For me it was always Time Enough At Last. First, because I think it has the hardest gut-punch of any episode. Secondly, the first time I ever saw it, I was watching with my uncle and he said, “This guy is just like you.” That endeared it to me.
I didn’t see “Time Enough at Last”, but, weirdly, it is my favorite episode too, for the same reason.
When I was little people kept telling me that I was just like the guy from “That episode in ‘La dimension desconocida’ where the guy loves to read but breaks his glasses”.
It bothered me a bit at the time but now it brings me fond memories of those family members, most of which have passed away.
I am a little surprised that I didn’t post to this thread nineteen years ago because the Twilight Zone is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. My favorite episode are:
Midnight Sun. A really great sci fi story with a fun twist. I always loved how the WPIX Twilight Zone Marathon would always play this one at midnight.
Number 12 Looks Just Like You. This is an underrated one but the theme is just so great and only more relevant today. Also it has one of those classic punch in the gut endings.
Gosh, I was starting to think they’d given us the whole book by accident!
Similarly, in the Agnes Moorehead episode “The Invaders” all of her tools are, when you look at them closely, are just a little bit off.
Put me down for NICK OF TIME: Shatner always gets mentioned for going over the top in the other episode, but he’s great doing a low-key version of his signature schtick in one of those maybe-magic-maybe-mundane plots that I’m a sucker for; the whole thing is offbeat, but it’s memorable and it’s interesting.
Does it have to be OG Twilight Zone, or can it be the 1986 revival?
For the former I think either A World of His Own, or Nick of Time.
For the revival, I vote Her Pilgrim Soul.
Oh, I didn’t notice that, will have to re-watch. First-rate episode. I remember reading about how the writers conceived that; they couldn’t give it away with something obviously alien but also couldn’t cheat with props that were obviously from Earth. They figured (they said) that a chair was a chair, pretty much, and would look the same in a primitive cabin on any planet. Worked for me.
“Changing of the Guard” 43-year-old Donald Pleasence plays an old professor about to be put out to pasture. Ryan O’Neal’s younger brother Kevin has a quick scene near the beginning.
“Deathshead Revisited” Rod’s closing narration on this is one of the best of the series.
Played by Burgess Meredith
I’ve always loved “Night of the Meek” where Ed Norton (the sewer worker, not the movie star) is a broken-down, alcoholic department store Santa. The part that freaks me out though, is when he’s finishing his lunch break at the bar, and the barkeep totals him up. “Let’s see, six shots of rye and a ham sandwich, that’ll be ninety-five cents.”
Ninety-five cents??!! Where is that bar? I wanna have lunch there!
Willouby, next stop Willouby. (Push push push)
As a kid I was fascinated by the one where the guy was given a watch that would stop time.
That episode had a nice risqué touch, where the cop and the driver craned their necks to watch “professional dancer” Ethel McConnell sashay up the steps onto the bus. Pretty edgy for 1961 television.
Yes, that episode has one of the series’ best depictions of human psychology. Too many of us seek to live in Carl Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World. Or as Stevie Wonder put it: when you believe in things you don’t understand, you suffer.
One not yet mentioned, nineteen years ago or now: season one’s “Mirror Image,” for sheer eeriness. Vera Miles and Martin Milner do great acting in a simple story.
Another one I always stop to watch (and also not yet mentioned): “Shadow Play.” In that one Dennis Weaver appears to be on death row…but all is not as it seems. (It’s written by Charles Beaumont, who deserves a thread of his own…)
Yes. Julie Newmar as the devil could garner a lot of souls, I’m guessing.
Hard to pick a favorite. I really enjoy 99% of them and the 1% I don’t like, I really don’t like and bypass them( looking at you Wishing Pool and any where Jack Klugman gets preachy).
One that really stuck with me is the woman who gets spooked by a figure up in the hills who shrieks at her and tries to run her down on horseback.
“And When the Sky Was Opened,” the one where the three astronauts and their voyage are erased from reality.
What I like about Nick of Time is you never really know if something supernatural even happened. (Also the fact that it stars William Shatner and the bobble head looks like Spock in a huge coincidence).
I just watched a really bad stinkeroo TZ
."The Twilight Zone" Mr. Dingle, the Strong (TV Episode 1961) - IMDb
Despite Don Rickles and Burgess Meredith, it stunk- the two aliens were just so damn bad.
Mind you Burgess did fine.
“The Twilight Zone” The New Exhibit (TV Episode 1963) - IMDb
A man acquires wax figures of notorious serial killers. When I watched it decades later, I noticed one of the wax figures breathing. 