Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm loving Twilight Zone so much, I'm going to review every episode* so you know which to watch/download and which to skip. Scoring system in full:

5/5: Can punch against the great sci-fi short stories of its time. Flawless.
4/5: Great concept but the script falters, or vice versa. Still superb though.
3/3: Decent, solid episode. Great moments but nowt special. Better than regular TV though.
2/5: Flawed,frustrating with odd goodness. Showing signs of promise if inherently crippled.
1/5: Laughable.

*Until I get bored.

Season 1:
Episode 1:

‘Where Is Everybody?’

Credits: [Spoilered]



Review:

The first Twilight Zone episode, and the one responsible for it being picked up by CBS. The story opens with a man alone walking a street, and happening across a deserted roadside diner. What follows is an increasingly hysterical tale of fear and loneliness. It's a good episode, if flawed. Some of the dialogue Serling puts into Earl Holliman's mouth reads well on page, but doesn't quite work coming out of his mouth. Like when he's mock chatting up the mannequin. Earl and the script hits its stride in the second half however, and there's a bit with a mirror that manages to make me jump each time. It's a good, solid, simple start to the series - not very challenging at all, but quite memorable. The only real flaw is the clunky explanation dialogue at the end. Add a solid starter score from Bernard Hermann and some fine photography and you have a pleasing thing.

Watch it for:

What would become a recurring theme - people cracking up and running around screaming impossible questions is funny/scary.

Trivia: Does the location look familiar? It should, Beexers! It's the town square from Back to the Future!

Verdict: I quite liked this. Not much of a twist, but it looked moody and was taut.

Score: 3/5

This Is A Good Idea.

(Also, if you stick with this, you should totally copy and paste them into a blog - but keep posting them here too, obv.)

Can you review Twilight the movie as well?

It promised vampires so I went to see it. The rest is just a blur.

I think its a good twist, when twilight zone was made space travel was just becoming a possibility and the questions and fears surrounding it were pretty much unknown; which made it good horror fodder.

I presume these are the old old ones? As in original.

yeah 1958 I think.

I've got season 3 on dvd, here. The first one was good.

Season 1:
Episode 2:

"One of the Angels"



"Hmm heh heh heh. Oh I'm sorry. I cannot divulge information about that customer's secret, illegal, child prostitution account.... Oh Crap. I shouldn't have said he was a customer. Oh crap. I shouldn't have said it was a secret. Oh crap. I shouldn't have said it was illegal. Oh crap. I certainly, shouldn't have said, it was child prostitution...... Ahhhh. It's too hot today."


Credits: [Spoilered]



Review:

A charming if flawed episode. Lew Bookman may be a hopeless street salesman, but he is a genial old man who is loved by the kids of the apartment block. (Since he gives them the toys he can't sell for free, this isn't tremendously surprising.) But time for Mr Bookman is running out. Death is about to pay a visit. The flaws are readily apparent in this one. The plot hinges on a moment that the acting and script can't quite fulfil. And the execution of Bookman's finest hour is a little forced and feeble. No matter though, as we have some wonderful back and forth between the not terribly bright salesman and the implacable, well-mannered death. (Who actually seems a bit of an alright bloke, all things told.) It's pretty obvious what's going to happen, but there's fun in watching it unfold with the performances, and we even get a few chilling little shocks.

Best Bits:



Worst Bits:



Watch it for:

Bookman pleading with Death. Never gets old.

Debating point:



Verdict:

An average episode. It's pleasant to watch, and if a little schmaltzy and doe eyed then there a couple of little menaces and dark moments. It's an episode that will be remembered for the performances, rather than the plot or script.

3/5

The salesman one is good though in the Radio series that sometimes gets replayed on BBC 7 with Ed Begley Jnr playing the salesman.

I only really ever watched one episode of the Twilight Zone, which was basically the plot of The Truman Show, on a slightly smaller budget. I was shocked and dismayed when The Truman Show came out and nobody believed that the episode of The Twilight Zone existed.

Pete, please assure me that it does!

sounds familiar but Im not too sure if I've seen that one. Pretty much planet of the apes is in there somewhere too.

The whole industry is built on theft, man. Why, The Village was done far more succinctly and better in an episode of Mutant X.

And threads never die, they are just reborn in... The Twilight Zone

I mentioned that I had recently obtained a boxset of series 3 from the original series. I've watched the first disc now and have been very impressed by the range and quality of the stories. I can't hope to match Pete's excellent style, but one or two sentences will give you a flavour of how I found them.

Two
Almost silent love story set in a post-apocalyptic world. Very touching.

The Arrival
The 'Mary Celeste' but with a DC3. Liked the first half, but was dissatisfied with the dénouement.

The Shelter
I really liked this one, both the scenario and its execution. It is a very plausible dilemma: if you had a bomb shelter, would you keep your friends out?

The Passersby
An ACW one! Yay! Uniforms not too farby, either. You can see the twist coming a mile off, but I did like its exploration of the anti-yank feeling lingering in the South after the war.


A Game of Pool
Surprisingly tense game of billiards between a man and the deceased champion he'd spent his life wanting to beat. The stakes - his life! The moral (there's more to life than pool) was good.

The Mirror
Fun exploration of the loneliness and paranoia of a dictator.

More as and when I watch them.

I watched most of series 1 last year and I'd give pretty much all the episodes at least 4/5. Loved them.

I've never seen an episode of The Twighlight Zone and this thread is making me want to, but I doubt I will.

my two absolute faves are from the 80s TZ.

Dealer's Choice (I mentioned this in the TV thread but it's basically Morgan Freeman and chums playing poker against the devil. Full of brilliant lines.)

I, of Newton (the shepherd guy from Firefly plays a demon who is accidentally summed by a maths professor. Is just a short episode but quite brilliant.)

Three more from Season 3:

The Grave
A Western, starring Lee Marvin. I really enjoyed the dialogue and the set-up, but the scenes outside the saloon didn't really work for me. Also, I found the occasional strumming of a guitar by one of the characters irritating.

It's a Good Life
Bizaare parable about a village terrorised by a six year old with evil powers who can only be pacified if everyone thinks happy thoughts. Moral: either tyranny is bad or you really shouldn't spoil your kids. Well worth it.

Deathshead Revisited
A former SS captain returns to Dachau. As you might imagine, this is not a light episode, and extremely harrowing.

Did Pete really only review 2 episodes?

Bah.. I was enjoying that.

Err, will try to feex. I gave up when I realised that every moment in trying to review Twilight Zone is spoiler-laden!

On quiet evenings, bored nerds have little better to do but write spoiler-free capsule reviews in (and regarding)The Twilight Zone...

The Midnight Sun
Boring apocalyptic tale about a woman who paints whilst the world plummets towards the sun. As fun as watching paint dry has never been a more appropriate description

Still Valley
A Confederate scout enters a town to find it occupied by Union soldiers, all completely frozen to the spot. On learning the town's secret, he has to decide whether to the dirty rebels should seek the support of a peculiar ally. I really enjoyed this one, especially his agony when he realises what he could achieve and the price of it, and Mr Serling's comments at the end chillingly form a part of the story (as well as given an illustration on American attitudes to the War Between the States at the time of the centennial). An excellent yarn and highly recommended, even for those not into the period.


They shouldn't be that far apart from each other. Farbs!

The Jungle
Sinister Executive of Sinister Megaglobal Corporation discovers that natives' curses on the land they're developing might be true. Disturbing use of a racist-to-modern-eyes shop dummy to add an extra shock midway through. The only good bit occurs at the very end, and involves a lion. Yeah, spoilers, but I don't care.

Once Upon a Time
Elderly Buster Keaton re-enacts some of his classic routines in a time-travel based 'plot'. Having the 1890s scenes filmed as a silent movie was a great directorial touch, but this episode is really only worth watching for Mr Keaton, and even then, it's only a distant echo of his past glories.

Five Characters in Search of an Exit
A typically flawed 'Twilight Zone' episode. The set-up is excellent, the dialogue is great, but the denouement disappoints. Up until that point, however, it's a brilliant piece of conceptual drama.

A Quality of Mercy
On some Pacific Island at the ass-end of the Second World War, a naive young officer is literally placed in his enemies' shoes. Apparently, war is bad and they're people too, but, frankly, the portrayals of the Japanese were a little too racist for my tastes.

Nothing in the Dark
This one's brilliant. An elderly lady has barricaded herself in her basement for years, to stop 'Mr Death' from getting anywhere near her. Really touching, and stars a young Robert Redford.

One More Pallbearer
You're an eccentric billionaire. What's the best way to get your own back on those people who have most humiliated you over the years? Why, invite them to your nuclear bunker and pretend that World War Three has started, of course. An odd episode, and I'm not sure what I made of it.

Dead Man's Shoes
Enjoyable gangster story, with a hobo getting involved in the wheeler-dealing because he starts wearing a deceased gangster's ['SPOILERS' - Dr River Song]. A fun half hour.

The Hunt
Starts off slowly, but becomes a really touching discussion of the afterlife and a man's devotion to his dog.

Showdown with Rance McGrew
Hammy star of a popular western series receives authenticity tips from Jesse James Himself, in a bid to make him less of a farb. Good, harmless fun (especially the 'closing time' line).