# LEAST favorite Twilight Zone episode? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 4, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811 "2011-07-04T14:41:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/161 "2017-09-07T17:45:27Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > It seems like they were just cracked when they fell, not utter smashed to pieces. Nope…the shards of the lenses fell out of the frames when he picked them up, save for some tiny bits that aren’t knocked out until he physically checks (I just watched the episode the other night). Ah, found [the last couple minutes on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER2VNU3R0gA). Shows both that the glasses are toast, and just how bad his vision is without them. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/162 "2017-09-07T17:52:18Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Nope…the shards of the lenses fell out of the frames when he picked them up, save for some tiny bits that aren’t knocked out until he physically checks (I just watched the episode the other night). > > Ah, found [the last couple minutes on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER2VNU3R0gA). Shows both that the glasses are toast, and just how bad his vision is without them. Fair enough. Were those glasses bifocals? I assume they must be, but I couldn’t see the line. If not, why would he need to wear reading glasses while just walking around? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/163 "2017-09-07T18:22:27Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Time Enough at Last is a stupid episode. I’m sure there are many pairs of reading glasses strewn around the city/state/country/world that he could find and use. Maybe he could - but it’s important not to distill that episode down to one moment. Burgess Meredith’s character has been living alone for a long time after the apocalypse, and is on the verge of suicide from loneliness and despair. Suddenly he finds a little bit of hope - something that might made living in the ruins of his city, without any companionship, tolerable - and then it’s taken away. The possibility that with great effort, a man with very poor eyesight might find replacement glasses in a bombed-out city going to be hard to look at as good news for a person already on the edge of suicide. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/164 "2017-09-07T18:46:58Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > “I Shot an Arrow Into the Air” is also pretty lame. They land on an unknown asteroid (after about a ten minute space flight) with an Earthlike gravity and an Earthlike atmosphere and a climate just like Death Valley on Earth and topology similar to the Death Valley on Earth and the twist is . . . > > They are really on Earth! Wow. Couldn’t see that one coming. :rolleyes: Every single TZ episode that ends “It was Earth after all” are lame. Sometimes it spoils an otherwise good episode. There’s one where a group of scientists and their families are trying to escape an oncoming war, so they steal a rocketship. It’s actually a very tense episode, with a scene where a state security agent stops by their bridge(!) game and snoops around. But then they steal the spaceship and the answer to “where are we going?” is “That one, third from the sun.” And I was like, fossil records bedamned, we’re going to invent bridge again??? Fortunately, we’ve learned our lesson in the intervening years, and there’s no way that, say, a very highly regarded remake of a classic TV series would ever pull the same hackneyed trick. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/165 "2017-09-07T18:51:19Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Fair enough. > > Were those glasses bifocals? I assume they must be, but I couldn’t see the line. If not, why would he need to wear reading glasses while just walking around? [Because the universe hates him.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKgjahj-3qg) ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/166 "2017-09-07T18:54:32Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I just re-watched “Bewitchin’ Pool” last night to make sure we’re not being unfair to it, and ugh, it’s awful. If anyone cares, Hulu has it, and so does Netflix. (for some reason, Netflix has TZ S. 1-3 & 5, but not 4.) > > It has all the previously described awfulness, including the Rocky the Flying Squirrel voice, which I’d forgotten about, but it has a terrible title; mostly it has something no one has mentioned yet: a presumption that children of divorce are unwanted. > > I can see how Earl Hamner’s mind is working: in his world, people stay together for the children, so people who don’t must not care about their children. > > There are so many ways that is wrong, I don’t even know where to start. > > At any rate, the parents are 2-dimensional, awful characters, and the children really are unwanted. It’s not a misunderstanding on the part of the children that gets resolved. The magic of the “bewitchin’ pool” happens because of the parents’ neglect. > > Hamner has said that he wanted to editorialize about the high rate of divorce in California, which he found shocking when he arrived there, but this is not well thought out, and completely misses the point that being the product of a bad marriage is harmful to children whether the parents stay married or not. At least in some cases, it’s probably better to get resentments out in the open. > > I understand the parents are supposed to get a comeuppance in that they ask the children to choose between them, and the children make a third choice the parents didn’t know was on the table, and we’re supposed to love this, because the parents have been set up as hatesinks (especially the mother), but aside from the fact that it’s unrealistic that children this age would have their custody left entirely up to them (a judge would probably ask them in chambers what they wanted, and tell them he had a lot of things to consider, like who had the most free time, and who would be living in the house), any divorcing couple usually fights a knock-down-drag-out over the kid. > > Maybe in 1959, you could get away with such an unrealistic picture of divorce, but not now. Even someone like me who hasn’t been divorced, and whose parents were never divorced, knows how awful this story is. > > So, the basic premise is highly flawed, and many details are flawed as well (like the bad dubbing). There’s also some terrible acting in it. In fact, Mary Badham is really the only very good performance, and it’s marred by that Rocky the Squirrel voice. > > In short, not only is it as bad as I remembered, it’s worse. Actually in the 4 times that the custody of me changed I was asked in open court in f ront of everyone involved except the last one when I had to choose between mom and grandma and only mom was there … and sometimes I think I chose poorly … ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/167 "2017-09-07T18:54:58Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Fair enough. > > Were those glasses bifocals? I assume they must be, but I couldn’t see the line. If not, why would he need to wear reading glasses while just walking around? Some of us wear glasses just to function, including reading. My vision is so bad that I can’t see the big E on a chart, so until recently I used a single focal lens for near vision, distance, and reading. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/168 "2017-09-07T19:17:01Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Some of us wear glasses just to function, including reading. My vision is so bad that I can’t see the big E on a chart, so until recently I used a single focal lens for near vision, distance, and reading. I wear contacts after my laser surgery finally didn’t correct my vision anymore. I just don’t understand how the same single focal lens can let you read AND see distance. I had to get multi-focal lenses for that. In any event, I don’t like the episode for the reason that he could find other glasses eventually. Plus, I like the futurama bit better anyway 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/169 "2017-09-07T19:31:11Z")
I hate “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” and “It’s a Good Life.” I hate IAGL because of creepy Billy Mumy so maybe the episode worked. I just wanted a grown up to shoot him. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/170 "2017-09-07T19:45:20Z")
I agree with a number of the ones above, but one that bothered me. . . Vic Morrow’s vignette in “TZ: The Movie.” His character was an unlikeable bigot. . . but there was no indication he had ever harmed anyone. And it ends up with him on a cattle car being shipped off to a concentration camp. [But it might not have been the original ending](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=80841&postcount=7) had it not been for that unfortunate accident. Edit: Heck, Theodore Bikel was also unlikeable, but all Serling did to him was shrink him. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/171 "2017-09-07T20:15:55Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I wear contacts after my laser surgery finally didn’t correct my vision anymore. I just don’t understand how the same single focal lens can let you read AND see distance. I had to get multi-focal lenses for that. > > In any event, I don’t like the episode for the reason that he could find other glasses eventually. > > Plus, I like the futurama bit better anyway 🙂 Until last year, all I ever had was single focus and without them I’d have to hold a printed page up to my nose and it was blurry from my nose to the horizon! I know for myself that if I ever lost my glasses I wasn’t going anywhere fast and no drug store would have glasses that work for me on a rack. Anyway, I doubt the episode wasn’t intending to suggest he’d never see again, but show the bitter injustice of it. One of my biggest fears is losing my glasses in an emergency. I’d watch disaster movies and say to myself “I’m dead, my glasses would have fallen off”. This episode spoke to me! ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/172 "2017-09-07T20:22:58Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Until last year, all I ever had was single focus and without them I’d have to hold a printed page up to my nose and it was blurry from my nose to the horizon! Well, sorry to hear that, but like I said I wasn’t familiar with single focus lens that worked for reading and seeing distances. Why do they make bifocals then? > [@](#): > > Anyway, I doubt the episode wasn’t intending to suggest he’d never see again, but show the bitter injustice of it But that’s just it. It doesn’t seem anything more than the injustice of scrambling around until he finds a magnifying glass or something. > [@](#): > > One of my biggest fears is losing my glasses in an emergency. I’d watch disaster movies and say to myself “I’m dead, my glasses would have fallen off”. This episode spoke to me! Well, clearly the episode is more relevant to you than me. That’s cool too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/173 "2017-09-07T20:29:24Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > I agree with a number of the ones above, but one that bothered me. . . > > Vic Morrow’s vignette in “TZ: The Movie.” His character was an unlikeable bigot. . . but there was no indication he had ever harmed anyone. And it ends up with him on a cattle car being shipped off to a concentration camp. I think that sums up why I hated that segment. It missed what The Twilight Zone is. The Zone is good for exposing and/or punishing the wicked and guilty, or to grant favors. Episodes like _Time Enough_ punish the character for no good reason. Was he a bad person? No. But it’s ironically “funny” what happened to him. As in TEAL, punishing Morrow’s character so harshly for just being a bigot is excessive. Why does the TZ pick him out to meet such an extreme punishment to? Are there not more “deserving” people in Viet Nam, people who actually rape and/or kill locals just for sport? What happened to Morrow’s character way exceed what he did. And there was no chance for redemption. Interestingly, the Zone is as bad in its actions as Morrow’s character. (The movie also missed with its interpretation of IA_G_L. While it’s nice to imagine redemption for the kid, the permanence of the original is what makes it truly chilling.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/174 "2017-09-07T20:30:23Z")
_The Obsolete Man_. Contrived tedium. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/175 "2017-09-07T20:40:19Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Until last year, all I ever had was single focus and without them I’d have to hold a printed page up to my nose and it was blurry from my nose to the horizon! When I still wore regular glasses to correct my nearsightedness, I had to either take them off or hold what I was reading an arm’s length away around the time I turned 45. Now that I wear contacts, I either have to take them out or wear reading glasses to read anything. More on topic, I think the biggest stinker I’ve seen is “Probe 7, Over and Out,” another “Adam and Eve” story with Richard Basehart and Antoinette Bower. Both the dialogue and the production values were horrendous. Watching the episodes of all five seasons in strip fashion, I’m amazed at how hokey the science-fictiony sets and costumes looked. In most cases, they were even worse than crappy 1950s SF movies. And the astronauts, hoo-whee! “Truck drivers from the Bronx,” fer sure! :smack: How many “this guy mysteriously pops into modern times (always around 1960!) and then returns to alter the past” episodes were there, anyway? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2017, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/176 "2017-09-07T21:40:52Z")
“Black Leather Jackets” was obviously a corollary of American fears of being infiltrated by Communists (like “The Monsters Are Due on Elm Street,” which was much better done), but I think it was also largely a ripoff of **this show** : > **[Tales of Lost TV: The Secret Weapon of 117 (Stage 7) - Television Obscurities](http://www.tvobscurities.com/2009/10/the-strange-story-of-stage-7/)** > > Is "The Secret Weapon of 117," an early sci-fi script written by Gene Roddenberry, lost forever? [spoiler]_On January 20th, Walter Ames reported in The Los Angeles Times that Alan Young would star in an episode of Chevron Hall of Stars titled “Defense of 117,” to be directed by William Seiter [3]. He would play “a man from an unknown planet who likes the life he finds on earth and battles to remain here” [4]._ The “secret defense” referred to in the title was love.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/177 "2017-09-08T01:38:04Z")
> [@oliversarmy](#): > > I actually saw one today that I had never seen before, “Mr. Bevis.” It had a great cast: Orson Bean, Henry Jones and Charles Lane. But it was just dumb. A happy-go-lucky guy decides he wants to be a happy-go-lucky guy. That’s a surprise. What!? Is that a joke? Orson Bean? That guy has the range of a BB air rifle. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/178 "2017-09-08T01:48:07Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > “Black Leather Jackets” was obviously a corollary of American fears of being infiltrated by Communists (like “The Monsters Are Due on Elm Street,” which was much better done), but I think it was also largely a ripoff of **this show** : For all its awfulness, I still like a couple of scenes in “Black Leather Jackets” since the “alien pretending to be a human and not doing a very good job of it” scenes with the teenaged girl are very reminiscent of Robert Hayes in “Starman” ---
**Author:** ![oliversarmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/eb8c5e/32.png) [@oliversarmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oliversarmy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/179 "2017-09-08T01:51:17Z")
Lucas Jackson: The funny thing is I did not remember posting that. And more to your point, I don’t remember the episode. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811/180 "2017-09-08T02:45:20Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I’ve been thinking about this over the years, and I think the rule of thirds holds for a lot of shows. I think ST TOS follows this and L&O seems to as well. Maybe ST TNG is more like 1/4 - 1/2 - 1/4. > > The New Twilight Zone (1986) I think is more like 1/2 -1/4 -1/4. There are a lot of good ones in there. If you’ve never seen them, check it out. _L&O: TOS_ does a lot better than that. It’s more like 1/4 brilliance, 1/2 good, 1/8 meh, if nothing else is on, and 1/8 stinkers, and the stinkers are concentrated in the final 2 (19th & 20th) seasons (with some in the second half of the 18th season). There are really only a handful of true stinkers from the rest of the series. That’s how it lasted 20 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-favorite-twilight-zone-episode/587811.md?page=10)