July 20, 2023- numbers 135, 136, 138, 140

Spoilers

I have weaved around the Amazon Prime listing and I am back on regular track for the correct listing of Twilight Zone episodes. However, this morning’s episodes are quite a run of mediocre offerings.

“The Long Morrow”

This is the best of the episodes that will be on this post. A new world version of “Romeo and Juliet” where you have the doomed couple that is fated for failure.

“It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears. Case in point, the scene you’re watching. This is not a hospital, not a morgue, not a mausoleum, not an undertaker’s parlor of the future. What it is is the belly of a spaceship. It is en route to another planetary system, an incredible distance from the Earth. This is the crux of our story – a flight into space. It is also the story of the things that might happen to human beings who take a step beyond, unable to anticipate everything that might await them out there.”

“Commander Douglas Stansfield, astronaut, a man about to embark on one of history’s longest journeys: forty years out into endless space and hopefully back again. This is the beginning, the first step towards man’s longest leap into the unknown. Science has solved the mechanical details and now it’s up to one human being to breathe life into blueprints and computers, to prove once and for all that man can live half a lifetime in the total void of outer space, forty years alone in the unknown. This is Earth. Ahead lies a planetary system. The vast region in between is the Twilight Zone.”

So the plan was to put Doug into suspended animation so when he returned to earth, he would be the same age, basically, that he was when he left, though the earth would be 40 years older. However, before his departure, he met his young colleague, Sandra Horn and they fell in love. They were sad that he was leaving and, when he would return, he would be in his 70s.

The couple made decisions as it was happening that were in direct opposition. Doug chose not to go into suspended animation and age regularly while Sandra chose to go into suspended animation on earth and not age at all until he would return.

Doug did not want to saddle this young beauty with an old man so he left her. Romantic and tragic all the same time.

“The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross”

Salvadore Ross is yet another protagonist in The Twilight Zone who are unlikable and just a bad guy. I’ve seen some review that have said that the audience can relate to him with his desire to improve himself. I never got that from him. I saw him as someone who just wanted something that he couldn’t have and would go to any extremes to do it no matter what the cost. I was very pleased with the end of the episode with Salvadore taking a bullet, even though it basically destroyed the life of the man who wound up shooting him.

“Confidential personnel file on Salvadore Ross. Personality: a volatile mixture of fury and frustration. Distinguishing physical characteristic: a badly broken hand, which will require emergency treatment at the nearest hospital. Ambition: shows great determination towards self-improvement. Estimate of potential success: a sure bet for a listing in Who’s Who in the Twilight Zone.”

Salvadore had some kind of supernatural ability to make deals that would do amazing things. He made a deal with an old man in the hospital to switch his cold with Sal’s broken hand. The old man agreed, not knowing that the deal would happen.

Salvadore then started making deals to make money, to make himself old, to regain his youth… all to the detriment of the people in which he was dealing. He was not doing it to improve himself, but in order to try and make his desired woman, Leah Maitland, fall for him.

He was played with quite a temper and I definitely got the vibe from him that he would be an abusive husband. He grabbed Leah by the arm and put his hand up around her chin several times in the episode during their arguments. I found most of the early scenes between Sal and Leah to be quite cringeworthy and uncomfortable.

He bought the compassion off of Leah’s father, which led to Leah’s father shooting and killing him so he would not marry Leah. While that is a happy ending for me, it would certainly lead to prison for her father and would lead to another person out of Leah’s life. Salvadore was so selfish and self-absorbed in this episode that he turned out to be one of the worst characters on the show.

“Black Leather Jackets”

Aliens preparing for an invasion of the earth, who speak to a giant eyeball on a computer screen? Oh, and these aliens are shown wearing black leather jackets, like those troublesome kinds of the time.

“Three strangers arrive in a small town; three men in black leather jackets in an empty, rented house. We’ll call them Steve, and Scott, and Fred, but their names are not important; their mission is, as three men on motorcycles lead us into the Twilight Zone.”

There is a whole bunch of silliness here. The whole black leather jacket/motorcycle thing is a stereotype. The love story that comes between alien Scott and neighbor girl Ellen is ridiculous and makes no sense. There was zero chemistry between the two of them and I did not believe their relationship even once.

Why was the leader shown only as a giant eyeball? We may never know.

There was a recognizable face here though. Duke of Hazzard’s Uncle Jesse/Grizzly Adams’s Mad Jack, Denver Pyle played Ellen’s father, who confronted the aliens early and got mind controlled after they bullied him. Ellen was also a known actress, Shelley Fabares, Christine on Coach.

“From Agnes-with Love”

You can always tell when there is going to be an attempt at a comedic episode of The Twilight Zone. You get the cartoonish background music, trying to use the music to help make episode funnier than it was.

Again, that is unable to help this one.

“James Elwood: master programmer. In charge of Mark 502-741, commonly known as Agnes, the world’s most advanced electronic computer. Machines are made by men for man’s benefit and progress, but when man ceases to control the products of his ingenuity and imagination he not only risks losing the benefit, but he takes a long and unpredictable step into… the Twilight Zone.”

The computer named Agnes wanted to help with James’s love life, giving him tips for women (tips by the way that were remarkably sexist or even a touch misogynistic), especially one woman in particular, Millie.

The computer responded to verbal questions with the large font print on what looked like paper. The entire set up was ridiculous.

Poor little nerdy James really had no chance. He clumsily poured champagne all over Millie on one date. She, for some reason, gave him another date, even after giving her roses, flowers in which she was allergic. James, unintentionally introduced Millie to another co-worker and they hit it off really well.

Turned out that Agnes was sabotaging James, as if he needed the help, because Agnes was jealous. I guess this led to a nervous breakdown for James.. who was just trying to get some work done. James’s boss was Mr. Drysdale from the Beverly Hillbillies.

I am not sure that the show has ever had a successful episode of comedic nature. At least this comedic episode did not try to get by on slapstick and the music changed as the episode moved on.