[NOTE: These posts contain spoilers]
The Twilight Zone first aired in 1959, and it was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. The five seasons it aired was during the critical moments of the Cold War, the escalation of the Vietnam War and the start of the Civil Rights Movement. It was in this critical time in American history that creator Rod Serling was able to feed off of the paranoia and worries of the common American citizen. Most of the time the depiction was not flattering; Serling had a love/hate relationship with the human race, sometimes walking the line between compassion and misanthropy.
True, the entire canon of The Twilight Zone is not perfect and there are many times when episodes use twist endings more ineffectively than Shyamalan. While many of the episodes today are outdated, there are a few that have stood the test of time, such as: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, Walking Distance, It's a Good Life, The Eye of The Beholder, etc.
But there are a handful of episodes that overtime have deserved to be mentioned among the best:
Third From The Sun (Season One, Episode 14): The plot twist was critical for many Twilight Zone episodes. Even if you never watched the show, chances are you know about the twists as they have been parodied countless times, especially in "The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror" episodes. "Third From The Sun" follows a scientist who tries to save his family from an imminent nuclear holocaust. Telling you more would ruin the twist, but thanks to the direction of Richard L. Bare, the episode creates tension in the quiet moments to where the twist, no matter how dumb or obvious, feels well deserved.
The Last Flight (Season One, Episode 18): Time traveling stories often deal with people attempting to right a wrong to the point where one makes a mess of things with the space-time continuum. In "The Last Flight", a British World War One pilot named Terry Decker (played by Kenneth Haigh) mysteriously ends up on an American Air Force Base in 1959 Germany. He discovers that his flying partner and friend, whom he left to die when surrounded by enemy airplanes, is not only alive but heading to the base. There are many ways this story could've taken a wrong turn or get bogged down by the science of time traveling. Instead, it becomes a poignant story of a coward who realizes in the future what he has to do to redeem himself in the past.
The Big Tall Wish (Season One, Episode 27): Being discontent with adulthood and yearning for the simpler days of childhood was a common theme in the Twilight Zone. Many episodes tackled the theme differently (Walking Distance did it perfectly; A Young Man's Fancy was the weirdest), but "The Big Tall Wish" was the most heartbreaking. The story revolves around a down-and-out boxer Bolie Jackson (played by Ivan Dixon) who cannot accept the fact that a young boy in his apartment building wished for him to win his comeback fight when he was seconds away from losing. A lifetime of hard luck and beat downs have left Bolie with with scars on his face and a pessimistic view on how the world works. In the end that pessimism gets the best of both the man and child and something simple as believing is destroyed.
Long Distance Call (Season Two, Episode 22): Due to costs of production, six episodes in season two had to be shot on video and the quality stands out like a sore thumb to the point where it gets in the way of the story. But the "Long Distance Call" somehow benefits from the low quality to where it feels less like a Twilight Zone episode, but more of a small budget horror short. Written by William Idelson and Charles Beaumont, the episode is about a young boy uses a toy telephone to communicate with his dead grandmother. If that wasn't enough, the grandmother tries to talk her grandson into joining her in the afterlife so she will not be alone. And there's only one way to reach the afterlife.
The Shelter (Season Three, Episode Three): When Rod Serling was at his most pessimistic, there was little to no reassurance that humankind deserved to function. "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is considered to be one of the greatest episodes in television to depict scapegoating and mob mentality. But that episode, despite its accurate message, was grounded in science fiction. "The Shelter" on the other hand takes place during a more plausible event (plausible for the 1960s). It is one of the most frightening episodes in TZ's history. When a group of friends are celebrating their friend's birthday party a emergency broadcast comes on about a possible nuclear attack on American soil. It turns out one of the friends has the only bomb shelter on the block and soon these friends turn on one another, leading to buried prejudices exploding to the surface and common sense pushed aside for spontaneous action. Even today it holds up because when the chips are down, and we are staring at a cataclysmic event, how will we react?
On Thursday We Leave For Home (Season Four, Episode 16): The Twilight Zone had been canceled after the third season but was brought back to fill in an hour timeslot. These hour long episodes are the weakest, since Serling contributed little to the season and being an hour instead of half an hour dragged on the story to the point of boredom. But of the 18 hour long episodes, two stood out. One was the famous "Miniature," staring a young Robert Duvall. The other was "On Thursday We Leave For Home," staring James Whitmore (best remembered as Brooks from "The Shawshank Redemption") as cult leader stranded on a desert planet with his followers. When help arrives and the very thought of his followers going their separate ways drives the man to madness. While the episode does stall in the middle, Whitmore's performance of a forceful leader who loses hope after years of giving others hope salvages it.
The Brain Center at Whipple's (Season 5, Episode 33): Technology is a double-edge sword. It makes things much more convenient in everyday life, but even that comes with a price. Richard Deacon plays a factory owner who sees the positives of using technology to make his company more profitable, but at the expense of the working man. The idea that workers have families to feed or bills to pay is of no concern to a man like Whipple. It is a price to pay to run more efficient and to keep the shareholders happy. Today we see the same thing happening with the auto industry and the newspaper industry. That is the price we pay for over-dependency and affordable products and the Whipples in the world are more than happy to keep the demand high.
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