Category: TV Shows

Twilight Zone – A Nice Place to Visit

★★★★★  April 15, 1960 Season 1 Episode 28

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

This is a great one. You will see Mr. French from Family Affair like you have never seen him before. The acting and the twist both are top notch in this episode. I’ve watched this many times and it just keeps getting better. The Twilight Zone can highlight the dregs of society better than any other show I know. Rocky Valentine is not a well known criminal, just a lowlife, and a drag on humanity. A man who doesn’t have a thought for anyone but himself.

There is a fantastic last line given by Pip (Sebastian Cabot) to Rocky. it sums up the episode…which I won’t give away here. (The video below gives it away). On a deeper level this episode has an interesting proposition. When you get everything  you want… and everything goes your way… how can that be a bad thing? We find out how in this episode.

Mickey Rooney was the first choice to play Valentine. In a memo to Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont suggested, should Rooney not be available, that Serling himself consider playing the part. Serling declined and Rooney ended up being unavailable.

Sebastian Cabot had to bleach his hair white for the role and it took three months for the actor’s hair to return to its original dark color.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Portrait of a man at work, the only work he’s ever done, the only work he knows. His name is Henry Francis Valentine, but he calls himself “Rocky”, because that’s the way his life has been – rocky and perilous and uphill at a dead run all the way. He’s tired now, tired of running or wanting, of waiting for the breaks that come to others but never to him, never to Rocky Valentine. A scared, angry little man. He thinks it’s all over now but he’s wrong. For Rocky Valentine, it’s just the beginning.

Summary

Rocky Valentine is a small-time hood who has been on the wrong side of the law for most of his life. After robbing a pawn shop, he is gunned down by the police and awakens to be met by Mr. Pip, who describes himself as a guide to his new surroundings. Rocky can’t quite believe where he’s ended up as he can have anything he desires. He’s living in a beautiful apartment, never loses at the casino and is always surrounded by beautiful women. What good deed could he have done in life to deserve this. After a month or so however the shine of having anything and everything wears off.

The video has spoilers.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

A scared, angry little man who never got a break. Now he has everything he’s ever wanted – and he’s going to have to live with it for eternity – in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Larry Blyden … Henry Francis ‘Rocky’ Valentine
Sebastian Cabot … Mr. Pip
John Close … Cop (uncredited)
Barbara English … Dancing Girl (uncredited)
Charles Fogel … Casino Patron (uncredited)
George Ford … Casino Patron (uncredited)
Peter Hornsby … Croupier (uncredited)
Robert McCord … Waiter (uncredited)
Bill Mullikin … Parking Attendant (uncredited)
Nels P. Nelson … Short Cop (uncredited)
Murray Pollack … Casino Patron (uncredited)
Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Norman Stevans … Casino Patron (uncredited)
Wayne Tucker … Croupier (uncredited)
Sandra Warner … Girl (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – The Big Tall Wish

★★★★  April 8, 1960 Season 1 Episode 28

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

This was an important episode regardless of the story. It’s well documented that Rod Serling was against bigotry. He not only talked the talk, he put it into action with this episode with a nearly all black cast. After the airing of this episode, which was revolutionary for American television, The Twilight Zone was awarded the 1961 Unity Award for Outstanding Contributions to Better Race Relations.

It is a good episode. A child that believes in magic and a jaded boxer who long ago lost his belief. It explores the innocence in children and what little is left in adults.

The child tries to make the aging jaded boxer Bolie believe in the magic of wishing but Bolie just cannot do it. In the world Bolie lives in, wishing and hoping for the hardships to end, is never going to happen. The only real choice is to struggle through each day and fight if necessary when things block your path. The ending of this one surprised me.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

In this corner of the universe, a prizefighter named Bolie Jackson, 183 pounds and an hour and a half away from a comeback at St. Nick’s Arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who, by the standards of his profession is an aging, over-the-hill relic of what was, and who now sees a reflection of a man who has left too many pieces of his youth in too many stadiums for too many years before too many screaming people. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who might do well to look for some gentle magic in the hard-surfaced glass that stares back at him.

Summary

Bolie Jackson is a professional boxer whose best years are behind him. He’s well-liked in his neighborhood and adored by Henry, a young lad who lives next door. He hurts his hand in an altercation with sleazy boxing manager and as a result is badly beaten in a televised boxing match. He’s apparently down and out for the count but young Henry has a special ability – something his mother calls the big wish – that changes the outcome of the match. When Bolie learns what he’s done he refuses to believe in what Henry’s done with the inevitable consequences

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. Bolie Jackson, 183 pounds, who left a second chance lying in a heap on a rosin-spattered canvas at St. Nick’s Arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who shares the most common ailment of all men, the strange and perverse disinclination to believe in a miracle, the kind of miracle to come from the mind of a little boy, perhaps only to be found in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Ivan Dixon … Bolie Jackson
Steven Perry … Henry Temple
Kim Hamilton … Frances Temple
Walter Burke … Joe Mizell
Henry Scott … Thomas

…

Twilight Zone -Execution

★★★★  April 1, 1960 Season 1 Episode 26

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

Albert Salmi was a wonderful character actor. He would appear in two more Twilight Zones and all of them involved time travel. You could see Albert on TV shows through the 80s. This is a looked over episode that I do enjoy but it’s not without it’s faults. The way the time travel happens is unique but it’s the delivery that gets a little clumsy. I give it 4 stars because of the plot and the way they showed an 19th century primitive dropped into the loud modern world.

My biggest fault with this episode is the foolish way Professor Manion (Russell Johnson) handles Joe Caswell (Albert Salmi) after knowing what kind of man he was after he got there. Salmi’s acting is the standout in this. He is great at playing bad guys. Caswell is a hot-tempered sociopath who has no conscious. He makes a believable time traveler from the old west.

Watch for Russell Johnson (as Professor Manion) who will be remembered as the Professor off of Gilligan’s Island.

This show was written by  Rod Serling and  George Clayton Johnson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Commonplace—if somewhat grim—unsocial event known as a necktie party, the guest of dishonor a cowboy named Joe Caswell, just a moment away from a rope, a short dance several feet off the ground, and then the dark eternity of all evil men. Mr. Joe Caswell, who, when the good Lord passed out a conscience, a heart, a feeling for fellow men, must have been out for a beer and missed out. Mr. Joe Caswell, in the last, quiet moment of a violent life.

Summary

In the late 19th century, Joe Caswell is about to be hanged for murder, when he vanishes into thin air. He’s been snatched by Prof. Manion’s time machine and brought 80 years into the future. Caswell was selected at random and Manion can see the rope marks on his neck. Caswell is eager to see his new world but Manion wants to send him back. When Caswell runs off into the night, his new world proves to be too much for him. Justice is served in the end and a murderer hangs.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

This is November 1880, the aftermath of a necktie party. The victim’s name—Paul Johnson, a minor-league criminal and the taker of another human life. No comment on his death save this: justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar. Tonight’s case in point in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Albert Salmi … Joe Caswell
Russell Johnson … Prof. Manion
Than Wyenn … Paul Johnson
George Mitchell … Old Man
Jon Lormer … Minister
Fay Roope … Judge
Richard Karlan … Bartender
Joe Haworth … TV Cowboy (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – People Are Alike All Over

★★★★ March 25, 1960 Season 1 Episode 25

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

***Special announcement Watch all you can this month on Netflix because Netflix is not streaming the Twilight after June 30th…Fellow blogger Blackwing666 posted this here. If there was ever a show you would think about purchasing… The Twilight Zone would a great one.

Roddy McDowall was one of my favorite TV actors. He normally plays caring, worried,  and vulnerable characters. This episode is another story on human nature…earth bound and Martians…are they the same all over? Sam Conrad will find out. It’s a good episode but doesn’t jump in the great category. 

SPOILERS Below

You can take this episode in many ways…is it a commentary on humans being a caged animal instead of its keeper? Possibly a prelude to the Planet of the Apes?  Does it comment on luxuries entrapping us when they become necessitates or just human nature? Its a very good episode of the Twilight Zone .

The living room set is the same one seen in The Twilight Zone: Third from the Sun (1960). It is a redressed version of George’s living room from The Time Machine

Rod Serling changed a couple of elements from the original source story (Brothers Beyond The Void, by Paul W. Fairman) for this episode. In the original story the protagonist is Marcusson and Conrad is only in the beginning of the story as Marcusson makes the trip to Mars alone. Serling also changed the climatic utterance from the story’s mundane “People are the same everywhere,” to his more poignant version. It isn’t clear why Serling changed the story and made Conrad the protagonist.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Paul W. Fairman

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animal with extremely small heads, whose name is Man. Warren Marcusson, age thirty-five. Samuel A. Conrad, age thirty-one. They’re taking a highway into space, Man unshackling himself and sending his tiny, groping fingers up into the unknown. Their destination is Mars, and in just a moment we’ll land there with them.

Summary

Biologist Sam Conrad is scheduled to go on a mission to Mars and is genuinely concerned about what they will find there. The mission commander, Mark Marcusson, tells him there’s nothing to worry about as he firmly believes that God made everyone in his image; no matter what they find, he is certain that people are alike all over. They crash-land on Mars and Marcusson dies from his injuries. Conrad is happy to find that the people of Mars are very human-like, friendly and intelligent. They provide him with a home and promise him much more. Too late, however, he realizes that, just as Marcusson had said, people are alike all over.

Complete episode here

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Species of animal brought back alive. Interesting similarity in physical characteristics to human beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain. Comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself Samuel Conrad. And he will remain here in his cage with the running water and the electricity and the central heat as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Roddy McDowall … Sam Conrad
Susan Oliver … Teenya
Paul Comi … Marcusson
Byron Morrow … Martian
Vic Perrin … Martian
Vernon Gray … Martian
Herbert Winters … Martian Observer (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – Long Live Walter Jameson

★★★★1/2  March 18, 1960 Season 1 Episode 24

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

How would you like to live thousands of years? Mr. Jameson was given that option that many of us would love to have…but it’s not without it’s downfalls. Like the episode “Escape Clause” this episode explores immortality except in this one the main character is sophisticated but can be just as selfish. Even with his considerable life experiences some things don’t sink in.

Compared to shows in 2021 this episode is paced slow but that is a great thing. The story has room to breathe and is laid out in front of us. Living forever looks great on paper but in real time it would be hard to lose people you love over and over again… and lose yourself in parts and pieces in the process.

This is a great episode and an interesting view on immortality.

This episode deals with immortality. The entire cast all lived exceptionally long lives. Kevin McCarthy lived to be 96, Estelle Winwood was 101 when she passed away, Edgar Stehli passed away shortly after turning 89, and Dodie Heath turned 90 in August of 2018.

McCarthy died September 11, 2010 at the age of 96, having earned an acting credit as late as the year he died, more than 50 years after this episode was produced.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours of dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive…In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn’t come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon.

Summary

Walter Jameson is a successful history professor. He’s been teaching for 12 years and has proven to be very popular with his students for his ability to bring his subject to life. He is engaged to Susanna Kittridge, his good friend Professor Sam Kittridge’s daughter. One thing that Professor Kittridge has noticed about Walter is that he doesn’t seem to have aged one bit in the 12 years they have known each other. Walter admits that he is far older than anyone can imagine but before he and Susanna can elope, someone from his past pays him a visit.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Last stop on a long journey, as yet another human being returns to the vast nothingness that is the beginning and into the dust that is always the end.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Kevin McCarthy … Prof. Walter Jameson / Tom Bowen / Maj. Hugh Skelton
Edgar Stehli … Professor Sam Kittridge
Estelle Winwood … Laurette Bowen
Dodie Heath … Susanna Kittridge (as Dody Heath)

…

Twilight Zone – A World of Difference

★★★★  March 11, 1960 Season 1 Episode 23

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

This is the kind of story that the Twilight Zone excels at. Vanishing into a fantasy world of your own design forever. They explored this plot device more than once in episodes like The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine and A Stop at Willoughby just to name a few. Don’t worry though because the variations are so good that you would not mind more.

You think Arthur Curtis  is just a white-collar worker until you hear the word “cut.” He is an actor on a set but to him…he is the character he is playing. Howard Duff plays Arthur Curtis who is really Gerry Raigan. You get the feeling you would not like Raigan at all. It seems he has a drinking problem and an ex-wife that just despises him. You start seeing the reason why Arthur Curtis was born. 

Duff is very believable as Curtis…You see the worried look in his eyes yet he is hanging on to Arthur Curtis. 

When Gerry’s ex-wife demands he give her a check, she spells out the last name as “Raigan”. This isn’t the expected way to spell it, which may have been deliberate, so as to not associate the character with Ronald Reagan, the then-President of the Screen Actors Guild.

Look for David White…who became famous a few years later for the character Larry Tate in Bewitched. 

This show was written by Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at a tableau of reality, things of substance, of physical material: a desk, a window, a light. These things exist and have dimension. Now this is Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, who also is real. He has flesh and blood, muscle and mind. But in just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind.

Summary

Arthur Curtis is sitting his office chatting with secretary about plans for his daughter’s birthday party and that he and his wife will be flying off for a couple of days of rest and relaxation. Suddenly he hears someone yell “cut” and he realizes he on a movie sound stage. He can’t understand what has happened to him. Everyone refers to him as Gerry Reagan, but he insists that he is Arthur Curtis. He runs off but can’t find any of the familiar landmarks he knows such as his house or his place of work. He is desperate to return to the world of Arthur Curtis but that window of opportunity may be closing on him.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The modus operandi for the departure from life is usually a pine box of such and such dimensions, and this is the ultimate in reality. But there are other ways for a man to exit from life. Take the case of Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six. His departure was along a highway with an exit sign that reads, “This Way To Escape”. Arthur Curtis, en route to the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Howard Duff … Arthur Curtis / Gerry Raigan
David White … Brinkley
Frank Maxwell … Marty Fisher
Eileen Ryan … Nora Raigan
Gail Kobe … Sally
Peter Walker … Sam
Susan Dorn … Marion Curtis
Bill Idelson … Kelly (as William Idelson)

…

Twilight Zone – Twilight Zone – The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

★★★★★  March 4, 1960 Season 1 Episode 22

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

A 5-Star Classic… This episode has some alien intervention but not much. This is a wonderful study of human nature at work. The outcome could have happened without aliens. A few paranoid panicky people can start a mob and a mob can become a deadly thing. This episode is so good because you can see it build and build into panic until somebody does something that cannot be undone.

Very good character actors with faces…faces that you remember. You also have Claude Akins as the voice of reason…but even he can get caught up in it. This is a must watch…forget the Twilight Zone twist…just watch suspicion and paranoia grow.

The uniforms worn by the aliens, their spaceship’s ramp, and the shot of the flying spaceship were originally used in Forbidden Planet.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Maple Street, U.S.A., late summer. A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor. At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43 P.M. on Maple Street…This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street in the last calm and reflective moment—before the monsters came.

Summary

On a pleasant day, the residents of Maple Street feel something akin to a tremor and hear a loud noise. Steve Brand thinks it’s a meteorite though they didn’t hear a create. When young Tommy tells them the science fiction story he read about an alien invasion where they were first sent among humans to live with them in disguise, paranoia sets in. They first suspect Les Goodman and loudmouth Charlie Farnsworth then points the finger at Steve and then Tommy. Events turn on Charlie as everyone runs amok.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices…to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill…and suspicion can destroy…and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own—for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Claude Akins … Steve Brand
Barry Atwater … Les Goodman
Jack Weston … Charlie Farnsworth
Jan Handzlik … Tommy
Amzie Strickland… Woman
Burt Metcalfe … Don Martin
Mary Gregory … Sally
Jason Johnson … Man
Anne Barton … Myra Brand
Leah Waggner … Mrs. Goodman (as Lea Waggner)
Joan Sudlow … Old Woman
Ben Erway … Pete Van Horn
Lyn Guild … Mrs. Farnsworth
Sheldon Allman … Alien
Bill Walsh … Alien (as William Walsh)

…

Twilight Zone – Mirror Image

★★★1/2  February  26, 1960 Season 1 Episode 21

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

This is an odd one…but odd translates to good in the Twilight Zone. This one has no bad or good people…just an odd bus station where it all happens. What would you do if you looked across the room and saw yourself? That person not only looked just like but also carried a suitcase or bag just like you. 

Vera Miles plays Millicent Barnes who swears she has seen herself. She starts to get paranoid and tells Paul Grinstead (Martin Milner) this and she starts to break down…then Grinstead,  who obviously likes her and then starts to pity her does what he thinks is best…or so he thought. It could have ended a bit better. I just felt it never resolved itself. A good Twilight Zone and not a failure but not as good as some of the better ones. 

A stand out character actor in this one is Joseph Hamilton playing the grumpy put upon Ticket Agent.

The reason I remember this episode so well is because of Martin Milner . He would start filming Route 66 after this and became a star…later on he would become a bigger star known to the world as Pete Malloy on Adam 12. 

The cities mentioned in this episode (Cortland, Syracuse, Tully, and Binghamton) all lie along Hwy. 11 in central upstate New York. The use of these places is an homage by Rod Serling to his childhood. He was born in Syracuse and lived in Binghamton until he graduated high school. Even when he lived in Hollywood during his heyday, he maintained a home in Binghamton.

It was after filming this story that Martin Milner went to film the pilot episode of Route 66 (1960), which made him a star.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Millicent Barnes, age twenty-five, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes: not given to undue anxiety, or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fantasy. Like most young career women, she has a generic classification as a, quote, girl with a head on her shoulders, end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Miss Barnes’ shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who, in one minute, will wonder if she’s going mad.

Summary

Millicent Barnes is waiting in the bus station waiting for her bus to Cortland to arrive. The weather outside is dreadful and the bus is over half an hour late already. When she inquires the station clerk chides her for constantly asking when it will arrive. The only thing is (she thinks) it’s the first time she’s asked him anything. When she goes to the ladies room the cleaning lady suggests she was just in there, she begins to worry that she’s going mad. A good Samaritan, Paul Grinstead, tries to help her out but soon realizes that there may be an explanation for what is happening after all.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Obscure and metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomenon. Reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it ‘parallel planes’ or just ‘insanity’. Whatever it is, you’ll find it in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
Vera Miles … Millicent Barnes
Martin Milner … Paul Grinstead
Joseph Hamilton … Ticket Agent (as Joe Hamilton)
Naomi Stevens … Washroom Attendant
Therese Lyon … Old Woman (as Terese Lyon)
Ferris Taylor … Passenger
Edwin Rand … Bus Driver

…

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)

…