Actually, it’s “I of Newton”.
I liked Eye of Newton, and loved it a few months later when I was as Boskone (a major science fiction convention). As part of the masquerade, one group dressed up in T-shirts that had all the slogans from the NTZ episode. Joe Haldeman, who wrote the original story, loved it.
“Her Pilgrim Soul” (another episode directed by Wes Craven) was later turned into a stage musical.
Wow, I knew this was place to go for my answer, but what a lot of bonus material I/we got out of that question! Can’t wait to see some of those when the DVDs come out. I like to freak myself out about Wordplay-type stuff…maybe that’s what’s happened to certain “crazy” people…maybe the aliens wiped all our brains and we’ve all forgotten in one instant that they used to talk to us through our fillings and only the crazy guy down the street still remembers… :eek:
I can’t find it in that tvtome list, but was there an episode where a sort of ‘tourist’ from the future accidentally saves JFK and then, consequently, WWIII starts happening. It starred the psycho from Dirty Harry as Kennedy.
Is this the episode where the “tourist” or scientist or whoever decides to fix history by going back in time and taking JFK’s place, getting killed in his stead, while JFK himself takes the “tourist’s” place in the future?
If so, I remember this ep myself; the ending is pretty vivid in my mind, though it may have been another series, for all I know.
With a little cross-referencing I found it. It was called ‘Profile in Silver’. That’s why I couldn’t find it, the title was too obscure. I remember now what it meant. The guy from the future explains to JFK that he was supposed to die by showing him his profile on a silver half-dollar (dated 1964!) Neat scene.
The time-traveler wasn’t just a “tourist.” He was a Harvard history professor in the 23rd century *and *a descendent of JFK.
Andrew Robinson played JFK and Lane Smith was the prof.
There’s a great Red Dwarf episode like this too! But in theirs,
they get JFK to go back and get killed like he was supposed to.
Since we’re jogging each other’s memories, does anyone remember a show (could be Twilight Zone, could be something similar) where it turned out that each second we lived was constructed by tiny people? They used it as the explanation for when you can’t find something, then you look again and it was right where you had looked. Turns out the tiny men forget stuff sometimes. For a while after that, I was mildly convinced that every time I blinked, there were people running around and doing stuff, and I would never know because I was blinking. So I tried not to blink as much.
This episode was ahead of its time with the line ‘No, I can’t think of anything I’ve done. Unless- can they send me to Hell just for being gay?’
Leonardo DaVinci was once commissioned to design a vessel for carrying souls to Hell. It never returned from its maiden voyage.
The kicker to that episode of Red Dwarf is that…
They get JFK to go back in time and kill HIMSELF from the 6th Floor, thereby making his assassination a SUICIDE!
That one was “A Matter of Minutes.” A great episode! Except they weren’t tiny people, they were normal sized, all blue with no faces. It’s great how the couple wake up and see these guys carrying stuff through their house and assume they’re stealing it, then realize they’re actually bringing it in… Down to the dust on the table. I swear that’s episode is the most reasonable explanation for losing things. After all, my memory can’t be THAT bad!
Does anybody remember one where four guys are playing poker and it turns out one of them is the Devil, coming to collect one of their souls? It had Morgan Freeman and M. Emmit Walsh in it. They convince the devil to play a hand of poker for the guy’s soul and…
Since they realize the devil ALWAYS gets three of a kind (three sixes, natch) they decide to play “Lowball” where the worst hand wins. They think they’ve got it made until the poor guy gets four threes, which should lose the hand. Then, the rookie at the table notices something fishy about the Devil’s hand and touches one of the cards, revealing it to be a fourth six. The guys get all pissed off at the Devil for cheating and he shrugs, saying “Hey… I’m the devil!”
What was that episode called?
EZ
I may have the wrong show but…
I remember an episode where it’s in the far future (we have FTL drives) and
it’s Christmas Eve on Earth but we are on some lonely planet far away.
The gist of it is that a star appears in the heavens (like the one at Christ’s birth) and it is realized that the planet is 2500 light years away from Earth (Sol is between the planet and the “star”) and that this new star is THE star from Christ’s birth, the light just reaching this planet.
I’m probably not explaining it well but you might be able to figure the “twist” out.
Again, I’m not certain this was the New Twilight Zone. Maybe someone else recognizes this story.
Andrew Robinson of “Profiles in Silver” has played how many Kennedys in how many productions?!? L
And except for the swipe at C’tian Righties, I also liked “Dead Run”, heck I even read the story in OMNI a few years before. I totally loved the truckers explanation for his aiding the dead souls “I remember a story in Sunday School about what Jesus did between the Crucifixion and Resurrection… and I’m just continuing the tradition.”
“Dealer’s Choice.”
OTTMH
They get suspicious because his name is Nick, and he keeps getting three sixes.
Nick gets the guy’s soul if he wins. If he loses, the guy gets $19. Originally it was $18. But, one of the other guys pointed out that 18=6+6+6.
The Devil was played by the actor who portrayed Nick Tortelli on Cheers, and in the short lived spinoff The Tortellis.
That was The Star, adapted from the Arthur C Clarke story of the same name.
I liked the adaptation well enough up to the end, where they tried way too hard to make a “happy” ending out of it. In the original story the Jesuit had his faith severely shaken (if not destroyed) by the discovery while in the TZ version the aliens leave records saying something like, “yeah, we’re gonna die, but it’s really a good thing so don’t worry about us…” :rolleyes:
RE The Star
IIRC The original story has them knowing that their sun will go nova (or was it supernova?) and leaving a monument filled with records in a reinforced bunker on the outermost planet of their solar system. Though they can do that, they don’t have the technology necessary to save themselves. The Jesuit ends with ‘O Lord, did you have to destroy these people simply so that the light of their ending should twinkle over Bethlehem?’
Nitpick: JFK shot himself from the Grassy Knoll, thereby driving conspiracy theorists nuts.
I looked at this for about five seconds in puzzlement until I got it. Then I rained my lantern off.
That’s the one I remember! Ron Glass played The Devil. The professor could extract himself from the deal by giving The Devil a command that he can’t carry out, and could ask three yes/no questions to figure out what command to give. Through the final question, the professor discovers that The Devil can return from anywhere. His command? "Get lost!"Beautiful.