Twilight Zone Marathon today

There are some fan favorites that I never really cared for, like "To Serve Man," which I found cartoonish (including its ridiculously predictable 'twist' ending right out of a Fifties comic book), and "It's a Good Life" with Billy Mumy and his cornfield. Just never liked those two episodes. And some of the scripts are just too unsubtle and heavy-handed for my tastes, as with "The Monster are Due on Maple Street" or "The Obsolete Man" or "The Shelter." What's the all-time worst episode? Maybe that one with William Demarest watching himself murder his wife on his television? Man, that one was abysmal.

But luckily, there are also a lot of really terrific episodes. I absolutely love the one with Anne Francis and the mannequins. I think it's called "The After Hours." Sheer perfection. I also think the one with William Shatner on the airplane with the gremlin is pretty darned nifty. The most effectively spooky episode might be "Night Call," where old lady Gladys Cooper is getting strange phone calls. Really well done. Quite a number of really solid, memorable episodes. I also like the hour-long sci-fi episode "Death Ship," with Jack Klugman.

"Changing Of The Guard" is a good Christmas episode. Donald Pleasance is in it

The Hunt and The Grave are two of my favorites.

A pleasant faced man steps up to greet you
He smiles and says he’s pleased to meet you
Beneath his hat the strangeness lies
Take it off he’s got three eyes

For TZ fans, I noticed something interesting. They have most of the 80’s TZ episodes on YouTube. The 80’s revision of the series was pretty good.

What I noticed was that there were 4 or 5 of the new episodes written by a George R.R.Martin.

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Any suggestions on which ones to watch next?

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The Hunt is one of my favorites which you already watched. A couple of others I like that I don't see on that list is The Midnight Sun (where the sun starts moving closer to the earth and stars a gorgeous Lois Nettleton) and The Grave, where a bad guy's dying promise comes back to haunt an old western town. Lee Marvin is awesome in this!

ETA - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge if you want something kind of different and trippy!

All the old anthology tv-series had episodes that were hits-or-misses, but when weak episodes of "Twilight Zone" get pointed out, it always ruffles feathers. The series is such a sacred cow. Personally, I gravitate more towards episodes that exude atmosphere as opposed to just hinging on twist endings. Although it's particularly nice when the two can merge together, in an organic and seamless way.

The series "Thriller" (1960-62), hosted by Boris Karloff, had a lot of mundane clunkers, but there are a handful of episodes that are real knockouts, like the infamous "Pigeons from Hell," alongside "The Hollow Watcher," "Parasite Mansion," "The Weird Tailor," and several others. I don't know how some of those made it to television back in that day. Too potent, in terms of all-out horror.

"The Outer Limits" had a mix of good and bad episodes. There were a few episodes of "One Step Beyond" that were really, really eerie. Especially the episode with the clown. Don't recall the title, offhand. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" had some good episodes, and some weak ones, although I sometimes tire of its rather cutesy, self-conscious approach to tales of murder and crime. I'm generally not too keen on "Night Gallery," although I remember several episodes scaring me as a kid. The British-filmed "Journey to the Unknown" was on American network-tv in 1968-69, and I've seen all the episodes, but didn't really care much for the series.

There were certainly some other (less fantasy-oriented) anthology series in the 1960s, like the color "Suspense Theater," which used to run a bit in syndication, and had some occasionally good episodes. I saw and taped most of those when the Sci-Fi Channel aired them in the 1990s. Also used to see "The Dick Powell Show," which was a mixed bag. "Chrysler Theater" was in color, and ran for four years in the mid-1960s, and used to be rerun under various titles like "Star Time" and whatnot. Don't recall any episodes really standing out for me, though. More rare was "Alcoa Premiere," hosted by Fred Astaire. Only seen one or two of those. After "Have Gun, Will Travel" ended, its star headlined "The Richard Boone Show," which had some solid, hard-edged episodes, but was dogged by a whiff of pretentiousness.

Okay, who's going to start a thread on favorite episodes of "The Loretta Young Show?"