Last year we bought the entire Twilight Zone series. 1959 to 1964.
On IMDB Twilight Zone is listed as #21 in all time series. It should be much higher.
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This series is nothing short of awesome. It was really the Rod Serling show. He wrote most of the episodes, chose the rest, and all had a theme about being anti-racist and anti-war.
The stories are moving and meaningful. The "twist" is usually used to teach some kind of lesson.
Rod Serling wrote most of them. He was a genius who died much too young.
I remember several of them from my childhood. These are the ones that are vivid:
Time Enough at Last. This is a story about a man who finally gets to be alone with his beloved books after a nuclear war......and breaks his only pair of glasses.
The Invaders. Do you like Agnes Moorheard? I always did. This one is very memorable.
A Hundred Yards over the Rim. Pretty cool. A boy gets sick while on a wagon train. His father goes for help. When he crosses a rim, he finds himself in "modern" times. He finds in the town he arrives at that there is a medicine that can save his boy, so he takes it and goes back to his son. The townspeople chase him, but when he is goes back over the rim, he disappears and is back at his wagon train. His boy is the inventor of the medicine that ends up saving him!
The Grave. Why I remember this one escapes me, although it featured some of the best actors: Lee Marvin, Strother Martin, and James Best. It is a western, so maybe that's why I remembered it.
The Midnight Sun. This one has a twist that one never sees coming. But I remembered it.
To Serve Man. An alien race comes to Earth to save us--to provide us with everything we need for happiness. However....there is a catch. This one is an episode I remembered vividly.
Then there are some meaningful ones I didn't remember that we are now really finding to be moving...ones that showed Rod Serling's depth and how much he was really before his time.
He was so talented. All of his stories had heart and had a message. And, unfortunately, he died young.
The Big Tall Wish. What is unique about this episode is that it featured Black American characters. This was in 1959, when Black Americans were hardly on television. The story is moving. A boxer allows himself to get beat to be able to be a father-figure to a little boy. Wow.
Once Upon a Time. This one features Buster Keaton in one of his last roles. It is extraordinarily clever. It begins in the 1920s, so Keaton is doing his silent movie routine, and then it fast forwards to the "present" and then back. Keaton was so very talented.
Kick the Can: This one is wonderful. A bunch of old people at an old peoples' home decide that old age is just a frame of mind, So they decide, one night, to all go outside and play kick the can. And of course, the final scene shows them as children running, playing, and laughing. So sweet.
The Changing of the Guard: A sweet story about a man (Donald Pleasense) who is forced to retire from a boys' school, and is despondent. Then, one night, many of his former students show up to tell him how much what he taught them changed their lives. It is what we all want--to feel like we made a difference with somebody. Instead of being despondent, he retires with grace and dignity.
He's Alive: This one is simply spooky. Spooky not in a Halloween way, but spooky in terms of how brilliant Rod Serling truly was. The story is about a young man who worships dictators and, with a small group of supporters, starts giving lectures. The lectures sound like Donald Trump, with a lot of blame of minorities and immigrants. And the reasoning he uses sounds like Donald Trump. He speaks to unhappy people seeking somewhere to place the blame for their unhappiness--and immigrants and minorities are ripe pickings.
Remember, this was shown in 1963. Serling was way ahead of his time.
In Praise of Pip: This one is a real tear jerker. Jack Klugman plays a man who has only one redeeming quality: He loves his son. And once again, Rod Serling is far ahead of his time. The story begins with his son, Pip, being seriously injured in....Vietnam. This was well before we really went to war in Vietnam. The way Serling puts together Klugman's realization of his failures and how much he loves his son and how he saves him is simply marvelous.
Steel: Watching this we realized that we had "seen it" before, except it was a recent movie. Real Steel.
Nightmare at 20,000 feet: Pre-Star-Trek William Shatner in a story with a terrific twist. He plays someone with a flying phobia who nobody takes seriously......but should.
The first three seasons were great. Clever, insightful, and funny. It moved to an hour in length in season 4, and they were just not as good. Basically they were 30-minute episodes stretched to an hour. By season 5 the cleverness had run its course.
Still, the first three seasons were groundbreaking. We really enjoyed them. They were fun, moving, and smart.
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