding concern about society, that if Walter Bedeker should die how will it survive without him?

Hypochondriac Walter Bedeker has once again had his doctor come to his bedside but he can find absolutely nothing wrong with him. The doctor tells him his aches and pains are psychosomatic but he refuses to accept it. Later that night, a Mr. Cadwallader suddenly appears in his room and has a proposition for him: in return for his soul, he will give him immortality. He even has an escape clause in that if he ever gets tired of living, Cadwallader will provide him with a hasty demise. He accepts the deal and soon collects 14 insurance claims over a variety of accidents. He finds it all very boring however but his quest for a thrill brings results with an unexpected outcome.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

There’s a saying, “Every man is put on Earth condemned to die, time and method of execution unknown.” Perhaps this is as it should be. Case in point: Walter Bedeker, lately deceased. A little man with such a yen to live. Beaten by the devil, by his own boredom, and by the scheme of things in this, the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
David Wayne … Walter Bedeker
Thomas Gomez … Cadwallader
Virginia Christine… Ethel Bedeker
Raymond Bailey … Doctor
Wendell Holmes … Cooper
Dick Wilson … Jack
Joe Flynn … Steve
Nesdon Booth … Guard (as Nesden Booth)

…