What's Your Top 10 Favorite "Twilight Zone" Episodes?
- Thread starter rickandrews
- Start date
That's true, but I'm not sure how to set up a poll to test that. Maybe I'll just let them do that in the comments.
i'd replace The Bewitchin' Pool with Jess-Belle. i always kinda liked The Bewitchin' Pool and hated Jess-Belle.
I disliked them both. TZ isn't very good when it's trying to do "folksy" stories. Rod Serling was obviously a city boy and his country folk tend to be cliches. The one time I liked a hillbilly story was the one where a "hip" songwriter visited a remote village in order to get inspiration, and gets entangled in some bizarre time-travelling hillbilly feud - that one was just interestingly weird.
To be fair, I don't think Serling wrote most of the "country" episodes. Those were mostly by Earl Hammer Jr., who later created The Waltons . . .
"The Bewitchin' Pool" gets on the list partly because the ending of the show is inexplicably rerun at the beginning. Also because it is a cliched, hookless story. "Jess-Belle" is not one of my favorites, but it was a lot more compelling than "The Bewitchin' Pool".
It was his series, so he does need to take a little blame for everything (just as he gets credit for the great episodes, regardless of the writer.)
I admit it always bugs me when articles credit Serling with "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Which often gets cited as one of the classic eps that "sprang from the amazing imagination of Rod Serling" (or words to that effect).
Kind of like the way articles about PSYCHO always make it sound like Norman Bates, the shower scene, the Bates Motel and so on just emerged fully-formed from Hitchcock's cranium . . . .
(Robert Bloch? Who is he?)
Definitely. A poll won't work for it. But a simple thread on it or a question in a thread...
My absolute favorite is
The Odyssey of Flight 33
Followed by, in the loose order of
I Shot an Arrow into the Air
To Serve Man
The Parallel - The Prequel to Fringe?
On Thursday We Leave for Home
A Kind of a Stopwatch - I might like the 80's remake better though
Number 12 Looks Just Like You - Where Dr. Evil got his signature pose
The Odyssey of Flight 33
Followed by, in the loose order of
I Shot an Arrow into the Air
To Serve Man
The Parallel - The Prequel to Fringe?
On Thursday We Leave for Home
A Kind of a Stopwatch - I might like the 80's remake better though
Number 12 Looks Just Like You - Where Dr. Evil got his signature pose
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Although I have a full set of the original Rod Serling TZs on DVD, I've yet to watch all of them, but I'll do my best. These are in no particular order:
The Lonely (Jean Marsh was doing sexy robots long before Summer Glau!
)
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (An Oscar winning short film incorporated into TZ - a brilliant idea)
Mr Dingle the Strong (My candidate for funniest TZ episode ever)
The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (This one is as relevant today as it was in 1959)
Time Enough at Last (I am Burgess Meredith's character)
Two (Tense, with a pre-Bewitched Lis Montgomery steaming up the camera lense)
The Eye of the Beholder (Best twist ending ever...)
To Serve Man (...except for this one. And people think Soylent Green was an original idea. )
That's 8. Since I've yet to watch all of the last 3 seasons of TZ, I think it would be unfair to fill out the list purely from the first 2 seasons and several other episodes I recall from later. So my last 2 actually originate from the 1980s revival because in my opinion they'd stand proudly among the original classics:
Shatterday (Say what you want about Harlan Ellison, he nails this one, as does a pre-Moonlighting Bruce Willis)
A Message for Charity (one of the most romantic TZ's ever, with an early appearance by Robert Duncan McNeil)
Alex
The Lonely (Jean Marsh was doing sexy robots long before Summer Glau!
)An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (An Oscar winning short film incorporated into TZ - a brilliant idea)
Mr Dingle the Strong (My candidate for funniest TZ episode ever)
The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (This one is as relevant today as it was in 1959)
Time Enough at Last (I am Burgess Meredith's character)
Two (Tense, with a pre-Bewitched Lis Montgomery steaming up the camera lense)
The Eye of the Beholder (Best twist ending ever...)
To Serve Man (...except for this one. And people think Soylent Green was an original idea.
)That's 8. Since I've yet to watch all of the last 3 seasons of TZ, I think it would be unfair to fill out the list purely from the first 2 seasons and several other episodes I recall from later. So my last 2 actually originate from the 1980s revival because in my opinion they'd stand proudly among the original classics:
Shatterday (Say what you want about Harlan Ellison, he nails this one, as does a pre-Moonlighting Bruce Willis)
A Message for Charity (one of the most romantic TZ's ever, with an early appearance by Robert Duncan McNeil)
Alex
Also the 80's ep "Her Pilgrim Soul" moved me to tears.
I haven't seen nearly enough TZ to make a top ten list. But of the eps I've seen, my all-time favorite is "Death Ship."
I also really liked "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (the concept, at least; I thought the movie executed the idea better) and got chills listening to the radio version of "To Serve Man." (so what if the "twist" wasn't all that original?)
I also really liked "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (the concept, at least; I thought the movie executed the idea better) and got chills listening to the radio version of "To Serve Man." (so what if the "twist" wasn't all that original?)
Wow, this is difficult. Well, not my top two, but the rest.
1) Number 12 Looks Just Like You
2) A Stop at Willoughby
Other top faves in chron. order, not preference:
Nightmare as a Child
The After Hours
The Odyssey of Flight 33
Little Girl Lost
Spur of the Moment
From the 80's show:
A Message from Charity
1) Number 12 Looks Just Like You
2) A Stop at Willoughby
Other top faves in chron. order, not preference:
Nightmare as a Child
The After Hours
The Odyssey of Flight 33
Little Girl Lost
Spur of the Moment
From the 80's show:
A Message from Charity
I think I'll add these to the poll:
A man visits an idyllic 19th C town in his dreams. ("A Stop at Willoughby")
Trapped in a town with no inhabitants, a man becomes frantic, not realizing he an astronaut undergoing a test to see if he can handle loneliness. ("Where is Everybody?")
Astronauts stranded on an "asteroid" kill each other over water; the only survivor then discovers a road sign to Las Vegas. Oops. ("I Shot an Arrow Into the Air")
A man visits an idyllic 19th C town in his dreams. ("A Stop at Willoughby")
Trapped in a town with no inhabitants, a man becomes frantic, not realizing he an astronaut undergoing a test to see if he can handle loneliness. ("Where is Everybody?")
Astronauts stranded on an "asteroid" kill each other over water; the only survivor then discovers a road sign to Las Vegas. Oops. ("I Shot an Arrow Into the Air")
Yeah, well, only a bigger budget coulda done that...
Meanwhile, I didn't see it on anybody's list, so what do you all think of the episode "Steel", the one that's about to be released as "Transformers Lite" with Hugh Jackman?
I thought Steel was a clever idea but the ending sorta just ended...no real resolution.
