SyFy Channel does an annual New Years Eve/Day Twilight Zone Marathon, something I absolutely adore.
One of the best shows of all time, the original episodes that is, is in my opinion the epitome of fantastic writing. It shows me that us Humans do have the ability to devise outstanding stories, and that we have outstanding writing abilities not just in the bast but also in the present. It's pretty interesting because there are a few modern shows that remind me of shows of the past such as The Twilight Zone -- one of those shows is Fringe which airs on FOX. However this post is about The Twilight Zone and not Fringe -- that is something for another day.
To honor The Twilight Zone marathon, I've compiled a list of my personal favorite 10 episodes.
10.
Mr Garritty and the Graves -
S5 EP152 --
Starring John Dehner -- An truly strange premise of a traveler who comes a town claiming he will raise the 128 people from the dead who have a "score to settle" with the townsfolk, and "proves" it by showing one man return from the dead. To prevent him from raising the dead, all the people in town pay this person, a con man, large sums of money to keep the dead in their graves.
9.
The Gift -
S3 EP 97 --
Starring Geoffrey Horne -- An excellent example of man's fear of the truth and our inability to trust strangers comes to realization when a human-like alien crash-lands near a small town. The Alien is injured and a local doctor takes care of it, removing two bullets as well. When the man offers Pedro a "gift" sealed in a box, all hell breaks loose. This episode is a MUST watch because the ending will finally reveal the true nature of the "gift" and how important it is to our existence.
8.
The Howling Man -
S2 EP 41 --
Starring H.M. Wynant & John Carradine -- A darker, gloomier episode that forces the audience to decide as the episode progresses whether or not they believe the devil exists. It's an episode that dives into your feelings of sympathy for a lonely, peaceful looking man trapped behind a "staff", crying to be released. This episode was beautifully written and was one of the very few episodes in the series' early history to
not be written by Rod Serling.
7.
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet -
S5 EP 123 -
Starring William Shatner -- Don't let the name scare you away into thinking we love it just because of the star. While the name is now big, back then this was easily one of his greatest performances. Playing the role of a man back on a plane for the first time in six months due to a nervous breakdown, continues to disrupt the flight crew because he looks out the window and sees a gremlin pulling apart pieces of the wing. Everytime he alerts the crew, the gremlin jumps out of view, so nobody believes him. The pilot is thus forced to make an emergency landing due to an problematic passenger, and we learn the truth as to whether or not a gremlin was truly on the wing.
6.
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street -
S1 EP 22 -- Still to this day it is unknown who the "monsters" refer to -- it is all left up to interpretation, which is the genius of how it was written. Filmed during a time when the Red Scare was still sharp in people's minds, the story tells a tale of a power outage on Maple Street in an unknown town, and shows how the people frantically begin to believe it is all due to a monster or even possibly aliens. The people begin to turn against one another and prejudice becomes the motive for destruction. The ending may startle you, but in a good way.
5.
The Hunt -
S3 EP 84 --
Starring Arthur Hunnicut -- A slower, more peaceful and relaxed episode about passing the final test to heaven, and the importance of man's "best friend".
4.
Miniature -
S4 EP 110 --
Starring Robert Duvall -- A strange episode indeed, telling the story of a man who swears he sees a figure in a museum dollhouse come alive. Over the course of the episode he is struck by the doll's beauty. In the end, he finally joins his true "love", but the reason this episode is so great is the outstanding acting done by Duvall in this episode.
3.
Third From the Sun -
S1 EP 14 --
Starring Fritz Weaver & Edward Andrews -- I look back on this episode and about 3/4 of the way through it becomes apparent to me what might possibly be happening. But 50 years ago when this aired this was practically the definition of a "twist ending". The episode is based on a short story of the same name, so not all of the credit goes to Rod Serling. Nevertheless, a nuclear war is about to go down and two scientists smuggle their wives onto a spaceship (saucer) the government has been developing. They escape the planet just in time as the war begins, and then a horrifying prediction of our own possible fate is revealed.
2.
Time Enough At Last -
S1 EP 8 --
Starring Burgess Meredith -- This is one of the most famous and parodied episodes of the Twilight Zone series. A man played by Burgess Meredith just doesn't fit in with the people around him. He loves to read yet everybody else thinks his reading is a problem. When he gets stuck in the vault at the bank for which he works in, a nuclear holocaust occurs and he ventures from the vault to realize the world he once knew is diminished to rubble, and he is the only one left.
1.
Living Doll -
S5 EP 126 --
Starring Telly Savalas - This is without a doubt my favorite. There are so many incredibly written and acted episodes, and it is so difficult to create a top 10. But There is no doubt in my mind no episode better than the Living Doll, and maybe it's more personal. You see, the episode is about a man who is absolutely terrified by his little step-daughter's new toy "Talky Tina". She pulls the string and the doll says something cute. However, when noone else is around and the father pulls the string, the doll gives him a freakishly stunning death threat. Nothing is more captivating than the man tyring to get rid of the doll, the doll coming back and telling him "
My name is Talky Tina, and I'm going to kill you."
