# NOT in praise of The Twilight Zone **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [November 20, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021 "2025-11-20T20:39:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/61 "2025-11-21T16:12:17Z")
I used to watch TTZ as a child and of course some of the stories scared the bejesus out of me. “It’s A Good Life” I found horrifying in particular. I found even as an adult some very disturbing. When my husband bought a box set, we settled in to watch one or two episodes a night. But after a few days, it struck us how mundane, dull, and low-rent most of them were. The ones strictly to showcase a moral tale, some better than others, some very forgettable. It’s as if the series was a bowl of fruit cocktail, pale grapes and pears and peaches, and the outstanding episodes were a scattering of the bright red cherries. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/62 "2025-11-21T16:27:38Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Yeah, rummaging through nursing homes filled with people with crappy eyesight would be totally out of the question. Also, he’s got all the optometrists, ophthalmologists, and eyeglass stores to rummage through. Given the cataclysm, how many intact eyeglass stores (and indeed eyeglasses) are likely to be around? “The Hunt” has always bothered me because the only thing stopping a (presumably good) man from going to Hell is that his dog died at the same time. A rather haphazard sort of afterlife, and not one that reflects well on the angel sent to get him who turns up late. ---
**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:** [November 21, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/63 "2025-11-21T18:25:52Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > “The Hunt” has always bothered me because the only thing stopping a (presumably good) man from going to Hell is that his dog died at the same time. I don’t mind the episode, in general, but I hate an afterlife that doesn’t give you any clue as to how it works. Christian theology never gave us any idea that the afterlife is a road and we get one chance to choose correctly. We’re supposed to BE judged, dammit, not choose…poorly with no help. ---
**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:** [November 21, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/64 "2025-11-21T18:37:36Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > No it isn’t! Bemis is an unlikable jerk ass. He’s so inept at life that he thinks the death of everyone on the world makes his life easier, but I don’t think he could even cook his own dinner. This is a different episode than was broadcast in my universe. In mine, Bemis is miserably lonely\* without other people, but finds a moment of hope when he finds the library - only to have things immediately turn bad again. \*"The thing of it is I’m not at all sure that I want to be alive. Well, I’m not going to starve to death anyway. Lots of food. Food enough to last for years and years and years and years. All the food I can eat. All the food And more too. [humming] Let’s see, the worst part, the very worst part is being alone." Note that even before the apocalypse, his problem wasn’t that he ignored people because he’d rather read. His problem was that he wanted to talk about what he’d read, and no one else was interested. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/65 "2025-11-21T19:18:10Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I’m very surprised to hear you say that. I’ve always thought it was one of the best episodes of the entire TZ series. It’s a variation on the theme of death that in different ways has long been a staple of literature and drama. Of course it doesn’t lend itself to a logical explanation, but neither does anything else in this strange land between light and shadow! Least favorite doesn’t mean I think it sucked. Perhaps these kind of stories touch the heartstrings of people who grew up in small towns. Not mine. There are a bunch of Ray Bradbury stories I feel the same about. But that’s the advantage of an anthology series - you can have something for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/66 "2025-11-21T19:22:12Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Given the cataclysm, how many intact eyeglass stores (and indeed eyeglasses) are likely to be around? This is one of a large number of after the cataclysm stories where people vanish, but everything is in place. Saves on set design. Examples include “The World, the Flesh, the Devil” and Dylan’s “Talkin’ World War III Blues.” Yeah, him not being able to find glasses is a plot hole, but anyone who is a reader without enough time to get through there books can appreciate the situation. I was. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/67 "2025-11-21T19:33:03Z")
Maybe. Just maybe, the point of that story wasn’t about the availability of eyewear after a nuclear apocalypse. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/68 "2025-11-21T19:43:04Z")
> [@salinqmind1](#): > > It’s as if the series was a bowl of fruit cocktail, pale grapes and pears and peaches, and the outstanding episodes were a scattering of the bright red cherries. Try reading that in a Rod Serling voice. It totally works. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/69 "2025-11-21T19:43:51Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > This is one of a large number of after the cataclysm stories where people vanish, but everything is in place. No, it’s not. The city he’s in is reduced almost entirely to rubble: [![](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjk4YjIwNDktZDdjOC00NDlmLWJjZDQtMGVlZTBlOTE4Njk4XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg) ](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjk4YjIwNDktZDdjOC00NDlmLWJjZDQtMGVlZTBlOTE4Njk4XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg) The library being spared appears to be a bit of a fluke. There’s zero chance of him finding an intact pair of eyeglasses in that wreckage, let alone an intact optometrist, and that’d be true even if he could see, which he can’t. He’s basically dead as soon as his glasses break. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/70 "2025-11-21T20:07:31Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There’s zero chance of him finding an intact pair of eyeglasses in that wreckage, let alone an intact optometrist, and that’d be true even if he could see, which he can’t. > > He’s basically dead as soon as his glasses break. See my post above. He can easily make himself at least one, if not two pinhole lenses. The problem is that not many people know this. Don’t ask “Where is he going to find the raw material?” If he can find books, he can easily find what he needs. He can use the books themselves if need be. He won’t only be able to read, he’ll be able to see and, if he’s capable, survive. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/71 "2025-11-21T20:07:47Z")
At least he can still read the large print books. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QMGUWboWmos/hqdefault.jpg "Futurama - [The Scary Door] As per your request, please find enclosed the last man on Earth") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMGUWboWmos) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/72 "2025-11-21T20:23:38Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > And they did The Cold Equations. I like the story, but I do know there is a large segment of the Dope that hates it. The Editor (Campbell) redid the story, because what he wanted was controversy and lots of letters. he got both. The story is interesting, yes, but full of holes. > [@Gyrate](#): > > “The Hunt” has always bothered me because the only thing stopping a (presumably good) man from going to Hell is that his dog died at the same time. I think the story showed he was neither good nor bad, but his love of his dog edged him into good. > [@Andy\_L](#): > > In mine, Bemis is miserably lonely\* without other people, but finds a moment of hope when he finds the library - only to have things immediately turn bad again. Right. true, he is not very social. But IMHO his only sin was being a reader in TV land. > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Just maybe, the point of that story wasn’t about the availability of eyewear after a nuclear apocalypse. Sure, valid point. But what was the point? That being a reader is a bad thing, and needs to be punished? What? That is why i think the episode is bad- Bemis is being punished- ironically- but for what? ---
**Author:** ![f.coli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eada6e/32.png) [@f.coli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/f.coli)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/73 "2025-11-21T20:50:51Z")
“No Time Like The Past” has a character doing two really dumb things. He invents a time machine, and goes back in time to assassinate Hitler. He gets the fuehrer in his sights, pulls the trigger, but - it was just a practice shot! Then he loads the rifle, but the Gestapo arrives and he has to escape. Then he goes back in time to a small town in 1881. He remembers that a schoolhouse burned down when a wagon, which had a burning lantern hanging on it, went out of control when the horses bolted. The lantern flew off and landed on the school building. He tries to prevent it, not by asking the wagoneer to put out the lantern, but by unhitching the horses. The wagoneer tries to stop him by using his horsewhip, which, of course, spooks the horses. He then goes back to his own time, lamenting that he actually caused the tragedy by trying to prevent it. There was also the foolish concept of the late 19th century being an idyllic paradise, which it only was for a very small minority. This is used in other episodes as well, like “A Stop at Willoughby.” ---
**Author:** ![hideousidiot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/858c86/32.png) [@hideousidiot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hideousidiot)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/74 "2025-11-21T20:58:50Z")
I watched my first episode of the original Twilight Zone last month. It was a popular show when I was in grade school for some reason it didn’t appeal to me (or maybe it was on when I had something else to do). But I took out of the library a DVD of its second season, and it was so disappointing, bland and dumb that I stopped after watching two episodes. In one, the guy who played the Professor from Gilligan’s Island went back in time (simply because he had been discussing the concept of time travel) and tried to prevent Lincoln’s assassination but found that he couldn’t (because he got abducted by John Wilkes Booth). The other one was even more poorly thought out–a pilot finds himself in the desert with his plane wrecked. Turns out, he’s really in a hospital, suffering from PTSD or something of the sort because he’d actually been a pilot who didn’t make the flight that caused his crew to get shot down in the desert, so he felt guilty about abandoning them. Maye this sort of piffle engaged my grade school classmates, but I’m glad I skipped TZ and devoted myself to more worthy projects. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/75 "2025-11-21T21:16:36Z")
> [@f.coli](#): > > There was also the foolish concept of the late 19th century being an idyllic paradise That wasn’t the case in the episode “Once Upon a Time”, with Buster Keaton and the guy who played Cyrano Jones, the tribble salesman on Star Trek. ---
**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:** [November 21, 2025, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/76 "2025-11-21T21:45:29Z")
“Mute” is my least favorite TZ episode - a telepathic child is isolated from her people by a woman (who deliberately impedes attempts to connect the child with a community able to communicate with her, and eager to find her), and the happy ending is that the child loses her ability to communicate telepathically and is adopted by the woman who is responsible for that loss). ---
**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:** [November 21, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/77 "2025-11-21T21:47:33Z")
Yes, that’s a standout stupid one (with access to history books, killing Hitler should be a pretty easy job, with no worries about a tricky shot, or collateral damage) ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/78 "2025-11-21T21:54:56Z")
[Hitler’s Time Travel Exemption Act](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct). Are we allowed to drift into comparing and contrasting TTZ to The Outer Limits? As opposed to being trite, the latter often just was flat weird or incomprehensible, but in a lot of ways I preferred it. ---
**Author:** ![JoePockets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8dc957/32.png) [@JoePockets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoePockets)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/79 "2025-11-21T21:56:30Z")
Did they have dime store reading glass in 1950’s ? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021/80 "2025-11-21T22:25:59Z")
I always thought it was a little weird in the Twilight Zone of the 60s that the stories were so often very basic and kind of stupid. And people forgive it because, hey, it was the 60s, TV was stupid. But it’s not like we learned how to do story telling in the 90s, or something. There were thousands of sci fi short stories that could’ve been adapted to the anthology format with much better stories than 95% of Twilight Zone episodes. We’ve had so many sci fi anthology series since then TZ and 2? 3? remakes? Outer limits from the 60s and 90s. Mostly crap. I don’t know why we don’t have an anthology series that just adapts the great sci fi short stories. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-in-praise-of-the-twilight-zone/1025021.md?page=5)