re: What is your favorite Twilight Zone episode?

I always liked the one with the old man and his coon dog.

quote:

---

Beautiful chick is actually ugly

---

Eye of the Beholder...

Because it's the only one anyone remembers

I like most of the episodes. I believe there were around 160, so yeah too many to name. Here's a few by category that I can name off the top of my head:

Sci-Fi/Alien episodes:


"Monsters are Due on Maple Street"

"To Serve Man"

"Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"

"The Fear"

"The Parallel"


Nuclear holocaust episodes:

"Third From the Sun" (Really liked this one)

"Time Enough At Last"

Immortality episodes:

"Long Live Walter Jameson"

"Queen of the Nile"

Hitler Episode:

"He's Alive"

The one with Burgess Meredith.jk

He was in a bunch.

The one with the Time Machine.A Scientist takes it from him thinking that when he goes back in time,with his knowledge,he'll be superior.

When he gets there he can't do anything because none of the equipment he's used to has been invented yet.

I don't remember if it was a Twilight Zone or Hitchcock episode, but there was one with a couple who were driving through a small town. They are harassed the entire episode by the crooked local cops. After being miserable the whole show, they are finally able to leave. They then call their bosses back at FBI headquarters and tell them the investigation is over, time to arrest the crooked cops.

That isn't from the original TZ, so my money is on it being a Hitchcock Presents episode.

If you like Twilight Zone give a listen to these classic radio dramas. They're like audio versions of TZ.

Dimension X

X Minus 1



Dimension X ran on NBC 1950-1. The show was later retooled as X Minus 1 in 1955-8. They dramatized stories from the pulp SF "golden age" of the 1940s by writers like Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein etc.

While there are plenty of rocketmen and space travel stories, the most interesting episodes IMHO are those that prefigure the classic Twilight Zone situation -- ordinary people caught up in fantastic situations. Stephen King once commented that Richard Matheson took horror out of the gothic mansion and let it happen anywhere, even the minimart down the street. That's what these shows helped do for SF -- although Twilight Zone would get the credit. I wonder how often Rod Serling listened to them.

A few favorite episodes:

Dimension X:

Kaleidoscope - Bradbury

To The Future - Bradbury

Mars Is Heaven - Bradbury

Dwellers In Silence - Bradbury

Dr. Grimshaw's Sanitorium - I can't believe they got away with this ending in 1950.

X Minus 1:

Zero Hour - Bradbury (notice a pattern here?). The ending is a masterpiece.

The Last Martian - Fredric Brown. This was later filmed as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents starring Steve McQueen. IMHO this radio version is superior.

Hostess - Asimov

Cold Equations

Time and Time Again - a really interesting time travel story

Venus Is A Man's World - not all that great an episode, but a fascinatingly prescient satire on feminism (from 1957!)

X Minus 1 also did two stories by a very young, little-known writer named Philip K Dick, "Colony" and "The Defenders". They're nothing special, although "The Defenders" is not a bad cold war allegory -- apparently a frequently-used device in SF of this period, at least judging by these two series.

quote:

---

The Hitch-Hiker

---

Radio version from 1942, starring Orson Welles

Button,button

New twilight zone

quote:

---

Beautiful chick is actually ugly

---

Eye of the Beholder

Played by Donna Douglas - Ellie May on Beverly Hillbillies and from Central

quote:

---

The near-sighted loner who hated people. Never wanted to be bothered with even family, just left alone to read his books.

He ends up being the last human on earth after nuke war. He's shocked and saddened, then finds a library full of books and is thrilled...he can read his life away with no interruption. He rejoices.

Then he accidentally breaks his glasses.

---

Time At Last