Tag: Season 3

Again I will say…I want to thank you all who have stuck with me through this long haul. We are now finished with the 4th season! The 5th and also last season lasts 36 episodes.

I do have one to add that was on The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse that was a precurser to the Twilight Zone called The Time Element. It was a teleplay that premiered on November 24, 1958. It was Rod Serling’s first science fiction story.

After going through 4th season …it was better than I gave it credit for earlier. The hour long episodes changed the way I graded them because they were different than the 30 minute episode. Some did suffer from too much padding but some were able to tell a more complete story. You did have a few that didn’t click well at all.

If you want… please comment on what you think I got wrong, right, or just your favorite episodes.

In the spring of 1963, CBS renewed Twilight Zone for a fifth season, shortening it back to a half hour. The networks experiment had failed: Twilight Zone’s expanded size had not made for an expanded audience. The season contained 18 long episodes.

Rod Serling: Our shows this season were too padded. The bulk of our stories lacked the excitement and punch of the shorter dramas we intended when we started five years ago and kept to for a while. If you ask me, I think we had only one really effective show this season, On Thursday We Leave for Home. … Yes, I wrote it myself, but I overwrote it. I think the story was good despite what I did to it.

Looking back, Serling’s assessment was too hard. There had been a number of really good hour-long episodes, among them On Thursday We Leave for Home, Death Ship, In His Image,  Valley Of The Shadows, Printer’s Devi and  The New Exhibit. The Twilight Zone had not embarrased itself in this season.

The 5th season was not as consistent as the first 3 but it contains some of my favorite episodes.

Season 4
Total	Episode	Date	Episode	Stars
103	1	Jan 3, 1963	In His Image	4.5
104	2	Jan 10, 1963	The Thirty-Five Fathom Grave	3.5
105	3	Jan 17, 1963	Valley Of The Shadows	5
106	4	Jan 24, 1963	He’s Alive	5
107	5	Jan 31, 1963	Mute	4
108	6	Feb 7, 1963	Death Ship	5
109	7	Feb 14, 1963	Jess-Belle	4
110	8	Feb 21, 1963	Miniature	4.5
111	9	Feb 28, 1963	Printer’s Devil	5
112	10	Mar 7, 1963	No Time Like The Past	3.5
113	11	Mar 14, 1963	The Parallel	4.5
114	12	Mar 21, 1963	I Dream Of Genie	2.5
115	13	Apr 4, 1963	The New Exhibit	5
116	14	Apr 11, 1963	Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville	4
117	15	Apr 18, 1963	The Incredible World Of Horace Ford	3.5
118	16	May 2, 1963	On Thursday We Leave For Home	5
119	17	May 9, 1963	Passage On The Lady Anne	4.5
120	18	May 23, 1963	The Bard	2

I want to thank you all who have stuck with me through this long haul. We are now finished with the 3rd season! The next season will be quick with only 18 hour long episodes. If you want… please comment on what you think I got wrong, right, or just your favorite episodes.

Season three was not as consistent as seasons 1 and 2 but it still contained some classics such as To Serve Man, A Game Of Pool, The Midnight Sun, Deaths-Head Revisited,  Nothing In The Dark, The Dummy, and more.

By the close of the third season, The Twilight Zone had made cultural inroads beyond its status as a mere television series. The show started to fit into popular culture, the twilight zone was a phrase perfectly suited to describe any number of strange situations.

Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, in a speech to the Senate, referred to the Twilight Zone in diplomacy, Serling noted. When that happened, I thought, My gosh, we’ve arrived! During the 1962 California gubernatorial primaries, Governor Pat Brown said he was looking forward to the post-election TV logs reading, Richard Nixon Returns to Twilight Zone.

In the spring of 1962, The Twilight Zone was late in finding a sponsor for its fourth season. As a result, CBS programmed a new show, Fair Exchange, into its time slot for the fall. Suddenly and without prior warning, The Twilight Zone was off the air.

After CBS dropped The Twilight Zone, Serling accepted a teaching post at Antioch College, effective September, 1962, through January, 1963. CBS did of course pick the series back up after a while. The series renewal made no change in this decision. Serling was tired of The Twilight Zone and burned out. Over the next two seasons, his involvement in the show would be greatly decreased. He would still host the show and contribute his share of scripts, but his input on the details of production would be minimal. Those decisions would be made by others.

CBS ordered only 18 episodes for the 4th season but…they would now be an hour long in format. With Serling’s less involvement combined with the hour format…the shows quality declined in this season. It would somewhat bounce back in the 5th season.

Season 3
Total	Episode	Date	Episode	Stars
66	1	Sept 15, 1961	Two	4
67	2	Sept 22, 1961	The Arrival	4
68	3	Sept 29, 1961	The Shelter	5
69	4	Oct 6, 1961	The Passersby	4
70	5	Oct 13, 1961	A Game Of Pool	5
71	6	Oct 20, 1961	The Mirror	3.5
72	7	Oct 27, 1961	The Grave	4.5
73	8	Nov 3, 1961	It’s A Good Life	5
74	9	Nov 10, 1961	Deaths-Head Revisited	5
75	10	Nov 17, 1961	The Midnight Sun	5
76	11	Nov 24, 1961	Still Valley	3.5
77	12	Dec 1, 1961	The Jungle	4
78	13	Dec 15, 1961	Once Upon A Time	3.5
79	14	Dec 22, 1961	Five Characters In Search Of An Exit	5
80	15	Dec 29, 1961	A Quality Of Mercy	4
81	16	Jan 5, 1962	Nothing In The Dark	5
82	17	Jan 12, 1962	One More Pallbearer	4
83	18	Jan 19, 1962	Dead Man’s Shoes	4
84	19	Jan 26, 1962	The Hunt	4.5
85	20	Feb 2, 1962	Showdown With Rance McGrew	3
86	21	Feb 9, 1962	Kick The Can	4.5
87	22	Feb 16, 1962	A Piano In The House	4
88	23	Feb 23, 1962	The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank	4
89	24	Mar 2, 1962	To Serve Man	5
90	25	Mar 9, 1962	The Fugitive	3.5
91	26	Mar 16, 1962	Little Girl Lost	5
92	27	Mar 23, 1962	Person Or Persons Unknown	4.5
93	28	Mar 30, 1962	The Little People	4.5
94	29	April 6, 1962	Four O’Clock	2
95	30	April 13, 1962	Hocus-Pocus And Frisby	4
96	31	April 20, 1962	The Trade-Ins	4.5
97	32	April 27, 1962	The Gift	3.5
98	33	May 4, 1962	The Dummy	5
99	34	May 11, 1962	Young Man’s Fancy	4
100	35	May 18, 1962	I Sing The Body Electric	4
101	36	May 25, 1962	Cavender Is Coming	2
102	37	June 1, 1962	Changing Of The Guard	5
	Season 3	Review

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