Twilight Zone Marathon on SciFi Channel

[Roger]

So all you Twilight Zone fans, why do you like this show so much? Is it the acting? The stories? The subliminal messages? What attracts you to this show?

 

[Dagwood]

It has to be the stories. Many of the stories gives us insight into our humanity.

For me, I will never forget 3 episodes - Talking Tina (scariest ever), How to Serve Man, and the avid reader who survives a nuclear holocaust only to break his glasses (the story of my life).

 

[PrettySquareGal]

The trick photography. And everything else.

I watch it every July 3rd & 4th.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

The stories. Rod Serling wrote some cool stories, and a lot of big name actors starred in them. My fave has got to be the one with Art Carney as Santa Clause.

 

[Feraud]

The Twilight Zone is an amazing program. I watch it whenever it is on. The stories never get old.


One of the best episodes, with Burgess Meredith.

and the avid reader who survives a nuclear holocaust only to break his glasses (the story of my life).

 

[Doh!]

So all you Twilight Zone fans, why do you like this show so much? Is it the acting? The stories? The subliminal messages? What attracts you to this show?

Killer dialogue such as this from "Walking Distance":

Robert Sloan: Martin.
Martin Sloan: Yes, Pop.
Robert Sloan: You have to leave here. There's no room, there's no place. Do you understand that?
Martin Sloan: I see that now, but I don't understand. Why not?
Robert Sloan: I guess because we only get one chance. Maybe there's only one summer to every customer. That little boy, the one I know - the one who belongs here - this is his summer, just as it was yours once. Don't make him share it.
Martin Sloan: Alright.
Robert Sloan: Martin, is it so bad where you're from?
Martin Sloan: I thought so, Pop. I've been living on a dead run and I was tired. And one day I knew I had to come back here. I had to get on the merry-go-round and listen to a band concert. I had to stop and breathe, and close my eyes and smell, and listen.
Robert Sloan: I guess we all want that. Maybe when you go back, Martin, you'll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are. Maybe you haven't been looking in the right place. You've been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead.

This stuff makes me weep.

 

[pretty faythe]

Heck, you don't even need dialog! In "Invaders" Agnes Moorehead never uses words but you feel all her fears and emotions about being attacked by the invading aliens. Until, the end, when she conquors them and the aliens are calling their home world telling them not to come to this planet its full of giants and they are too powerful for them.....the US Airforce to handle.

 

[carter]

The stories and the actors. Wm. Shatner looking out the airplane window at a creature only he can see. James Whitmore pleading to go home to Earth after he refused rescue. The lady who has vision just as NYC has a complete blackout and is blinded when the sun rises. The individual qualities of aloneness in each of the protagonists. Knowing where some of these actors went in their careers is a bonus if you watched these stories when they were first aired.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Uh, re "The lady who has vision just as NYC has a complete blackout and is blinded when the sun rises."

That one wasn't a Twilight Zone episode, it was a segment from the pilot film for Serling's later Night Gallery series. And it was Steven Spielberg's first high-visibility directing assignment: he was something like 22 years old, and he was directing Joan Crawford in a Rod Serling script!

 

[ScionPI2005]

The Twilight Zone has got to be one of the most fascinating shows ever devised. I place it right up there with Hitchcock's works. The writing and acting was just perfect.

I usually watch the TZ marathon that Sci-FI puts on every New Years. I'm sure I'm at the point where I've seen, and could remember any episode that comes on.

 

[Twitch]

Not only did Rod Serling write good sci-fi he was able to write good 1/2 hour TV scripts which put the story in perspective. As a writer of non-fiction material I couldn't do what Serling did at all but I admire it. The recurring theme was that there would be an irony at the end of the script. I also anticipated and enjoyed this twist of fate in Alfred Hitchcock's material.

 

[Hondo]

My favorite

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.

Episode 33: 'Mr. Bevis' with Burgess Meredith :eusa_clap
He was a great actor, and Rod Serling a great writer, I also admire.
Both are sadly missed, great program.

 

[jamespowers]

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.

Episode 33: 'Mr. Bevis' with Burgess Meredith :eusa_clap
He was a great actor, and Rod Serling a great writer, I also admire.
Both are sadly missed, great program.

A perfect example of then and now.
Mr. Bevis then.
Bevis and Butthead now. :eusa_doh:

 

[PrettySquareGal]

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street

So, do you think this episode is accurate about human nature?

 

[Doctor Strange]

Sadly, yes!

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Sadly, yes!

This is why I love TZ. It's scary because most of it, although science fiction, is based in a deeper and darker reality.

 

[pretty faythe]

So, do you think this episode is accurate about human nature?

Paranoia at its best (worst)
Put people into a situation where they start to doubt one another and let them distroy each other.
Like the aliens said (the man sure had a thing for aliens) you just have to let them do the work them selves.
History has shown it too many times in acuality.

*edit(oops, without the aliens though)

 

[Twitch]

The one that ran just before the Maple Street episode was a similar tale of the one family who had a bomb shelter and how the neighbors busted in during a false alarm. They were ready to kill each other to get in!

Humans descend from hominids which all had violent natures. It's inbred.[huh]

 

[Roger]

I saw a couple that really put things into perspective.

The episode where Donna Douglas (Ellie Mae Clampett fame) was the woman who kept having plastic surgery to make herself "beautiful" but she kept looking the same (beautiful) while everyone else was normal (deformed). That really plays true today with the botox, and enhancment crowd.

The episode where Burgess Meredith survives the nuclear explosion and breaks his glasses. It's hard for me to feel sorry for anyone there. Yeah, I feel sorry for him breaking his glasses and not being able to read books, which is his passion. But, I also feel sympathy for everyone he ignored.[huh]

The episode where the daughter and grandkids come to the old man's mansion as he lays dying and they're more interested in themselves than the old man. He makes them wear masks until midnight. He dies at midnight and the family says; "it's about time. Let's celebrate" Then the take off the masks and their faces become the mask which is indicative of their souls. I just cannot stand people who wait around for someone to die just so they can get their money.:rage:

 

[Hondo]

Time Enough At Last

I saw a couple that really put things into perspective.

The episode where Burgess Meredith survives the nuclear explosion and breaks his glasses. It's hard for me to feel sorry for anyone there. Yeah, I feel sorry for him breaking his glasses and not being able to read books, which is his passion. But, I also feel sympathy for everyone he ignored.[huh]

Henry Bemis as Rod Serling described was a character study of a bland manner little book worm, forget about the people around him, its about the center character with its humanity and its tragedy;
Most felt over all sympathy for Bemis at the end, to be left alone.

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 rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis… in the Twilight Zone.