It’s in honor of the Fourth of July and is one of the bi-annual marathons that the SciFi channel shows (the other one being New Year’s Eve/Day).
I’m not watching now, but will be when I get home. And even though I’ll be out for a bit of Fourth of July, I’m going to try to watch some more.
Favorite episodes? I always loved Spur of the Moment (though a lot of people have hated on it in the past), Nick of Time, It’s a Good Life and Eye of the Beholder.
This is about the fifth year in a row I’ve tuned in for this. Man, that was some good TV!
I watched a couple of episodes earlier and got treated to the rare and bizarre treat of seeing Rod Taylor, Jim Hutton and the actress that played Miss Landers on Leave It to Beaver sharing a scene.
Then there was Roddy McDowell as an astronaut and Susan Oliver (pre-Vina) as a Martian.
Finally, the Professor from Gilligan’s Island wound up in 1865, trying to prevent Lincoln’s assassination.
That’s Entertainment!
What about the episode where the astronaut is in solitary confinement, in order to test the effects of prolonged isolation - and he goes mad and starts hallucinating that he’s the only person left on earth? I don’t know its name. Has that one been shown yet?
No idea if it’s been shown yet, but it was TZ’s pilot episode. It’s called “Where is Everybody?”
One of my beefs about the Sci-Fi Channel’s TZ marathons is they never seem to play the more obscure episodes. Come on, we’ve all seen “Time Enough at Last” a hundred times. Show us something like “Twenty-Two” or “The Hitch-Hiker.”
“Hitch-Hiker” was actually on earlier this afternoon.
I do like to see the more obscure ones, too. The Self Improvement of Salvatore Ross, for example, is a nice one that I so rarely see on SciFi.
I love the marathons, too! Have they shown the ep yet in which a team of small aliens set up a giant inflated-balloon-alien to intimidate us earthlings?
The Fear? They’re airing that tomorrow night, 8:30. I love that one, too.
Bill Shatner shows up in two of the best episodes ever, and I dare dudes to watch them and still claim Bill is a hack actor.
I dunno. Even back then you could judge Shat’s acting style by one word:
Ponderous.
Watched last night. I noticed they reused a set for two episodes. It was a spacecraft that had a pac-man pattern on the walls.
been watching some of it.
twilight zone marathons annoy me because they fill up the TiVo and
I love The Dummy. The Bard was odd, but really funny.
I think my favorites are… ugh, I can’t remember the names but
I don’t think either of them are playing this time.
That set element is actually from the MGM movie “Forbidden Planet” (1956). TZ used a lot of stuff, like footage of the flying saucer, which can be seen in several episodes, from that film and other MGM studio productions. The flying saucer model itself is seen in the TZ episode, “The Invaders” which stars Agnes Moorehead. The large, clear navagation globe from the flying saucer set is seen in at least one episode and Robby the Robot appears in no less than three TZ episodes.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve found that my tolerance to the TZ’s outdatedness has decreased tremendously. There’s only so many times I can watch one episode after another where all the main characters are white men/boys and all the women are whiny-voiced ninnies.
Which explains why my favorite episode is Mute.
They showed one I hadn’t seen before – the one with James Whitmore – On Thursday We Will Leave For Home. I thought he was in more than one TZ but IMDB shows just the one.
Whitmore plays the self-appointed leader of a colony of pioneers on a harsh planet – two suns, no night, desert landscape, 30 years of hard living, and the episode opened with a suicide. The colony is waiting for a ship from earth but it’s a few months late, and they’re starting to despair. Whitmore keeps them together.
The ship finally arrives and Whitmore starts to lose his hold on his people.
I didn’t guess the ending. It was a given that Whitmore wouldn’t want to leave, but I thought he would either disable the ship so that nobody could leave, or that the colonists would stay with him.
P.S. I thought Whitmore was in more episodes, but IMDB shows just this one. And he’s still alive – he’ll be 86 this year.
That one uses footage of the saucer from “Forbidden Planet” as well as some other props and even costumes, as I recall.
I think you’re right. The steps to the ship were the same setup as in Forbidden Planet.
The set looked similar too – the desert landscape.
Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville.
It makes me a little sad seeing Albert Salmi, considering how he ended up IRL.
I love “Miniature”. It has Robert Duvall playing an awkward, shy but kindly man who notices that the doll in an elaborate dolls house can move but only when no-one else is watching. Robert Duvall beatifully conveys his character’s loneliness
and the ending is therefore moving rather than silly.
The ep is apparently very rarely shown because it never entered syndication due to a then current copyright wrangle. The Sci Fi Channel do often show it as part of their excellent marathon though.
I’m also a sucker for “Death Ship” which features astronauts finding their ship on a deserted planet containing their own corpses. Star Trek TNG totally nicked the circular disaster loop for “Cause and Effect”, the scamps!
Great episode, made even greater by the presence of Julie Newmar, one of the most beautiful women ever to grace 1960’s television.
