T Nation

Best Twilight Zone Episode?

Off Topic
#1

I was doing some shopping last night, and saw some boxed sets of The Twilight Zone. I was looking through the epsiode listing on the back of the boxes, and could remember most of them surprisingly well. For some reason, there are so many episodes that stick out vividly in my mind. Every show had such great atmosphere. There were so many great classics.

That got me to wondering…what’re your favorite episodes? And I don’t want to see any of you weirdo-Outer Limits-losers on here, either. :wink:

–I’d give a Spoiler warning, but the shows been in reruns for like 3 decades, so I don’t feel so bad–

For me, it’s either ‘The Howling Man’, where the guy ends up in the monastery, and unknowingly frees the Devil from prison.

Or, it’s those 4 little words “It’s…it’s a cookbook!”

#2

[quote]Minotaur wrote:
Or, it’s those 4 little words “It’s…it’s a cookbook!”[/quote]
“To Serve Man.” That was a classic episode.

For me, it is “Eye of the Beholder.”

#3

The one with Shatner. Shatner is king.

#4

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
The one with Shatner. Shatner is king.[/quote]

He was in at least 2. The classic with the gremlin on the wing of the airplane, and the one where he’s trapped in the small town diner with his fiancee and the bobblehead thing on the table gives out fortunes.

#5

To serve man is my first choice.

Also the one where the pioneer goes into the time warp and leaps from the 1800’s to the 60’s, get’s some medicine and gives it to his dying son who gets well.

#6

I Am the Night ? Color Me Black
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Abner Biberman

Opening Narration[quote]
Narrator: “Sheriff Charlie Koch on the morning of an execution. As a matter of fact, it’s seven-thirty in the morning. Logic and natural laws dictate that at this hour there should be daylight. It is a simple rule of physical science that the sun should rise at a certain moment and supercede the darkness. But at this given moment, Sheriff Charlie Koch, a deputy named Pierce, a condemned man nammed Jagger and a small, inconsequential village will shortly find out that there are causes and effects that have no precedent. Such is usually the case–in the Twilight Zone.” [/quote]

Memorable quotes

[quote]Jagger: It’s important to get with the majority, isn’t it, Reverand?
Rev. Anderson: The majority is all there is. The minority must have died on a cross two thousand years ago.[/quote]

Ending Narration

[quote]Closing Narration
Narrator: “A sickness known as hate; not a virus, not a microbe, not a germ–but a sickness nonetheless, highly contagious, deadly in its effects. Don’t look for it in the Twilight Zone–look for it in a mirror. Look for it before the light goes out altogether.” [/quote]

#7

[quote]Minotaur wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
The one with Shatner. Shatner is king.

He was in at least 2. The classic with the gremlin on the wing of the airplane, and the one where he’s trapped in the small town diner with his fiancee and the bobblehead thing on the table gives out fortunes.[/quote]

Loved both of these.

But my all time favorite Twilight Zone starred Dick York. Remember him? He was the original Darrin in Bewitched.

The episode is called “A Penny For Your Thoughts.”

Anyone else see it?

#8

Wow! …TZ is the ONLY show I’ve seen every episode of…I hate television, but something about twilight zone is amazing (to me).

The Shatner one is “Nightmare at 20 000 feet” or something, with the gremlin on the plane. They re-did it in the movie.

There are a few I like.
“Time Enough At Last” is the man who works in a bank, but never has enough time to read, because his boss/wife/etc don’t let him. Then he’s in the vault getting something, the door shuts, and an atomic war wipes out everyone. When he gets out, he has all the time in the world to read … except for the patented tz-twist at the end (definitely rings true for me, too … i love to read)

Also, I don’t recall the name, but the one where one man bets another that he can’t be silent for a year. When the year ends, the other man doesn’t have the money to finish on the bet. Again, great ending.

They’re all really good, though … “To Serve Man” is good, check out the Damon Knight story (original).

#9

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Minotaur wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
The one with Shatner. Shatner is king.

He was in at least 2. The classic with the gremlin on the wing of the airplane, and the one where he’s trapped in the small town diner with his fiancee and the bobblehead thing on the table gives out fortunes.

Loved both of these.

But my all time favorite Twilight Zone starred Dick York. Remember him? He was the original Darrin in Bewitched.

The episode is called “A Penny For Your Thoughts.”

Anyone else see it?[/quote]

The two with Shatner are awesome. It’s weird to see Shatner when he was so young compared to today… he’s still the man though.

The one with Dick York is cool, because he gets a power that everyone at some point wishes they could have (reading other’s thoughts) but then Serling takes it to the next level by pondering, well, what if you couldn’t FILTER them out and selectively pick and choose who you wanted to ‘eavesdrop’ on and they show his slow descent into madness when he is bombarded by everyone’s thoughts simultaneously.

Another of my all time faves was the one with the rich old guy who made each of his parasite greedy family members put on these masks and then at the stroke of midnight, their faces became deformed. That one was really cool.

Another cool one was the one with Burgess Meredith, where he is an intellectual who is rendered “obsolete” is some futuristic society. Disturbing.

#10

My dad loved the show and we would watch and tape all of them especially during the times they ran them on marathon. My favorite has to be and forgive me if I have the title wrong “Talking Tina”
where this girls little doll drives her father crazy. You’ve got to keep in mind this was before Child’s Play came out and I would freak out whenever I spent the night over my cousin’s house and she had all of those life size dolls and Teddy Rupskins.

#11

Another favorite is where this gunmen from the 1880’s somehow time travels to mondern day.

Can’t remember the name of that one.

#12

You should get the book The Twilight Zone: Original Stories. I think it has every episode mentioned on this thread as well as some by Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont and Ray Bradbury. Needless to say, it’s a great read.

#13

Yep, the one with the “monster” on the wing of the airliner who eventually looks in the window. Still creeps me out.