July 27, 2023- numbers 154, 155, 156

SPOILERS

“Come Wander with Me”

A musical interlude inside The Twilight Zone?

“Mr. Floyd Burney, a gentleman songster in search of song, is about to answer the age-old question of whether a man can be in two places at the same time. As far as his folk song is concerned, we can assure Mr. Burney he’ll find everything he’s looking for, although the lyrics may not be all to his liking. But that’s sometimes the case – when the words and music are recorded in the Twilight Zone.”

This episode has a time loop going on as we see something that, apparently, keeps happening. Floyd Burney, aka “Rock-a-Billy Kid,” arrives at an isolated location in search of a new song. The strange old man in this dilapidated shop in the woods warned him away, but Floyd heard a song being sung in the woods.

Pulled along like the sailors when hearing the siren call from Greek mythology, Floyd finds a woman in the woods named Mary Rachel and tries to convince her to give him the song she was singing. She kept saying that it was someone else’s song. This line is never mentioned again.

Floyd seduces her and she sings the song for him, which he has plans to record himself. However, her brother shows up with a gun and wants to take Floyd back to his other brothers. Floyd struck him with his guitar, killing him. He takes off to run from the other brothers, but Mary Rachel begs him to not run “this time.” She wants him to hide instead saying that he is always caught. Floyd runs back to the old who he also kills… for no real reason this time. The brothers catch up with Floyd and we see the gravestone for Floyd Burney that we saw before.

I have to say that these country folk sure can’t take a punch. The young guy died from getting hit across the back with a guitar that did not look incredibly sturdy. The old man died from one punch.

The song was quite annoying too and it did not sound like a song that a Rock-a-Billy singer would play. When Floyd tried to show the old man what kind of music Rock-a-Billy was and dropped to his knees to sing, I nearly lost it.

This was an annoying episode with ideas that are only ever touched upon or implied.

“The Fear”

This was a decent episode of The twilight Zone, the penultimate episode of the original series’ TV run.

“The major ingredient of any recipe for fear is the unknown. And here are two characters about to partake of the meal: Miss Charlotte Scott, a fashion editor, and Mr. Robert Franklin, a state trooper. And the third member of the party: the unknown, that has just landed a few hundred yards away. This person or thing is soon to be met. This is a mountain cabin, but it is also a clearing in the shadows known as the Twilight Zone.”

I liked how this episode built the tension and the anxiety between the two characters stranded in this cabin in the woods with some mysterious ‘thing’ outside.

My favorite part of this episode was the relationship between Miss Scott and Trooper Franklin. I liked how they interacted, how they dealt with each other honestly and straightforwardly. They did not force a romantic relationship between them, though I could see that developing in the future for them.

The ending of the episode had some iffy moments. I am not sure how I felt about the giant inflatable alien or why the trooper started to shoot at this alien without even once trying to communicate with it. Then the wind from the balloon was somewhat over the top as it deflated.

In the end, it felt like the same basic concept that we had seen in “The Invaders” episode and the episode called “The Little People.” Still, the first two acts of this show made it very good and did support the ending well enough.

“The Bewitchin’ Pool”

The final broadcast episode of the first version of The Twilight Zone had a bunch of problems.

First, apparently, the scenes shot outdoors had trouble with the sound and had to be redubbed. It was painfully noticable.

Even more so, the lines by Mary Badham, who played young girl Sport, could not be dubbed because the actress had gone back to Alabama and it was too expensive to bring her back. So instead they used known voice over actress June Foray to do the lines. June Foray voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel in the Bullwinkle series. It was a distinct difference from the rest of Sport’s lines.

Sport and her brother Jeb could escape from their mean and always fighting parents by diving into their swimming pool, coming up at a mysterious land where kids escape to and they met an old woman named Aunt T. They go back and forth a couple of times, even though Aunt T said that finding their way back would be nearly impossible until they finally leave their parents and stay in the magical land for good.

The show was a comment on divorce and how it affects kids. Of course, it does not help when you have got a rotten mother who is constantly yelling “Darn you loudmouth kids” at you.

The acting of this episode was wooden and lifeless. The voice acting, which was out of the producers’ control, did not help anything. The closing narration said :“A brief epilogue for concerned parents. Of course, there isn’t any such place as the gingerbread house of Aunt T, and we grownups know there’s no door at the bottom of a swimming pool that leads to a secret place. But who can say how real the fantasy world of lonely children can become? For Jeb and Sport Sharewood, the need for love turned fantasy into reality; they found a secret place—in the Twilight Zone.” Was the use of the ‘gingerbread house’ line implying that Aunt T had sinister plans for the kids, fatting them up by feeding them cake like the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel?” Will Jeb and Sport wind up as meal time?

Honestly, that would make this episode considerably better. It was a weak episode to end the series on.

This brings the Daily Zone to a close, as the first season of The Twilight Zone with Rod Serling is done. I watched all 156 episodes over the last two months.

I will be doing a few lists over the next few days of my favorite this and least favorite that.

Just remember that all of that is just my opinion… and if you disagree… that is okay and you can form your own opinions… in the Twilight Zone.