# Favorite Twilight Zone episodes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2002, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961 "2002-12-31T23:40:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![LoN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cab0a1/32.png) [@LoN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LoN)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2002, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/1 "2002-12-31T23:40:52Z")
There’s a Twilight Zone marathon on sci-fi, at least in the States. So… fave eps? Cool eps? Anything… its just such a neat show. Alas, I can’t think of my fave at this moment… ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2002, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/2 "2002-12-31T23:47:54Z")
Oh, damnit! I wanted to make the Twilight Zone marathon thread. Oh well. Let me see…I love “Eye of the Beholder,” “Spur of the Moment,” and “To Serve Man.” Also, I just saw one called “People Are Alike All Over” or something…with Roddy McDowall, which was quite good. (And Roddy was quite gorgeous!) Come, come, **LoN**. Don’t be a Twilight Zone Tease- you must have a few favorites you can throw us off the top of your head! ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/3 "2003-01-01T00:05:21Z")
Masks The Fever The Monsters are Due on Maple Street Long Distance Call ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/4 "2003-01-01T00:17:38Z")
The Invaders Eye of the Beholder The Obsolete Man To Serve Man Time Enough At Last Death Ship (great “trapped in a loop” story) Nightmare at 20,000 Feet ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/5 "2003-01-01T00:36:09Z")
From “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”, Rod Serling’s oft-quoted epilogue: > [@](#): > > “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 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.” ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/6 "2003-01-01T00:38:41Z")
God DAMMIT. I was cooking dinner and I COMPLETELY missed “It’s a Good Life” (which I’ve never seen, but I love the short story.) I KNEW I should’ve just ordered out for pizza. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/7 "2003-01-01T00:39:41Z")
By far my favorite is “It’s a Good Life”. Saw one earlier today called “Miniature” with a young Robert Duvall. That was good, although I kept thinking of Tom Hagen, especially when Charlie and his sister are eating in that Italian resteraunt. I also like most of the episodes starring Burgess Meredith, especially “Time Enough At Last”. I mean, don’t you just want to cry for him at the end? “The Obsolete Man” is also good. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/8 "2003-01-01T01:14:09Z")
[Twilight Zone episode guide](http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/EpisodeGuideSummary/showid-237/season-all) ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/9 "2003-01-01T01:16:15Z")
Oops…my favorite one is **Time enough at last** with Burgess Meredith and his broken glasses. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/10 "2003-01-01T02:15:18Z")
My favorite will always be “A Stop at Willoughby.” A close second would have to be the final episode of the series, “The Bewitchin’ Pool,” which featured a very similar plot. ---
**Author:** ![Torgo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@Torgo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Torgo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/11 "2003-01-01T02:21:20Z")
The one with Mickey Rooney as a drunken ex-jockey who wishes he was “big.” Suddenly he’s huge, like 10 feet tall, when he gets a call offering him his jockey job back. Of course his career is over as he is now 10 feet tall. Oppositely, the one with Theodore Bikel as the paranoid mental case who spies on everybody and declares that at 4:00 all the evil people in the world will be one-foot tall. Sure enough the clock strikes 4 and Theodore Bikel is one-foot tall. ---
**Author:** ![Shadez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Shadez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shadez)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/12 "2003-01-01T03:14:23Z")
nod… I like time enough at last… And I like the one where a couple wakes up in a town, and hears no one and sees no one. All they hear is child’s laughter, actually. At the end they turn over a tree and it turns out to be fake. And then you see a huge hand come down and grab them. Turn’s out to be a child’s. The mother comes in and tells her to stop playing with her new toys, the Earthlings. /Shadez ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/13 "2003-01-01T03:17:57Z")
…To See the Invisible Man… Beautiful story, and being the Twilight Zone I wasn’t expecting the heartfelt conclusion to the story… ---
**Author:** ![moonchilde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3e96dc/32.png) [@moonchilde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonchilde)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/14 "2003-01-01T04:31:53Z")
To Serve Mankind I Shot An Arrow Into the Air The Invaders Long Distance Call mc ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/15 "2003-01-01T04:37:07Z")
**Time Enough At Last**. Hands down, this is my favourite. They could have left well-enough alone, leaving Burgess Merideth with his books. A happy ending. But they went the extra step. No matter how many times I see it, the very end always grabs me. And now a follow-up question: I _think_ I remember seeing this in “Time Enough At Last”. Burgess Merideth is at the end of his rope. He finds a gun, and we see his shadow on the ground as he raises the gun to his head. Then at the last moment, he sees his salvation and lowers the gun. But I have not seen this shot in the episode in years. Someone once told me that it was cut so as not to offend sensitive viewers. But now I’m no longer sure I ever actually saw it at all. So _was_ there (or is there now, restored) such a shot? ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/16 "2003-01-01T04:52:20Z")
**Time Enough At Last** is on SciFi tomorrow (1/1/03) at 9:39 PM EST. **Johnny** - that ‘gun scene’ seems disingenuous to me, both for Serling and BM. What salvation does/could Bemis “see”? Anyways, the ‘prime-time’ T-Zones are being shown uncut. Closing: “The best laid plans of mice and men and Henry Bemis, the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis in the Twilight Zone.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/17 "2003-01-01T04:56:36Z")
**Corbomite** : As I seem to recall, you see the shadow as he’s about to kill himself; then he sees the library. I don’t see what’s disingenuous about it; but while I’m sure I saw that shot somewhere, I’m not sure I saw it in the TZ episode. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/18 "2003-01-01T05:18:34Z")
I’ve seen that shot somewhere too. Maybe not this episode, but…maybe. Bemis has broken his coke-bottle glasses and cannot read all his beloved books (which likely contain the Steinbeck catalogue). I guess that gun scene might work if it went unresolved (no gunshot or sounds) and faded out/panned into the stars. One of my favourite T-zones where the happy couple drive on out of the Twilight Zone with Rod’s happy approval, is **A Penny For Your Thoughts** with William Shatner. It’s on tomorr-today at 7:30 PM EST. HNY 😃 ---
**Author:** ![NotWithoutRage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NotWithoutRage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotWithoutRage)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/19 "2003-01-01T05:22:08Z")
A Stop At Willoughby Talking Tina Oh… and I forget the title, I think it’s Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up… the one with the bus and the diner… ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961/20 "2003-01-01T05:29:55Z")
My new year smack on head :smack: The Shatner episode is **Nick of Time** and it was aired already (in the Sci-fi marathon). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-twilight-zone-episodes/145961.md?page=2)