The Twilight Zone: TOS [Season 3] (1961)

The Twilight Zone: TOS [Season 3] (1961)

Episode 1 – Two

"This is a jungle, a monument built by nature honoring disuse, commemorating a few years of nature being left to its own devices. But it's another kind of jungle, the kind that comes in the aftermath of man's battles against himself. Hardly an important battle, not a Gettysburg or a Marne or an Iwo Jima. More like one insignificant corner patch in the crazy quilt of combat. But it was enough to end the existence of this little city. It's been five years since a human being walked these streets. This is the first day of the sixth year, as man used to measure time. The time? Perhaps a hundred years from now. Or sooner. Or perhaps it's already happened two million years ago. The place? The signposts are in English so that we may read them more easily, but the place is the Twilight Zone."

Interestingly, so far all episodes start with characters finding themselves in an isolated environment. In the first two premiers, the episodes were almost free of dialogue and this one is also almost like that. Except this time, unlike the two others, involve two characters instead of one.

Its post-world war three or something like that and a city lies in ruin without any inhabitants. Well, almost. A woman soldier is scavenging for food when she meets a male enemy soldier. There is a fight and suspicion and hatred, but this is a Twilight Zone love story. I think maybe even the first one so far, as I can’t remember any other episodes so far that was a love story.

3/5

Episode 2 – The Arrival

"This object, should any of you have lived underground for the better parts of your lives and never had occasion to look toward the sky, is an airplane, its official designation a DC-3. We offer this rather obvious comment because this particular airplane, the one you're looking at, is a freak. Now, most airplanes take off and land as per scheduled. On rare occasions they crash. But all airplanes can be counted on doing one or the other. Now, yesterday morning this particular airplane ceased to be just a commercial carrier. As of its arrival it became an enigma, a seven-ton puzzle made out of aluminum, steel, wire and a few thousand other component parts, none of which add up to the right thing. In just a moment, we're going to show you the tail end of its history. We're going to give you ninety percent of the jigsaw pieces and you and Mr. Sheckly here of the Federal Aviation Agency will assume the problem of putting them together along with finding the missing pieces. This we offer as an evening's hobby, a little extracurricular diversion which is really the national pastime in the Twilight Zone."

In the narration, Rod Serling invites us to solve the mystery in the episode along with its characters. But the problem in the show is that you can’t exactly solve mysteries because the answer can be anything the writers want, given they work outside the realm of reality. A mysterious plane arrives at an airport without any passengers or pilot. An aviation crew is assigned to solve the case.

The answer to this riddle wasn’t that good and the journey to it wasn’t that interesting either.

2/5

Episode 3 – The Shelter

"What you are about to watch is a nightmare. It is not meant to be prophetic, it need not happen, it's the fervent and urgent prayer of all men of good will that it never shall happen. But in this place, in this moment, it does happen. This is the Twilight Zone."

One of the Zone’s favorite themes. What do normal people do in abnormal situations? Friendly neighbors enjoy dinner parties. Suddenly there is a government announcement. A nuclear bomb is heading their way and advises families to go to their bomb shelters if they have it or basement if not. One of the neighbors have their bomb shelters, but the others don’t. So they beg and pound on the shelter door but they are not let in because the shelter is only built for one family.

The friendliness between them slowly dissolves away as they turn into angry and desperate people looking out for their own and their family’s survival. Humanity is only civilized when it is convenient. In dangerous times, we become darker…

4/5

Episode 4 – The Passerby

"This road is the afterwards of the Civil War. It began at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and ended at a place called Appomattox. It's littered with the residue of broken battles and shattered dreams. In just a moment, you will enter a strange province that knows neither North nor South, a place we call the Twilight Zone."

Civil War. A man is back from the war and stops at a woman’s house. The woman has lost her husband and the man stays for the night (not in that way!) and they talk.

Nothing big happens in the episode and the ending is expected, but the episode works not for its plot but for its mood. It’s not a powerful episode, but its not a weakling either.

3/5

Episode 5 – A Game of Pool

"Jesse Cardiff, pool shark, the best on Randolph Street, who will soon learn that trying to be the best at anything carries its own special risks in or out of the Twilight Zone."

A pool player, Jesse, is good, very good, but he feels second-best in people’s eyes, because they always compared him to a famous but dead pool player, Fats Brown. So, while alone, he angrily wishes he could play with Fats and beat him to prove that he is the best.

It’s the Zone, so his wish is respected. Back from the afterlife, Fats challenges Jesse. And a wager. If Jesse loses, he forfeits his life. Well, you can’t exactly bring a guy back from the dead and not have a big wager, can you?

The episode revolves around the game of pool. Well-made episode, because I found the pool playing game suspenseful and exciting and didn’t know exactly where it would head. An episode about obsession and the desire to be number one.

4/5

Episode 6 – The Mirror

"This is the face of Ramos Clemente, a year ago a beardless, nameless worker of the dirt who plodded behind a mule, furrowing someone else's land. And he looked up at a hot Central American sun and he pledged the impossible. He made a vow that he would lead an avenging army against the tyranny that put the ache in his back and the anguish in his eyes, and now one year later the dream of the impossible has become a fact. In just a moment we will look deep into this mirror and see the aftermath of a rebellion...in the Twilight Zone."

It’s a South American country (unnamed) and a group of revolutionaries just took over the country. They all look like Fidel Castro so this is a 60s topical episode with 60s propaganda. The revolutionaries expect to be different but the leader is basically told that he’s going to turn out to be just like the previous government. There is a mirror involved that shows him the person that will assassinate him. We don’t know if the mirror is telling the truth or if the mirror is even showing anything, but the leader gets paranoid and starts executing his former friends.

A tale that is basically written for the 60s audience, terrified of the Castros and the Ches of the world. Bad American propaganda in an even worse plot.

1/5

Episode 7 – The Grave

"Normally, the old man would be correct. This would be the end of the story. We've had the traditional shoot-out on the street and the badman will soon be dead. But some men of legend and folk tale have been known to continue having their way even after death. The outlaw and killer Pinto Sykes was such a person, and shortly we'll see how he introduces the town, and a man named Conny Miller in particular, to the Twilight Zone."

It is the wild west and the town just shot a famous criminal, Sykes. They had paid a man, Conny Miller, to hunt him down but Miller never produced results, so the town finally took the matter into their own hands. Upon his deathbed, the gunned down Sykes says that Miller never really tried to find him.

At the bar, a few citizens repeat this to the offended Miller, who feels that the town thinks he is a coward. But he insists he isn’t, and that he just never caught up with the criminal no matter how hard he tried.

Sykes said one more thing. He said that if Miller ever visited his grave, he would grab Miller from below the grave and kill him. The people in the bar now wonder. If Miller is not a coward like he says he is, then he’d travel to Sykes’ grave now, wouldn’t he?

A simple tale, but great atmosphere and acting, makes it a thrill to watch.

4/5

Episode 8 – It’s a Good Life

"Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States, and there's a little town there called Peaksville. On a given morning not too long ago, the rest of the world disappeared and Peaksville was left all alone. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world was destroyed and only Peaksville left untouched or whether the village had somehow been taken away. They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing: the cause. A monster had arrived in the village. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines - because they displeased him - and he moved an entire community back into the dark ages - just by using his mind. Now I'd like to introduce you to some of the people in Peaksville, Ohio. This is Mr. Fremont. It's in his farmhouse that the monster resides. This is Mrs. Fremont. And this is Aunt Amy, who probably had more control over the monster in the beginning than almost anyone. But one day she forgot. She began to sing aloud. Now, the monster doesn't like singing, so his mind snapped at her, turned her into the smiling, vacant thing you're looking at now. She sings no more. And you'll note that the people in Peaksville, Ohio, have to smile. They have to think happy thoughts and say happy things because once displeased, the monster can wish them into a cornfield or change them into a grotesque, walking horror. This particular monster can read minds, you see. He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion. Oh yes, I did forget something, didn't I? I forgot to introduce you to the monster. This is the monster. His name is Anthony Fremont. He's six years old, with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes. But when those eyes look at you, you'd better start thinking happy thoughts, because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge. This is the Twilight Zone."

Best episode from the season so far and by far, one of the best in the season. It deals with one of my favorite subjects, creepy kids.

The child in question is a dangerous child. He is five and looks harmless, but he has an amazing power. He can do everything just by thinking about it, and such a power with a child is one of the most dangerous things that can exist. People around him have to tiptoe because if he doesn’t like something, he can make it disappear or “send him to the cornfield”, a phrase we don’t know exactly what it means, but sounds frightening in the episode.

And because the boy can also read minds, the town citizens have to not only act friendly and happy around the boy but try to think good thoughts also.

A very nerve-wracking, insane episode about citizens that are constantly trying to keep a five year old boy happy and pleased, while they feel trapped, frightened, and tortured inside.

Everyone claims children are innocent but I’m one of those people who feel different. They only seem good and harmless because they are weak little creatures. Given the right tools, they could be dangerous creatures that can’t be reasoned with, have no conscience, and can be very frightening!

5/5

Episode 9 – Deaths-Head Revisited

"Mr. Schmidt, recently arrived in a small Bavarian village which lies eight miles northwest of Munich, a picturesque, delightful little spot onetime known for its scenery but more recently related to other events having to do with some of the less positive pursuits of man: human slaughter, torture, misery and anguish. Mr. Schmidt, as we will soon perceive, has a vested interest in the ruins of a concentration camp - for once, some seventeen years ago, his name was Gunther Lutze. He held the rank of a captain in the S.S. He was a black-uniformed strutting animal whose function in life was to give pain, and like his colleagues of the time he shared the one affliction most common amongst that breed known as Nazis: he walked the Earth without a heart. And now former S.S. Captain Lutze will revisit his old haunts, satisfied perhaps that all that is awaiting him in the ruins on the hill is an element of nostalgia. What he does not know, of course, is that a place like Dachau cannot exist only in Bavaria. By its nature, by its very nature, it must be one of the populated areas of the Twilight Zone."

The Zone’s one-sided propaganda episodes are the worst and it feels like they are increasing. This story is so simple, that I honestly don’t see why anyone would be excited to watch it.

It’s the present (meaning the 60s) and a former SS captain returns to the concentration camp he was once residing over. He has happy memories from it about him torturing people. When he goes there, there are ghosts from the victims, so they take revenge. That’s it. This is feel good torture porn.

1/5

Episode 10 – The Midnight Sun

"The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is 'doomed,' because the people you've just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man's little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries - they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight it's high noon, the hottest day in history, and you're about to spend it in the Twilight Zone."

The Earth is moving closer to the sun and humanity is about to disappear. People are leaving town to travel to colder places, prolonging their lives. One building is almost empty except an old woman and a young one, both have stayed. The water is almost always cut and it’s hot. Very hot and it’s always sunny.

Remains me of doing sales visits in the hot afternoon in summer in Dubai. A really shitty way for humanity to go extinct!

3/5

Episode 11 – Still Valley

"The time is 1863, the place the state of Virginia. The event is a mass blood-letting known as the Civil War, a tragic moment in time when a nation was split into two fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation. . . This is Joseph Paradine, Confederate cavalry, as he heads down toward a small town in the middle of a valley. But very shortly, Joseph Paradine will make contact with the enemy. He will also make contact with an outpost not found on a military map - an outpost called the Twilight Zone."

It’s the Civil War and one Confederate scout meets up with a Yank patrol. It seems the Yanks are not moving, frozen completely. An old man claims he did it with his witchcraft book. He gives the book to the scout.

If a book causes your side in the army to win using magic, would you do it? What if it enlists the name of Satan and denounces God?

An episode for the 60s religious Americans.

2/5

Episode 12 – The Jungle

"The carcass of a goat, a dead finger, a few bits of broken glass and stone, and Mr. Alan Richards, a modern man of a modern age, hating with all his heart something in which he cannot believe and preparing, although he doesn't know it, to take the longest walk of his life, right down to the center of the Twilight Zone."

Back from Africa, a man is cursed by witchdoctors for wanting to build a project over their homes. Of course, witchdoctors fucking hate projects. And western project managers fucking hate African superstition. But you know what will happen here!

Lame plot but really good and scary atmosphere.

3/5

Episode 13 – Once Upon a Time

"Mr. Mulligan, a rather dour critic of his times, is shortly to discover the import of that old phrase, 'Out of the frying pan, into the fire,' said fire burning brightly at all times in the Twilight Zone."

My favorite thing about the episode is that you can neither guess the plot of the next episode nor the tone. Is it horror? Political? Or an episode that for the first seven or so minutes is in the style of a film from the silent era.

Well, the time is 1890s and its filmed like its 1890s. A man (Buster Keaton!) is not happy in his time so he wears a time travel helmet and travels to the present (1960s) and realizes the future is even worse. When in 1960s, the silent era filming style disappears.

A typical Zone lesson, but its highlight is that the full episode has silent era, Buster Keaton style of comedy. Not very funny, but unique enough in the show’s portfolio to be applauded.

4/5

Episode 14 – Five Characters in Search of an Exit

"Clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major - a collection of question marks. Five improbable entities stuck together into a pit of darkness. No logic, no reason, no explanation; just a prolonged nightmare in which fear, loneliness and the unexplainable walk hand in hand through the shadows. In a moment we'll start collecting clues as to the whys, the whats and the wheres. We will not end the nightmare, we'll only explain it - because this is the Twilight Zone."

Strange mystery. An army major finds himself in a closed room with no door. With him are a ballet dancer, a clown, a hobo, and a Bagpiper. No one remembers their name, how they got there, no memories, and no way to get out.

Strange and creepy.

4/5

Episode 15 – A Quality of Mercy

"It's August, 1945, the last grimy pages of a dirty, torn book of war. The place is the Philippine Islands. The men are what's left of a platoon of American Infantry, whose dulled and tired eyes set deep in dulled and tired faces can now look toward a miracle, that moment when the nightmare appears to be coming to an end. But they've got one more battle to fight, and in a moment we'll observe that battle. August, 1945, Philippine Islands. But in reality it's high noon in the Twilight Zone."

It’s almost the end of World War 2 and a group of American soldiers are trying to attack a cave full of Japanese soldiers. They are tired and worn-out and they know the Japanese soldiers are no different. The Japanese soldiers are trapped and the Americans don’t seem to be too excited about attacking them either. A new officer joins the group to take over the recently killed previous officer. Unlike the soldiers, the officer is fresh and bloodthirsty. And when the soldiers tell him that they could just bypass the cave, the officer gets angry. He wants the Japanese dead, whether it’s the first day of war or the last. They are the enemy and to him, they are not people.

So the Zone plays a trick on him. He suddenly finds himself in 1941, the beginning of the war. He is still outside the cave and leading a group of soldier to attack the wounded inside the cave. Except, he’s a soldier in the Japanese army! Ahh, to see how it is to be on the other side…!

3/5

Episode 16 – Nothing in the Dark

"An old woman living in a nightmare, an old woman who has fought a thousand battles with death and always won. Now she's faced with a grim decision - whether or not to open a door. And in some strange and frightening way she knows that this seemingly ordinary door leads to the Twilight Zone."

An old woman refuses to go out and has refused to go out for several years now. She also doesn’t let anyone in her house.

It’s because she knows Death is after her. And she has shut herself from the world so that Death can’t reach her.

Well, this isn’t exactly “Final Destination”, so the story ends in a more peaceful manner.

2/5

Episode 17 - One More Pallbearer

"What you have just looked at takes place three hundred feet underground, beneath the basement of a New York City skyscraper. It's owned and lived in by one Paul Radin. Mr. Radin is rich, eccentric and single-minded. How rich we can already perceive; how eccentric and single-minded we shall see in a moment, because all of you have just entered the Twilight Zone."

Paul is a rich man. Very rich. So rich that he pulls an expensive prank. For this prank he constructs a bomb shelter and a realistic sound system. He then invites three characters from his youth. His school teacher, a priest, and an army officer. Each of these three have humiliated him in the past for various (and justified) reasons. But Paul holds a grudge. He is a very successful man, but this is a man that having being successful in the present and knows he can conquer the future, now somehow wants to erase all traces of his past shortcomings.

His plan is to tell these guests that because he knows the right people, he has come to be aware that nuclear missiles are heading for USA. He offers them the safety of the shelter. With one condition. They have to beg his forgiveness for their past actions towards him.

The dialogue and the acting in this episode is brilliant. Almost too good for TV.

5/5

Episode 18 – Dead Man’s Shoes

"Nathan Edward Bledsoe, of the Bowery Bledsoes, a man once, a specter now. One of those myriad modern-day ghosts that haunt the reeking nights of the city in search of a flop, a handout, a glass of forgetfulness. Nate doesn't know it but his search is about to end, because those shiny new shoes are going to carry him right into the capital of the Twilight Zone."

Bad guy gets killed by bad guy friends. Dead body gets dumped in the street. Bum finds the body, steals shoes. The personality of the bad guy takes over. That’s basically it.

2/5

Episode 19 – The Hunt

"An old man and a hound dog named Rip, off for an evening's pleasure in quest of raccoon. Usually, these evenings end with one tired old man, one battle-scarred hound dog and one or more extremely dead raccoons, but as you may suspect that will not be the case tonight. These hunters won't be coming home from the hill. They're headed for the backwoods of the Twilight Zone."

The episode title made me think it’s going to be a cool episode about hunting some weird thing (maybe aliens hunting humans? Maybe foxes hunting humans?!?)

But it’s just about an old man hunting with his dog and then dying and then having the episode being typical American, heavy handed Christian theme mixed with a love of dogs.

2/5

Episode 20: Showdown with Rance McGrew

"Some one-hundred-odd years ago, a motley collection of tough moustaches galloped across the West and left behind a raft of legends and legerdemains, and it seems a reasonable conjecture that if there are any television sets up in cowboy heaven and any of these rough-and-wooly nail-eaters could see with what careless abandon their names and exploits are being bandied about, they're very likely turning over in their graves - or worse, getting out of them. Which gives you a clue as to the proceedings that will begin in just a moment, when one Mr. Rance McGrew, a three-thousand-buck-a-week phoney-baloney, discovers that this week's current edition of make-believe is being shot on location - and that location is the Twilight Zone."

We all know that Hollywood and TV is not very historically accurate in portrayals of now-dead personalities. But what if they feel insulted about it from beyoooooooond. The star of a Western TV series plays a tough sheriff always beating the real life bad guys, such as Jesse James.

But Jesse James is not happy. So, bzzzzzz or something, actor finds himself in the actual wild west. Jesse James confronts him to a duel and of course, the actor shits his pant (not literally).

A pointless, bad episode.

1/5

Episode 21: Kick the Can

"Sunnyvale Rest, a home for the aged, a dying place, and a common children's game called kick the can that will shortly become a refuge for a man who knows he will die in this world if he doesn't escape into the Twilight Zone."

Deals with one of Serling's favorite themes. Old age and the difficulty of coming to terms with it. It’s a nursing home and an old man suddenly has a revelation. All kids play "kick the can" (I don't know the rules, WE never played in the middle east, but it involves running and kicking a can). They grow up and they stop playing kick-the-can.

Or, the old man wonders, do they grow up BECAUSE they stop playing the game. Does the game somehow stop them from growing up? Is the secret of immortality in acting like a child?

His close friend refuses to entertain him and the nursing home doctor claims he is going senile. The episode's highlight is the old man discussing magic with his friend, defending magic…

"Ben, help me! There is magic in the world, I know there is. When I fell in love with Mary, kissed her for the first time, that was magic. When my boy was born, that was magic. Friendship is a magic thing. Maybe I'm right, Ben. Maybe Kick the Can is the greatest magic of all."

4/5

Episode 22: A Piano in the House

"Mr. Fitzgerald Fortune, theater critic and cynic at large, on his way to a birthday party. If he knew what is in store for him he probably wouldn't go, because before this evening is over that cranky old piano is going to play 'Those Piano Roll Blues' - with some effects that could happen only in the Twilight Zone."

A critic is a bit of a cynical douchebag (they all are in movies and books, poor critics, such a thankless job…) He buys a piano for his wife's birthday, one of those piano's that plays by itself (now replaced by an ipod nano).

When the correct musical sheet is inserted and is played, it causes people to act differently, that is, act like their real self. The mask they wear for the public disappears.

The cynic is amused by this and tries it more and more people. I would have loved such an item too and its one of those episodes that I would love to have it stretched to a full feature. Have it tried on more people, have their drama and their true self come to light, and have people deal with it. Grande idea!

Also, one of the characters, played by this guy called Don Durant, looks exactly like Val Kilmer!

4/5

Episode 23: The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank

"Time, the mid-twenties. Place, the Midwest, the southernmost section of the Midwest. We were just witnessing a funeral, a funeral that didn't come off exactly as planned, due to a slight fallout from the Twilight Zone."

Set in a small town, there is a funeral for a young man that has suddenly died. But during the church funeral, he just gets up from the coffin, completely alive, surprised that he was proclaimed dead. At first instance, the people gathered for the church are scared of him, distrustful, even his parents and fiancé. But those closest to him get over their initial fear and are overwhelmed by happiness that he is back.

But the rest of the town are not as overjoyed. During their drinking sessions or at home in private, they wonder about the man who was dead and came back, and they wonder, did the same man come back? And like all times, rumors, fear, combined with group mentality, slowly turns into anger and hate…

4/5

Episode 24: To Serve Man

"Respectfully submitted for your perusal: a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin : unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone."

The world is visited by aliens, everyone is scared and paranoid, but the visitors insist they have come in peace and only wish to help mankind with their technology and knowledge. Humans, as is their nature, are distrustful of such gestures, believing that everything has a string attached. The aliens insist they will present their technology and ways, and if they humans don't want their help, they will leave.

There is a great twist at the end, which made me love the episode instantly, even though thinking about it makes no sense. But for that, sudden instance of when the twist was revealed, it was great!

4/5

Episode 25: The Fugitive

"It's been said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things: science fiction the improbable made possible; fantasy, the impossible made probable. What would you have if you put these two different things together? Well, you'd have an old man named Ben who knows a lot of tricks most people don't know and a little girl named Jenny who loves him, and a journey into the heart of the Twilight Zone."

"The Twilight Zone" is a strange show. It has such a varied style and mood in their episodes, that sometimes you don't know who the episode is aimed for. "The Fugitive" is a very childish episode that really seems only kids would enjoy, but then, the Zone seems to be more for adults than kids, so what is an episode like this doing here?

An old man seems very strange and seems to have magical powers and is good friends with the neighborhood children, specially a little girl in leg bracers. Suddenly, there seems to be two mysterious men after him and he wants to escape, saddening the little girl. Who is he? What has he done? What is he running from.

I'll spoil it for you. Old man is from another planet and he is a King in that planet and he escaped because he got tired of the responsibilities. The two men are his subjects, coming to pursue him to return. It ends with him taking the little girl to the planet to MARRY her. Creeeeeeepy, but probably not in the eyes of the little girl viewer who will be fascinated by the idea of an alien king falling in love with her and taking her away to a glorious magical wedding.

1/5

Episode 26: Little Girl Lost

"Missing: one frightened little girl. Name: Bettina Miller. Description: six years of age, average height and build, light brown hair, quite pretty. Last seen being tucked into bed by her mother a few hours ago. Last heard--aye, there's the rub, as Hamlet put it. For Bettina Miller can be heard quite clearly, despite the rather curious fact that she can't be seen at all. Present location? Let's say for the moment--in the Twilight Zone."

Middle of the night. Couple's little girl is crying. Father gets up, goes to her room, to see what's wrong.

Child is not there.

He can hear her in the room, but she's not IN THE room.

A frightening event to happen for a parent, unable to comprehend what is going on, mixed with the dread of not knowing where one's child is. He calls his physicist friend, who discovers a portal to another dimension in the room. But you can't just go through the portal and get the girl because the other dimension is probably the 4th dimension, and our sense of direction and such would be completely different, and the person going in would completely get it wrong. Science-fiction at its best!

4/5

Episode 27: Person or Persons Unknown

"Cameo of a man who has just lost his most valuable possession. He doesn't know about the loss yet. In fact, he doesn't even know about the possession because like most people, David Gurney has never really thought about the matter of his identity. But he's going to be thinking a great deal about it from now on because that is what he's lost. And his search for it is going to take him into the darkest corners of the Twilight Zone."

I have heaps of illogical concerns. One of them is the premise of this episode. What if I wake up one day and no one knows who I am? My work, my family, my friends, all somehow do not know who I am and no records or pictures prove otherwise. As if I never existed!

Kind of a creepy idea.

Didn't like the twist too much, otherwise, great episode.

4/5

Episode 28: The Little People

"The time is the space age, the place is a barren landscape of a rock-walled canyon that lies millions of miles from the planet Earth. The cast of characters? You've met them: William Fletcher, commander of the spaceship; his copilot, Peter Craig. The other characters who inhabit this place you may never see, but they're here, as these two gentlemen will soon find out. Because they're about to partake in a little exploration into that gray, shaded area in space and time that's known as the Twilight Zone."

Great idea, handled really badly. Two astronauts are stranded in a planet due to ship malfunction. One of them is good and brave and ethical, while the other member is a bit of a dick. The dick guy finds a patch of line that with closer inspection seems to be a modern city. A tiny, tiny city. The dick guy loves this, as he can act like an all powerful God, which I frankly, can sympathize.

But the good guy thinks the dick guy is being such a dick. Anyway, basic message with a typical Twilight Zone ironic ending.

2/5

Episode 29: Four O'Clock

"That's Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance and poison. He's rather arbitrarily chosen four o'clock as his personal Götterdämmerung, and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of an avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it's four o'clock- and wherever you are, it happens to be the Twilight Zone."

Good, but not great. A man uses newspapers, radio, TV, and other forms of private investigation to learn about people's lives and then he passes judgment on whoever he thinks have done something bad, by writing letters or calling their employers, or whatever, and trying to ruin their lives.

But this is not enough, because he wants to do something bigger to destroy evil from the world.

Episode shows people who do injustice in the name of good. Unfortunately, it would have been better if the character was less like some kind of evil villain, it would have benefited with a bit more subtlety.

3/5

Episode 30: Hocus-Pocus and Frisby

"The reluctant gentleman with the sizeable mouth is Mr. Frisby. He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you've no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn't know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture. The place is Pitchville Flats, the time is the present. But Mr. Frisby's on the first leg of a rather fanciful journey into the place we call the Twilight Zone."

In a small town, a man called Frisby, constantly tells tall tales. No matter what his friends talk about, Frisby has done it better and has stories to back it up. His friends know he is bullshitting but they tolerate him because his exaggerations and outright shameless lies amuse them.

But it seems aliens from another planet do not have the concept of lies and take Frisby at his word. They decide that this guy is Earth's most brilliant human…

Cute but terrible ending.

3/5

Episode 31: The Trade-Ins

"Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, aging people who slowly and with trembling fingers turn the last pages of a book of life and hope against logic and the preordained that some magic printing press will add to this book another limited edition. But these two senior citizens happen to live in a time of the future where nothing is impossible, even the trading of old bodies for new. Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, in their twilight years--who are about to find that there happens to be a zone with the same name."

In THE FUTURE old people can buy new young bodies, switch brains, and live longer. At first, I assumed it was a typical sci-fi cautionary tale. But then it seemed it might be interesting because the conflict that arose was each body cost $5,000 but the old couple only had $5,000 between them so only one of them could get it. Unfortunately, by the end, the episode did seem to just be a cautionary tale. I don't understand why a lot of science fiction authors are scared of science. Asimov always used to be one of the few exceptions.

2/5

Episode 32: The Gift

"The place is Mexico, just across the Texas border, a mountain village held back in time by its remoteness and suddenly intruded upon by the twentieth century. And this is Pedro, nine years old, a lonely, rootless little boy, who will soon make the acquaintance of a traveller from a distant place. We are at present forty miles from the Rio Grande, but any place and all places can be--the Twilight Zone."

Had an old theme, alien visits earth, but it feels a bit like an actual adult episode here. Setting is small town in Mexico and the people are scared because something has landed and the police has shot it, it has escaped, leaving one police guy dead.

The alien visits and he looks like a scared young man, upset that he accidently killed a man, he came in peace but everything is going wrong. A bit heavy-handed at the end, but generally, a good episode.

4/5

Episode 33: The Dummy

"You're watching a ventriloquist named Jerry Etherson, a voice-thrower par excellence. His alter ego, sitting atop his lap, is a brash stick of kindling with the sobriquet 'Willy.' In a moment, Mr. Etherson and his knotty-pine partner will be booked in one of the out-of-the-way bistros, that small, dark, intimate place known as the Twilight Zone."

Fucking dummies freak me out. A ventriloquist (did I spell that right? MS Word didn't show the squiggly red line under it!) is good as his job, but he drinks too much and tells his agent that his dummy is alive.

And well, wooden dummy looking at you with those dead eyes is a bit freaky.

3/5

Episode 34: Young Man's Fancy

"You're looking at the house of the late Mrs. Henrietta Walker. This is Mrs. Walker herself, as she appeared twenty-five years ago. And this, except for isolated objects, is the living room of Mrs. Walker's house, as it appeared in that same year. The other rooms upstairs and down are pretty much the same. The time, however, is not twenty-five years ago but now. The house of the late Henrietta Walker is, you see, a house which belongs almost entirely to the past, a house which, like Mrs. Walker's clock here, has ceased to recognize the passage of time. Only one element is missing now, one remaining item in the estate of the late Mrs. Walker: her son Alex, thirty-four years of age and, up till twenty minutes ago, the so-called 'perennial bachelor.' With him is his bride, the former Miss Virginia Lane. They're returning from the city hall in order to get Mr. Walker's clothes packed, make final arrangements for the sale of the house, lock it up and depart on their honeymoon. Not a complicated set of tasks, it would appear, and yet the newlywed Mrs. Walker is about to discover that the old adage 'You can't go home again' has little meaning in the Twilight Zone."

Hehe, love this episode. A couple visit the man's childhood house that he wants to sell. Well, his wife wants him to sell. It seems they are just recently married and the man's mother has died only a year back. The man was very attached to his mother and during the couple's twelve year relationship, it seems the mother was always in the way, causing the woman to feel angry and jealous. And she knows, once the house is sold, all traces of her will be gone and she can enjoy her life.

But a man can't easily replace his love for his mother and being in the house, he feels attached to it, feels closer to his mother, and is nostalgic about his childhood days. Slowly by slowly, he seems more against the idea to sell the house…

4/5

Episode 35: I Sing the Body Electric

"They make a fairly convincing pitch here, It doesn't seem possible, though, to find a woman who might be ten times better than mother in order to seem half as good--except, of course, in the Twilight Zone."

Sentimental crap. Widower buys a robot nanny to raise his kids. For some reason, this crappy episode has the robot nanny be some kind of supernatural robot nanny. She makes marbles come out of thin air, what kind of bullshit is that??

Anyway, all family loves her except one of the girls because her mother left her (by dying) and she believes this robot nanny will also leave her. Everything is resolved in the end.

1/5

Episode 36: Cavender Is Coming

"Submitted for your approval: the case of one Miss Agnes Grep, put on Earth with two left feet, an overabundance of thumbs and a propensity for falling down manholes. In a moment she will up to her jaw in miracles, wrought by apprentice angel Harmon Cavender, intent on winning his wings. And, though, it's a fact that both of them should have stood in bed, they will tempt all the fates by moving into the cold, gray dawn of the Twilight Zone."

I remember a similar episode in one of the previous seasons. Person is not doing well at his job and is clumsy and eccentric but everyone loves him. A supernatural incident changes his life for "the better" but by end of the episode we realize it's better to be unsuccessful and happy than successful and unhappy.

In this episode, an angel who wants to get his wing "helps" a woman. More interesting than the episode was the trivia behind it. It seems the episode was going to be used as a pilot for a new comedy show where the angel comes down every week to help another random person to hilaaaaarious consequences. This episode was the only "Twilight Zone" episode with a laugh track! (in the one I watched, the laugh track has been removed, thankfully)

The show was never picked up, so you can guess how crappy this episode was.

1/5

Episode 37: The Changing of the Guard

"Professor Ellis Fowler, a gentle, bookish guide to the young, who is about to discover that life still has certain surprises, and that the Rock Springs School for Boys lies on a direct path to another institution, commonly referred to as the Twilight Zone."

An old English Literature teacher is forced into retirement and suddenly feels that he might have been worthless during all these years of teaching. Of what use has he been?

"They all come and go like ghosts. Faces, names, smiles, the funny things they said or the sad things, or the poignant ones. I gave them nothing. I gave them nothing at all. Poetry that left their minds the minute they themselves left. Aged slogans that were out of date when I taught them. quotations dear to me that were meaningless to them. I was a failure, Mrs. Landers, an abject, miserable failure. I walked from class to class an old relic, teaching by rote to unhearing ears, unwilling heads. I was an abject dismal failure--I moved nobody. I motivated nobody. I left no imprint on anybody. Now, where do you suppose I ever got the idea that I was accomplishing anything"

It is a very sentimental episode and I usually don't like such episodes, but this was good sentimental. While a lame plot, for some reason, I was willing to overlook it for the heartfelt execution of it.

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity" - Horace Mann

4/5

Season 3 Rating: 2.95/5