Yeah, that’s a good one. Since you’ve mentioned it I assume I missed it.
The Zone was huge when I was growing up. Flying saucer pictures and stories were a common occurrence in papers and news. Interest was very high. Now it seems quaint .
They used to have the marathons on one of the local stations in NYC during all the long weekend type holidays. A guy I was dating had me stay in bed all Memorial Day weekend one year-just watching the Zone. JUST watching the Zone.
Oddly, I am just now noticing the differences in society’s mores as compared to those on the Zone. I refer to the genie one where “the guys” give the only woman in the office a neglige for her birthday and she’s thrilled. Can you even imagine?
Smoking in hospitals. That always gets me. And the men wearing hats everywhere.
I’ve also noticed the women’s breasts look more…pointy? I don’t know how to describe it…I like the dresses, especially the ones with the full skirts and the belts, but there’s something about how the bras make the chest look. My ladies certainly don’t look like that.
I saw about half of this one last night, but I fell asleep. How did it end? I’ve never seen this one before. I got to the part where the people are telling him about how they all want to live in different places when they get back to Earth, but he wanted them to stay together.
When rescue finally arrives, Benteen is unable to relenquish his iron control, trying to convince others not to return to Earth. Everyone else eventually chooses to return home, but he stubbornly elects to stay behind. It is only after the ship has left that Benteen finally realizes what he stayed behind for–eternal loneliness.
What was the one with the old hillbilly guy who, as it turned out, died, although I’m not sure he realized it at first. He and his dog are walking along, and a guy tries to invite him in to his place, but the dog doesn’t like him, and he can’t bring in the dog. He keeps on walking, comes to another nicer guy.
Of course it turns out the first guy was a demon/the devil, and the next one is an angel.
Thanks, Johnny L.A.!
I was distracted at the end and missed Serling’s lesson. Anyone remember what it was?
If Benteen needed so badly to be a leader, why did he stay behind? Is he the kid who takes his ball and goes home alone because the other kids won’t let him pitch? Or was the lesson directed to the colony (fickle voters!), or leaders outliving their usefulness?
Thank you!
My favorite is Once Upon a Time, but that’s because I’m a huge Buster Keaton fan.
Does anyone know the name of the episode that was obviously recorded live, in which the old man and his wife live in some kind of retirement home, and he fires up the giant old radio in the basement, and then wondrous and amazing things happen?
For some reason a handful of TZs were shot directly onto videotape instead of being filmed. One thing I really like about the SciFi channel running old TZs is that they show these episodes in their original format, i.e. on videotape. All thru its syndication run only really crappy kinescopes of these episodes were ever shown.
One other thing I’ve come to realize. Even though I always wanted to see them because they were held back from syndication, the hour-long Twilight Zones stink! Every one I’ve been able to sit thru is nothing more than a 30 minute script that is padded out with slow, redundant dialog and glacially-paced acting. Big disappointment.
To Serling’s credit, he all but admits this. CBS had an hour slot to fill that season so he had no choice but to try and fill an hour with what was intrinsically a 3-act show.
Amen to that, brother. Season 4 was a wasteland of suck.
Especially since the guy doing the pitch-perfect young Brando parody is Burt Reynolds in a very early role.
I became obsessed with TZ a few years back when there was a New Year’s Day marathon. I let it fill up the TiVo, I watched them all, and jotted down a list of all episodes from a website.
I have now seen every single episode but two: “The Encounter”, which Sci-Fi never seems to show, and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, which is actually an Academy-Award winning French short, so different broadcast rights would have to be negotiated.
One thing I noticed is that the quality was sometimes hit-or-miss throughout the show’s run. For example, the ridiculously schmaltzy “One for the Angels” (Ed Wynn making a huckster’s pitch to Death), which seems like it must be a season 5 indication of decline, is actually episode 2 of season 1.
Yep. It was called “Static.” Second season.
This was a money-saving experiment and was quickly abandoned.
I doubt “An Occurence Owl Creek Bridge” should be that hard to find. As a schoolboy, they paired it with “The Red Balloon” on the VHS tapes they rented out at the library. Never seen the TZ version of it, but I believe it’s cut.
Whoops! Got my memories crossed. This occurred in “The Trouble with Templeton”
I saw the episode with the three guys on motorcycles, who wanted to take over the earth for the first time last night. Anyone know the name of this one?
Yes! Black Leather Jackets.
I was watching this one (which I always considered to be pretty bad) with some friends last night. It’s a lot more fun with other people around to comment on it (and look for gay subtext).
Thanks. I watched with a couple of people who’d never seen it before either. The main comment afterward was: what the heck was that?