Next Stop: The Twilight Zone

[Raiders]

I have finally acquired all five seasons of the original series on DVD (The Definitive Collection) and been watching through most of the episodes. I have determined my favorite ten episodes and will be counting them down from #10 to #1. This will only take into account the original series, not the 80s reboot or the film version, nor whatever Forest Whitaker was doing in 2002.

List to begin tonight.

List:
10. Night Call (1964; 5.19) (Part 1, Part 2)
9. A Game of Pool (1961; 3.5)
8. The Obsolete Man (1961, 2.29)
7. The Invaders (1961, 2.15)
6. Time Enough at Last (1959, 1.8)
5. A Stop at Willoughby (1960, 1.30)
4. It's a Good Life (1961, 3.8)
3. Five Characters In Search of an Exit (1961, 3.14)
2. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (1960, 1.22) (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
1. Walking Distance (1959, 1.5)

[Kurosawa Fan]

Awesome. I did a top 25 a long time ago on RT, but it has since disappeared. Looking forward to your list.

[D_Davis]

Sweet. One of my favorite shows.

[MadMan]

Hell yes. I can't wait.

[number8]

No Forest Whitakers allowed.

[Raiders]

No Forest Whitakers allowed.

Yeah, I actually completely forgot that existed. I edited the original post.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Ooh. This is a thread I will relish.

[megladon8]

Such a great show.

I have very fond memories of going every week to take out VHS tapes from the library, containing 3 episodes each.

I always loved the one with the Devil and God in the mountain temple.

[Watashi]

Serling is such an interesting character. He always reminded me of a science-fiction version of Edward Murrow.

[Glass Co.]

Going to watch this once I'm finished with Deadwood, and then I look forward to your choices.

[Raiders]

NIGHT CALL
1964
Season 5, Episode 19

"According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man's prerogative, and woman's, to create their own particular and private hell."

Twilight Zone is often, rightly, thought of almost strictly as a writer's show, and in particular Rod Serling. However, the first choice on this list is chosen specifically for its director, Jacques Tourneur. His only effort on the series, it is perhaps the most purely terrifying entry in pure, unbridled, classicist horror. Tourneur's extraordinary use of shadows, silence, wind and nature create one of the most uneasy and downright queasy auras the series ever had. The episode was written by Richard Matheson and it provides a classical bit of sick irony that was the series' bread and butter. In particular it touches upon the cultural phenomenon of the overbearing wife and the subservient husband (portrayed most memorably in Nick Ray's Rebel Without a Cause), and Elva Keene's retelling of the event that left her husband dead is chilling in her analysis of how it happened and the supposed "lessons" she has taken away. The final twist seems harsh, after all it isn't her fault she didn't know who was on the other end of the line, but ultimately she doomed herself long ago and in the Twilight Zone, there are no second chances. Kudos must go to the fantastic performance of Gladys Cooper, nicely navigating her way through elderly senility, fear and sadness. Her eyes a wealth of emotion, captured expertly by Tourneur's camera.

It was a show that routinely dabbled in strange science fiction, but here it stuck very much to suggestion and standard horror tropes and comes away with a near-perfect 22 minutes of terror and tragedy.

[Raiders]

A GAME OF POOL
1961
Season 3, Episode 5

"Mr. Jesse Cardiff, who became a legend by beating one, but who has found out after his funeral that being the best of anything carries with it a special obligation to keep proving it. Mr. Fats Brown, on the other hand, having relinquished the champion's mantle, has gone fishing."

Only in "The Twilight Zone" could a character wish aloud that he could challenge the deceased master and, beat, boom, there he is, appearing as an apparition from the corner of the room to a flesh-and-blood man ready to play. The episode is mainly simply the back-and-forth match between the two men. Outside the appearance of a dead man, there is no science fiction to be found; no horror of the unknown; no impending end of the world. It's a sparse episode, efficiently written and directed with the utmost economy, often simply watching these two men. It is then the two performances are where this episode really shines. Klugman in particularly is magnificent, cocky and yet desperate, he is a man with simultaneously nothing to lose and yet everything on the line. He has wagered his life, almost as if he were betting the change in his pocket. All the while comedian Jonathan Winters stands stern-yet-aware, constantly warning Klugman, yet the inflections show the conclusion already foregone.

The ending to the episode is different than writer George Clayton Johnson had originally scripted. Reading of his ending (and apparently it is the one they used in the 1989 remake episode), I must say Serling had the better idea, and his final monologue proves it. It is a bit jarring almost at first to see a confirmation of the afterlife in a Twilight Zone episode, but then for a while it seems comforting, knowing even if Klugman loses, there is something to look forward to. But of course, in classic Twilight Zone fashion, the expectation is inverted and Serling condemns Klugman to a (possible) eternity of a literal hell of endless matches. In death he is forced to be consumed by the same obsession that consumed him on Earth, but now the passion is gone. It harks back to the gloomy Winters and the implication of his perhaps intentional miss to secure the victory for Klugman. It's a depressing view of the afterlife and the future we can look forward to when all we care about is winning.

[D_Davis]

Night Call scared my sister and me so bad when we were kids that we ran out of the house after the show was over to hang out outside with our grandpa all day. We didn't want to be anywhere near a phone.

[Spun Lepton]

Twilight Zone remains one of the best TV shows ever, and the best anthology series ... EVER.

[Raiders]

THE OBSOLETE MAN
1961
Season 2, Episode 29

"Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete."

As you'll see above, this episode is Serling operating in full moralistic mode. Some could likely find it to be a bit too preachy and heavy-handed. Certainly Serling is not withholding his feelings or putting the ideas under a veil of charming science fiction. It's there, in full Orwellian paranoia of a futuristic society where "the State" has determined reading to be outlawed, obsolete, and where librarians are now criminals. Similarly religion is unnecessary and superfluous, equally detestable and outlawed by the State. Here, only science and reason survive. By extension, all art, all creativity and even faith in anything but scientific proof is cast out of society.

At the center of this is Burgess Meredith's librarian, tried at the beginning of the episode and convicted of being obsolete. He is given his choice of how to be executed, and he retires to his cell while pondering. Then, when the times comes, he makes his decision and locks himself as well as the State's chancellor that sentenced him in his cell and informs the media (filming for television) that he has chosen to blow himself up with the bomb in his cell. Burgess then reads from his Bible (his faithful, reverent attitude a beautifully calculated performance) and shows the contrast between his inner peace and the chancellor's panic. Eventually, Burgess is executed by his own fashion and the chancellor saved, but ultimately he shows himself as obsolete.

I guess I could dedicate this episode to Barty. It's Serling's admonition of any government that tries to limit the freedoms of its citizens. Of course, Serling was a product of, and firm opponent of, the McCarthyist, Red-scare era, and certainly here he is, if anything, condemning a government that would openly prosecute any citizen for their thoughts or beliefs. It may be strange to consider Serling a man of faith, and I don't think he necessarily was religious. But he loved people's freedom and their right to be religious, and from the loving portrait he offers, he clearly admired the peace and courage those beliefs can offer. Science can give us all the answers we want, but it offers little comfort. The coldness of reason is not what we want when we have death looking at us in the face.

It hits with a hammer, and it does perhaps go against much of my own preference in aesthetic, but this is a remarkably palpable humanist statement, ripped from the heart of its creator. You can dislike its form, but to deny this episode as a profound expression is to misunderstand the series.

[Raiders]

THE INVADERS
1961
Season 2, Episode 15

"The invaders, who found out that a one-way ticket to the stars beyond has the ultimate price tag. And we have just seen it entered in a ledger that covers all the transactions of the universe, a bill stamped 'paid in full,' and to be found, on file, in the Twilight Zone."

With the exception of Rod Serling's opening and closing voice-over, there is all of about two or three lines of dialogue in the entire episode, and all spoken in the last couple of minutes. Surely just on that basis alone, the episode is unique in the Twilight Zone universe, and it allows the frequently fantastic music (here done by Jerry Goldsmith--frequently done by Bernard Herrmann) to become much more front-and-center. Also on full display is the acting prowess of one of my favorite character actors/actresses, Agnes Moorehead. She plays a lonely woman living in a rustic hut in the middle of nowhere, apparently mute. She gains our immediate empathy (the show nicely shows her in her daily mundanity, chewing a potato), and then the attacks start. Tiny little aliens in a tiny little spaceship descend upon her house. She is terrified and as the episode progresses, she descends into almost animalistic impulses and survival instincts. She kills one and the other flees back to the ship. Much to our susprise, the tiny invader speaks English as he reports back. She takes an axe and destroys the ship which we ultimately see is rather familiar in origin.

The twist, again, is classic Twilight Zone material. The screenplay here was written by Richard Matheson, who reportedly was very unhappy with the final product, but nonetheless the characterization apparently fits with his idea. There are the battle scars on her cheek which show perhaps previous attempts to "explore" her house by the unwelcome invaders, upon which her fear likely rests. The finale also doesn't just give us a jolt, but it calls into question the nature of space exploration. We often lament at the "white man"'s callous expansionism at the cost of the freedom of the natives, and here too we see our manifest detiny as an invasive and self-centered act. And as always, disillusionment comes at a great cost and perhaps we should take a moment to consider that maybe space is somwhere we don't belong, despite our infernal desire for information and exploration. Ultimately, the grim demise which would normally be the start of our retaliation in most callous, cynical American films is the finale and the lesson in the Twilight Zone.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Only one of your choices I'd argue is The Obsolete Man, which bordered on preachy. Otherwise, solid list thus far.

[MadMan]

A friend of mine who goes to my church said he saw The Invaders episode, and that it was freaky as hell. So naturally after that and your review Raiders I must check it out. Also I've heard of The Obsolete Man as well.

[Raiders]

Only one of your choices I'd argue is The Obsolete Man, which bordered on preachy. Otherwise, solid list thus far.

It is, but it is also very passionate. I could practically feel the anger in Serling as he wrote it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

It is, but it is also very passionate. I could practically feel the anger in Serling as he wrote it.

This is true. I still enjoyed the episode, I just don't think it's top ten material.

[Raiders]

I don't expect much argument over my inclusions since they are almost all roundly considered among the series' finest (I'm not picking From Agnes, With Love or anything), but I suspect there would be quite a bit of disagreement over a couple omissions. One in particular which is almost always included in "best of" discussions that I have never been able to get into at all.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I'm curious to see you continue, and a little embarrassed to admit I've seen none of the ones mentioned so far. The ones I've seen tend to be some of the most immediately familiar. "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." "Eye of the Beholder." "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." "The Road to Willoughby." "Time at Last."

I do have a soft spot for "The Odyssey of Flight 33," which is the one where a plane travels backward in time. Interesting in its absence of a wraparound moral, it's simply a portrait of innocent people suffering a peculiar fate.

[number8]

I think my two favorites are "Monsters at Maple Street" and "The Shelter."

[Raiders]

I do have a soft spot for "The Odyssey of Flight 33," which is the one where a plane travels backward in time. Interesting in its absence of a wraparound moral, it's simply a portrait of innocent people suffering a peculiar fate.

I love this one as well. I'll spoil and say it did miss, but it would make a top 20 list for sure (which I toyed with doing, instead of only ten, but I wanted to make it rather exclusive as well as I doubted my commitment to doing 20).

[Kurosawa Fan]

I think my two favorites are "Monsters at Maple Street" and "The Shelter."

Both of these are brilliant, especially "Monsters".