July 13, 2023-number 123

Spoilers

“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”

We have finally arrived at an episode that is arguably the most iconic, most well known episode of The Twilight Zone of all-time.

“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” starred William Shatner and featured the fate of a man who had just recovered from a nervous breakdown and who was the only person to be able to see a gremlin on the wing of the airplane that he and his wife were flying upon.

“Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father and salesman on sick leave. Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanatorium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home—the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson’s flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown. Tonight, he’s traveling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson’s plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone.”

The set up is brilliant as Mr. Wilson certainly seems to be losing his mind. The fact that he had six months before had already suffered a nervous breakdown centered around an airplane makes everyone doubt what he was claiming. Clearly he was acting like a raving lunatic.

William Shatner knocked this out of the park. His continued descent into a crazed panic, though not insanity, was awesome to watch and the frustration of the gremlin disappearing every time he tried to get someone else to see it was as unbalancing for the audience as it was for him.

The way that Shatner played this made the audience wonder exactly whether or not he was actually seeing something or if it was all in his head. When he wound up stealing the gun and shooting the gremlin by leaning out the emergency window was truly nuts. Shatner showed that he was a damn good shot too considering.

The only drawback is that the gremlin did not look very good. It was comical in appearance, obviously a man in a big furry outfit. Of course, this was 1964 and you have to be understanding about what they were capable of at the time.

I also loved how the damage to the airplane was shown at the very end, proving that Mr. Wilson was not crazy and that he actually had seen the gremlin on the wing of this airplane. Even more, his crazy efforts with the stolen gun potentially saved the entire plane and everybody on it.

Richard Donner, who would be the director of Superman: The Movie, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon, directed this episode. Donner would go ahead and direct five total episodes of The Twilight Zone in season five.

I had seen this episode when I was younger, but this time, I truly appreciated the excellent work done by everybody involved. Sure, the gremlin was not the most frightening looking creature I have ever seen, but the anxiety it created was real. There is a reason this is considered one of the greatest episodes of the show and is remembered decades later.

Of course, it is…

July 13, 2023- number 121, 122

Spoilers

“In Praise of Pip”

Season five of the original Twilight Zone kicked off with an emotional banger.

Jack Klugman returned for his fourth installment of the anthology series after being featured in “Death Ship,” “A Game of Pool,” and “A Passage for Trumpet.” All three of these episodes are very solid to excellent, but, in my opinion, “In Praise of Pip” is the best episode of the series featuring Klugman. It is certainly the most powerful performance from the actor.

“Submitted for your approval: one Max Phillips. A slightly-the-worse-for-wear maker of book, whose life has been as drab and undistinguished as a bundle of dirty clothes. And though it’s very late in his day, he has an errant wish that the rest of his life might be sent out to a laundry, to come back shiny and clean. This to be a gift of love to a son named Pip. Mr. Max Phillips, homo sapiens, who is soon to discover that man is not as wise as he thinks. Said lesson to be learned in the Twilight Zone.”

Max’s son, Pip, is in the Vietnam War and is wounded badly, so badly that they believe that he is dying. The sent a telegram to Max, a lowly bookie who cons young people into making poor gambling bets, that told him that his son was dying. Jack Klugman’s performance for the rest of this episode was heart-breaking.

The young kid who had been conned by Max was being roughed up by the loan shark, Max’s boss Mr. Moran’s goons. Max, after hearing the sad news about Pip, insisted that Moran return the money to the kid he had conned and Max attacked Moran and his henchman, being shot in the gut in the process.

Max wondered about the streets after killing Moran, clutching his wound. He arrived at a closed amusement park, one where he had taken Pip when he was a kid. He saw 10-year old Pip at the park and the pair spent the next hour having fun and spending time together. However, it was time for Pip to leave, telling his father that he was dying. Max prays to God to not take Pip and to take him instead. Max then died on the ground of the amusement park.

Later that year, Pip returned to the amusement park, having survived the surgery that would save his life, thinking about his father.

Admittedly, the story may not have had a classic Twilight Zone ending, but the performance by Jack Klugman, and also Billy Mumy, who also appeared in “It’s a Good Life” and “Long-Distance Call,” does a great job as young Pip.

“Steel”

Rock’em, Sock’em Robots arrive in The Twilight Zone.

“Sports item, circa 1974: Battling Maxo, B2, heavyweight, accompanied by his manager and handler, arrives in Maynard, Kansas, for a scheduled six-round bout. Battling Maxo is a robot, or, to be exact, an android, definition: ‘an automaton resembling a human being.’ Only these automatons have been permitted in the ring since prizefighting was legally abolished in 1968. This is the story of that scheduled six-round bout, more specifically the story of two men shortly to face that remorseless truth: that no law can be passed which will abolish cruelty or desperate need—nor, for that matter, blind animal courage. Location for the facing of said truth: a small, smoke-filled arena just this side of the Twilight Zone.”

Starring Lee Marvin, their boxing robot broke down just before a fight he desperately needed. Marvin decided to take the place of the robot and pretend to be one himself. The robot he wound up facing beat the crap out of him and he gets knocked out in the first round, meaning he only got half of the money he needed.

That was about it. Not sure what the episode’s purpose was. Boxing had been banned in this “near-future” episode, set ten years after its initial release. The story lacked any real oomph and the boxing scenes were not very well executed.

And nobody’s head popped off their shoulders like they should in Rock’em, Sock’em Robots!

July 12, 2023- number 120

Spoilers

“The Bard”

The Twilight Zone just can not do comedy.

“The Bard” is currently my least favorite episode of The Twilight Zone.

“You’ve just witnessed opportunity, if not knocking, at least scratching plaintively on a closed door. Mr. Julius Moomer, a would-be writer, who if talent came 25 cents a pound, would be worth less than car fare. But, in a moment, Mr. Moomer, through the offices of some black magic, is about to embark on a brand-new career. And although he may never get a writing credit on the Twilight Zone, he’s to become an integral character in it.”

There are a ton of issues in this episode. First, the character of Julius Moomer is just as unlikable as any character we have seen in this series. I couldn’t stand listening to this idiot and his overbearing and obnoxious attitude. Second, the comedy was being overlaid with a series of weird sound effects and silly music that made the whole thing feel cartoony and childish. Third, the whole ‘black magic’ section of the plot made no sense and had little, if any, effect on the plot, outside of bringing Shakespeare to the present, a story beat that we see a ton in a series like Bewitched.

We do see an early appearance by Burt Reynolds, playing an actor in the play written by Shakespeare but plagiarized by Julius Moomer. Reynolds is clearly doin an imitation of Marlon Brando, even going as far as referencing ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ and other recent work from playwrights.

The episode had a message about how people not involved in the creative part of TV can change things with their simple say so. They include an advertiser in the scene who made a bunch of changes to the script, even going as far as saying that his wife didn’t like something. Rod Serling had famously had this very trouble and is using this episode to satirize the situation.

This is the final episode of season four. Season four has been up and down with some really strong parts and other episodes that are just horrendous. The Bard falls into that latter category as this episode is a huge clunker. This also marks the final episode of the hour format as season five returned to the half hour episodes. There were considerably more episodes that were hurt by the longer time than episodes that was helped by it.

Tomorrow, I will begin season five, the final season of the original run of The Twilight Zone. There are 36 episodes remaining in the classic EYG Hall of Fame series.

July 11, 2023- numbers 117,118,119

Spoilers

“The Incredible World of Horace Ford”

I swear that I thought this was a young Nick Nolte for the entire episode. When I saw the credits at the end of “The Incredible World of Horace Ford,” I realized that Horace Ford was not played by Nick Nolte, but by Pat Hingle (who would be Commissioner Gordon in the 1989 Batman movie).

“Mr. Horace Ford, who has a preoccupation with another time, a time of childhood, a time of growing up, a time of street games, stickball and hide-‘n-go-seek. He has a reluctance to check out a mirror and see the nature of his image: proof positive that the time he dwells in has already passed him by. But in a moment or two he’ll discover that mechanical toys and memories and daydreaming and wishful thinking and all manner of odd and special events can lead one into a special province, uncharted and unmapped, a country of both shadow and substance known as the Twilight Zone.”

I did not enjoy this episode much and the main reason was the way in which the character of Horace Ford was portrayed. He was loud, childish, and yelled all the time. He had very little rooting factor. Just a few minutes in, I wanted to be done with the character.

That should show what a saint Horace’s wife was. She showed amazing patience and love for this man-child.

The repeating moments on Randolph Street with Horace did not seem to be very important and certainly not vital enough to create such chaos in the lives of Horace’s family. The whole story was quite a mess overall.

“On Thursday We Leave for Home”

This is one of the best episodes for the fourth season, which has had its ups and downs.

“This is William Benteen, who officiates on a disintegrating outpost in space. The people are a remnant society who left the Earth looking for a millennium, a place without war, without jeopardy, without fear, and what they found was a lonely, barren place whose only industry was survival. And this is what they’ve done for three decades: survive; until the memory of the Earth they came from has become an indistinct and shadowed recollection of another time and another place. One month ago a signal from Earth announced that a ship would be coming to pick them up and take them home. In just a moment we’ll hear more of that ship, more of that home, and what it takes out of mind and body to reach it. This is the Twilight Zone.”

William Benteen, who is called Captain Benteen by his people, kept his people alive for 30 years. He kept them thriving on this barren planet and told them hyperbolic stories about the earth that many of them did not remember. He seemed to be a great guy.

However, when that ship arrived to return them to the earth after all these years, Benteen began to show some cracks in his motives. He did not want to give up his power, his control over this group of people and so he began to try to manipulate them into either staying together on earth or, when that did not work, staying on their planet.

Benteen was shown almost to the point of a cult leader, who sees himself as the god of his followers. James Whitmore brought a true panic to the performance of a man who was used to being everything to his people only to find that he was about to lose it all.

“Passage on the Lady Anne”

We now see Alfred from the Batman ’66 series. We recently had Catwoman as the devil one episode and a couple of episodes prior we have Batman ’89’s Jim Gordon. Lots of Bat-folks around the Twilight Zone.

“Portrait of a honeymoon couple getting ready for a journey – with a difference. These newlyweds have been married for six years, and they’re not taking this honeymoon to start their life but rather to save it, or so Eileen Ransome thinks. She doesn’t know why she insisted on a ship for this voyage, except that it would give them some time and she’d never been on one before – certainly never one like the Lady Anne. The tickets read ‘New York to Southampton,’ but this old liner is going somewhere else. Its destination – the Twilight Zone.”

The way to save a marriage, to rekindle your love is to get aboard a ghost ship. I guess that is the overall lesson of this episode. Perhaps the Lady Anne was not yet a ghost ship when the Ransomes get on board, but that was the destiny of the ship.

This episode was filled with romantic characters and those who have suffered losses. Meanwhile the Ransomes are going through plenty themselves while everyone else on the boat was trying to get them to get off.

There were a few holes in the story or things that happen that did not make sense. Eileen Ransome disappeared in the story and was missing for a good chunk of time only to show back up with little explanation. I assume this was done to make her husband Alan worry that something had happened to her and that he would miss her terribly if she had fallen over the side of the ship. This felt very overdramatic for no pay off.

This is another example of a story that had to be bloated out to fit the hour format that should have been in the original half hour one. Too much meat on this bone.

“The Lady Anne never reached port. After they were picked up by a cutter a few hours later, as Captain Protheroe had promised, the Ransomes searched the newspapers for news – but there wasn’t any news. The Lady Anne with all her crew and all her passengers vanished without a trace. But the Ransomes knew what had happened, they knew that the ship had sailed off to a better port – a place called the Twilight Zone.”

We are down to just one more episode of Season 4, which we will watch tomorrow morning.

July 10, 2023-numbers 114, 115, 116

Spoilers

“I Dream of Genie”

The Twilight Zone returns to the world of genies with the season four episode “I Dream of Genie.” I did enjoy the first genie episode with “The Man in the Bottle,” but, unfortunately, this second genie-centric episode really missed the mark.

“Meet Mr. George P. Hanley, a man life treats without deference, honor or success. Waiters serve his soup cold. Elevator operators close doors in his face. Mothers never bother to wait up for the daughters he dates. George is a creature of humble habits and tame dreams. He’s an ordinary man, Mr. Hanley, but at this moment the accidental possessor of a very special gift, the kind of gift that measures men against their dreams, the kind of gift most of us might ask for first and possibly regret to the last, if we, like Mr. George P. Hanley, were about to plunge head-first and unaware into our own personal Twilight Zone.”

George Hanley can not make up his mind about what to wish. He ran through several options and had daydreams about each of them… he was married to a famous actress, had all the money in the world, he was the President of the United States… and none of them made him happy.

None of them made me happy either as they were all pretty dull and did not do much for the story. And the ending, George choosing to be a genie himself to help people, came out of nowhere.

I guess he did not understand that the life of a genie was “phenomenal cosmic powers, itty bitty living space.”

“The New Exhibit”

“Martin Lombard Senescu, a gentle man, the dedicated curator of murderers’ row in Ferguson’s Wax Museum. He ponders the reasons why ordinary men are driven to commit mass murder. What Mr. Senescu does not know is that the groundwork has already been laid for his own special kind of madness and torment found only in the Twilight Zone.”

I liked this one. I have always been a fan of Jack the Ripper and his inclusion in the wax exhibits was cool for me. Honestly though, he was the only ‘murderer’ in the murderer’s row of wax figures that I recognized. The wax figures looked great, really creepy for the 1960s.

I also love the twist at the end with Martin being the true killer and just imagining that the wax killers had done it. It was really dark when his wife dies and he buries her in the basement, covering her with concrete. This was a very dark and creepy episode.

Martin Balsam was excellent as the wax figures-obsessed man, who apparently loved these wax figures over anyone else in his life. I did think it was odd that he was more upset about the murder of Ferguson than he was with the murder of his wife.

I enjoyed the ending, as poor old Martin wound up just another wax figure in a new museum with his five murderer friends.

“Of Late I Think of Cliffordville”

The best part of this episode? Easy. It was Julie Newmar! Catwoman herself. This was the first and only version of the Devil on Twilight Zone played by a woman, and they could not have found a better woman to fill that role.

“Witness a murder. The killer is Mr. William Feathersmith, a robber baron whose body composition is made up of a refrigeration plant covered by thick skin. In a moment, Mr. Feathersmith will proceed on his daily course of conquest and calumny with yet another business dealing. But this one will be one of those bizarre transactions that take place in an odd marketplace known as the Twilight Zone.”

I was not a fan of Mr. Feathersmith. I know that I was not supposed to like him as he was a rotten individual and the episode was put together just to mess with him. I have to say, I laughed out loud when Ms. Devlin (Julie) rebuked Feathersmith’s attempt to sell his soul in payment. She said that they already had his soul years ago. That was great. Plus, then she hit him with the blow that would hurt him the most… making him pay his bill… with money.

Then, she still screwed him over even more as every plan he had when he arrived back in time in Cliffordville flopped.

I was not a huge fan with the ending. It did not make a lot of sense even though it was a nice ironic end.

Julie Newmar was exceptional here and she really carried the story.

July 9, 2023- number 113

Spoilers

“The Parallel”

The early days of the space race provided plenty of story ideas for a sci-fi show such as The Twilight Zone. Here was an episode that did a solid job of taking that idea and doing something new.

As I have stated before, some of the ideas from The Twilight Zone may seem well used to me, but when it was being made in the early 1960s, these concepts had to feel much more original. The idea of a parallel universe with minor differences has been used plenty of times such as Star Trek and Marvel & DC Comics, but it was not as common as it is today with all the use of multiverses in movies.

“In the vernacular of space, this is T minus one hour. Sixty minutes before a human being named Major Robert Gaines is lifted off from the Mother Earth and rocketed into the sky, farther and longer than any man ahead of him. Call this one of the first faltering steps of man to sever the umbilical cord of gravity and stretch out a fingertip toward an unknown. Shortly, we’ll join this astronaut named Gaines and embark on an adventure, because the environs overhead—the stars, the sky, the infinite space—are all part of a vast question mark known as the Twilight Zone.”

I did like much of this episode, but a lot of what was different was dealt with by talking about it and I think it would have been more effective by showing it on the screen. Like when Gaines’ daughter became upset when he had said that he never took sugar in his coffee, that little example is more effective than Gaines going through an encyclopedia and telling us what he found.

I have to say that I kept waiting for another twist at the end of the episode. When Gaines asked who the president of the US was, and they responded Kennedy, I kept waiting for them to say at some point that the president was Bobby Kennedy or something like that to show that Gaines was in yet another parallel universe. That never came and, instead, they had some communication with the other “Colonel” Gaines from the universe where “Major” Gaines had been living for the last week proving that he was not just having a breakdown. This was too pat of an ending for a Twilight Zone episode.

Overall it was an episode that had the potential to be sensational, but only was good.

July 8, 2023- number 112

Spoilers

“No Place Like the Past”

Time travel is always a little wonky.

“Exit one Paul Driscoll, a creature of the twentieth century. He puts to a test a complicated theorem of space-time continuum, but he goes a step further, or tries to. Shortly, he will seek out three moments of the past in a desperate attempt to alter the present, one of the odd and fanciful functions in a shadowland known as the Twilight Zone.”

Paul uses his time machine to go back into the past in an attempt to stop some terrible tragedies of history: he tries to warn the people of Hiroshima, he tries to assassinate Hitler, and he tries to save the Lusitania from being sunk to start WWI. He failed at all of them.

This is where this episode went off the time travel rails.

He came back to the present to his friend and colleague Harvey. He told him that he failed at his attempts and Harvey then stated that time was unable to be changed. It made me think that this episode was going to go along the theory of LOST with the “Whatever Happened, happened” style of time travel.

However, almost immediately after stating that the past was immutable, when Harvey discovered Paul’s plan to go back to 1881 and take up residence in a small town in Homeville, Indiana, Harvey immediately warned him that he could cause terrible dangers by changing even one little thing. This was in direct opposition to the immutable comment that Harvey made barely a sentence before.

This type of contradiction derails the concept of time travel immediately. There may have been ways to build tension without hinting that Paul could change the past. The very idea that nothing could be changed would create a distinct problem for one who knows everything. Unfortunately, I could not get past the implication that Paul ‘could have’ changed the past.

When Paul is trying to Paul the school house from burning, he wound up causing the problem himself, which does follow the LOST philosophy of time travel. However, it was so dumb because Paul knew the fire was being caused by a runaway wagon ejecting a lantern to the school. Paul tried to unhitch the horses from the wagon to prevent it from being able to move, and I am sitting watching this supposedly smart man do such a stupid thing. Why not just casually remove the small lantern from the back of the wagon. It was just hanging there. Or just blow out the flame. Both of those would have been a much easier attempt than unhitching the wagon from the horses.

The first act of this episode was pretty decent, but it really went downhill after that.