June 4, 2023- number 12

Spoilers

“What You Need”

Who really knows the future? Well, in the Twilight Zone, it is apparently a little old man named Pedott. This is a talent that down-on-his-luck scoundrel, Mr. Fred Renard needed.

“You’re looking at Mr. Fred Renard, who carries on his shoulder a chip the size of the national debt. This is a sour man, a friendless man, a lonely man, a grasping, compulsive, nervous man. This is a man who has lived thirty-six undistinguished, meaningless, pointless, failure-laden years and who at this moment looks for an escape—any escape, any way, anything, anybody—to get out of the rut. And this little old man is just what Mr. Renard is waiting for.”

This was another main protagonist in an episode of The Twilight Zone that was really unlikable. Renard did not look to have much of a character arc either. He just wanted something to go right for him and when he realized that Pedott could tell him specifically what he needed, meaning he had a gift to see in the future, Renard was ready to cash in.

We got some nice inclusion of a story of a baseball player named Lefty whose arm was ruined. This was to show the ability of Pedott, and it looked as if the story was going to be a happy one. However, the use of Renard as a greedy creep who wanted to become Pedott’s partner guaranteed that this tale would take the typically ironic end.

This episode was fine. I was happy to see Renard get his comeuppance at the end of the episode. There is nothing here specifically deep or complex, unlike many other Twilight Zone episodes. It was a nice watch.

June 3, 2023- number 11

Spoilers

“And When the Sky was Opened”

“Her name: X-20. Her type: an experimental interceptor. Recent history: a crash landing in the Mojave Desert after a thirty-one hour flight nine hundred miles into space. Incidental data: the ship, with the men who flew her, disappeared from the radar screen for twenty-four hours… But the shrouds that cover mysteries are not always made out of a tarpaulin, as this man will soon find out on the other side of a hospital door.”

The eleventh episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone was a great episode. Three military pilots flew an experimental spaceship called the X-20. After disappearing for a 24-hour period, they crashed in the desert.

Major William Gart had a broken leg and had to stay in the hospital. When we ick it up, we see Colonel Clegg Forbes came back to the hospital to see Gart, and he was in a panic. It seemed as if his best friend, Colonel Ed Harrington, the third man of the pilots, was missing and no one remembered him.

Forbes told Gart about the trip to the bar the night before when Harrington disappeared. The people in the bar, who had been interacting with Harrington moments before, were now confused by Forbes’ behavior.

Watching Forbes try to wrap his mind around the fact that his longtime friend had been figuratively erased from existence was fascinating and the mystery of what was going on had me glued to the screen.

As the other two pilots eventually disappeared without a trace as well, I realized that there would not be any answers forthcoming, and it did not bother me at all. I liked how the episode left us uncertain about what was happening. We, the audience, were just like the three pilots. We knew that they were there, but we did not know what happened to them.

June 2, 2023- number 10

Spoilers

“Judgment Night”

“Her name is the S.S. Queen of Glasgow. Her registry: British. Gross tonnage: five thousand. Age: Indeterminate. At this moment she’s one day out of Liverpool, her destination New York. Duly recorded on the ship’s log is the sailing time, course to destination, weather conditions, temperature, longitude and latitude. But what is never recorded in a log is the fear that washes over a deck like fog and ocean spray. Fear like the throbbing strokes of engine pistons, each like a heartbeat, parceling out every hour into breathless minutes of watching, waiting and dreading… For the year is 1942, and this particular ship has lost its convoy. It travels alone like an aged blind thing groping through the unfriendly dark, stalked by unseen periscopes of steel killers. Yes, the Queen of Glasgow is a frightened ship, and she carries with her a premonition of death.”

This episode is a ghost story. It starts off as a mystery. How did Carl Lanser wind up on the S.S. Queen of Glasgow? Who is he? Why is he having a premonition of doom happening at 1:15 AM?

I have to say that what was happening on this episode was confusing and was not clear. However, I will admit the episode cleared up the mystery rather quickly. Everything wrapped up with a nice little bow.

I did not love this episode. It was fine, but it all felt so rushed. This felt like an episode that could have benefited from a longer run time.

It had some pretty decent ideas in it and I liked the eventual reveal, but it just did not work in the overall.

June 2, 2023- number 8-9

SPOILERS

“Time Enough at Last”

This episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone was adapted from a short story by author Lynn Venable and starred Burgess Meredith as poor Henry Bemis, a put upon man who just wanted some time to read the newspaper or some classic literature. His boss and his wife reacted negatively to his wish, going to dramatic steps to stop him from engaging in his hobby.

I related to Henry Bemis immediately. All he wanted was to be able to read and, as a reading teacher, I wish more people would be so motivated.

However, Bemis’s tale took a drastic switch as he was hidden away at the bank that he worked at inside a vault when an H-bomb exploded, destroying evrerything around him, killing all of the people of his city. I was happy that he did not have to deal with his horrible wife any longer. Henry was upset and lonely, unsure of what his life was going to be until he found the reminensce of the public library. Books, books, books everywhere and nothing but time to read them.

I was happy for him until the show pulled one of the crueler tricks that it has done as Henry’s glasses fell and broke, leaving him in a constant blurry world.

The hatred shown by several characters in this episode really relates to the current day as many books are being banned around the country. It really is sad that Henry was denied his one major love, something that had saved him from his near suicide earlier in the episode.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men…and Henry Bemis, the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis, in the Twilight Zone.“

“Perchance to Dream”

Episode nine of The Twilight Zone was the first episode of the series not written by Rod Serling. This episode, “Purchance to Dream” was written by Charles Beaumont.

Edward Hall needed help and he went to psychiatrist Dr. Eliot Rathmann looking for it. Edward had not slept for several days because of a dream that he was having. Dr. Rathmann had Edward lay down on his couch to rest, but Edward bolted up, afraid to succumb to sleep.

He told the psychiatrist that he had a bad heart condition and could not handle stressful situations or being startled. He then told the doctor that he had been having a dream of a carnival and a Cat Girl named Maya and he was sure that his heart could not handle the dream.

He told about the terrors at the carnival and the stress of the roller coaster. He said that he was sure that Maya was trying to scare him to death and that if he fell back asleep, she would succeed.

When he was leaving the office, he noticed that Rathmann’s receptionist resembled Maya. Frightened by this, Edward ran back into the office and leapt through the window, falling to his death.

However, we discover that he had not done any of this and that he was still on the psychiatrist’ couch, having never awakened. Dr. Rathmann checked Edward’s pulse, realizing that he had died in hi sleep, ironically stating that “At least he died peacefully…”

“They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die, and who’s to say which is the greater reality: the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the earth – in the Twilight Zone.“

This was a very intriguing episode and ending was extremely satisfying. When we come out of the dream where Edward had killed himself was very surreal. This felt very appropriate for The Twilight Zone.

June 1, 2023- number 7

“The Lonely”

Spoilers

The seventh episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone was called “The Lonely” and it dealt with a sci-fi prison for a man convicted of a crime.

Convicted but innocent, James Corry was stranded on an isolated and deserted asteroid for the duration of his long prison sentence. Supplies would be brought to him every three months, but otherwise, he is completely alone.

Feeling bad for him, Captain Allenby, the pilot of the supply vessel, brought him a special, secret surprise. It was a robot that was in the shape of a woman. The robot’s name was Alicia and she was very feminine. While Corry rejected the robot at first, he became close with her eventually as time passed.

When Corry and Alicia had become a couple, Captain Allenby returned with great news: Corry had received a pardon. Allenby and his crew were collecting other former prisoners and they were there to pick up Corry. They had space only for Corry and a few of his belongings. Corry rejected the idea, insisting that Alicia was more than robot… that she was a real woman and that she had to go with him.

Allenby ended up shooting Alicia in the face, revealing the robotic materials inside her, bringing Corry to his senses.

This was a strange story. It started out interesting as we looked at the relationship that could develop when someone is isolated. There have been plenty of examples in sci-fi of characters falling for machines/robots/androids etc.

However, the story between Corry and Alicia came to such a sudden and dramatic conclusion that it felt like there were some aspects of the tale missing. It needed another 20 minutes or so I think to be effective in telling the story. Otherwise the relationship, which needed to be at the center of this story, rang hollow and empty.

“On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man’s life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them. All of Mr. Corry’s machines, including the one made in his image, kept alive by love, but now obsolete—in The Twilight Zone.“

May 31, 2023- number 6

Spoilers

“Escape Clause”

The sixth episode of The Twilight Zone in the first season was another episode that took the storytelling into a new direction. This was the first time where the protagonist of the tale was someone you did not want to root for.

“You’re about to meet a hypochondriac. Witness Mr. Walter Bedeker, age forty-four. Afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, draft, and everything else. He has one interest in life and that’s Walter Bedeker. One preoccupation: the life and well-being of Walter Bedeker. One abiding concern about society: that if Walter Bedeker should die, how will it survive without him?“

Bedeker was absolutely nothing more than a whining loser who was putting his wife through all kinds of troubles with his made-up symptoms and annoying complaints. When a mysterious man named Cadwallader appeared in his apartment with a shocking offer, Bedeker was intrigued. Even when he figured out that Cadwallader was, in fact, the Devil, Bedeker was not turned away.

Cadwallader offered him a long life span, something Bekeder had been worrying about. He also made him invincible, Nothing could hurt him. But he gave Bedeker an escape clause in case he wanted to get out of the forever life.

Bekeder, with his new power, became even more obnoxious. He discovered that the thrill of danger was now gone and he started doing things that were designed to hurt himself to see if any of them would interest him. He was such a jerk about it all.

His wife winds up being killed and he takes responsibility for the act, looking for the electric chair.

Bekeder was so unlikable that when he wound up getting life in prison instead of the chair, I cheered at the irony. Of course, he took Cadwallader up on the escape clause, which led to his heart attack in his prison cell.

Bekeder had everything you could possibly want but yet he was constantly unhappy. When he was normal, he was always complaining he was sick. When he could no longer be hurt or killed, he was bored. Just a rotten human being and seeing him pay the piper was extremely satisfying.

May 30, 2023 – number 5

“Walking Distance”

Spoilers

This was another solid episode in the first season of The Twilight Zone. This featured a little time travel and a nostalgic look back that becomes too real.

“Martin Sloan, age thirty-six. Occupation: vice-president, ad agency, in charge of media. This is not just a Sunday drive for Martin Sloan. He perhaps doesn’t know it at the time, but it’s an exodus. Somewhere up the road he’s looking for sanity. And somewhere up the road, he’ll find something else.”

Martin Sloan finds himself back in his hometown called Homewood and he was amazed at how nothing seemed to change. The ice cream soda was still a dime, the businesses were just as he remembered, the park was the same.

So when he spotted a young him carving his name into a bandstand, something he remembered doing as a child, the bizarre situation began to formulate before his eyes. When he found his childhood home was still being lived in my his mother and father, Martin was becoming more unstable.

This is an interesting take on the time travel as we see the older Martin trying to talk to the younger Martin, chasing him across a carousel, causing the boy to fall and badly injure his leg… something that the older Martin now felt. Some time travel shows go by the idea that the past could not be changed. What happened, happened. This was like LOST. Some time travel shows/films think you can affect the future by what you do in the past, such as Back to the Future. This feels like a combination of the two ideas since the injured leg now is a problem for the older Martin, but his mother and father find out who he is and that does not seem to affect the future at all.

We see very young Ron Howard, pre-Opie from the Andy Griffith Show, as a boy that older Martin comes across and spooks him by claiming to be someone that the boy knew he could not be.