The Twilight Zone stands
out amongst my favorite series for a multitude of reasons. For starters, it’s the only show that I
wasn’t alive and watching it live for at least part of its run on this list. I have encountered the series (and for
the record, I’m just counting the Rod Serling 1950’s/1960’s portion of the
series, not the reboots) through reruns.
As a result, there was no true waiting week after week, pondering what
would happen next. I had the
commercial breaks to go through that, but there was not building with these
characters over the years.
Of course building with characters isn’t really necessary
here, as this is the only anthology show on this list (Alfred Hitchcock Presents wasn’t far off, though). Though Rod Serling’s narrator makes appearances
in every episode, he’s hardly a recurring character, and other than abstract
characters like God, the Devil, and Death, there’s no recurring characters to
latch onto.
As a result of my viewing habits and the fact that this is
an anthology show that doesn’t push you to see every installment (what happened
before…) this is the only show on the list where I haven’t seen every
episode. I’d like to, but the DVD
collections have always been either wildly expensive or not comprehensive, and
so there may be a treasured jewel or two out there that could crack this Top 10
that I haven’t seen. If you have
one that you love in particular that you aren’t seeing listed, the comments
section is ready and willing (I’d love to get some tips). Until that time, though, here are my
absolute favorites (for the record, this is one of the hardest lists I’ve had
to make so far-I’m not looking forward to the Top four after the Sophie’s
Choice I had to make once I got to fifteen finalists).
10. “A Nice Place to
Visit” (#1.28)
The Twilight Zone has
a way of making even the most predictable of episodes creepy and stirring, as
is the case with “Nice Place to Visit.”
Here we have a small-time crook who is shot named Rocky Valentine, and
he is taken to a place where he is given whatever he wants by a man named Pip
(wonderfully played by Sebastian Cabot, who of course would enjoy his greatest
fame as Mr. French on Family Affair). The episode wears on with Rocky
becoming bored with everything being predetermined and given to him on a silver
platter. All the time Rocky
assumes that this is heaven, but in the end, Pip, with a menacing cackle
proclaims, “Mr. Valentine, this is the other place!” Rocky tries to escape from his own personal hell, and we get
a trippy and nasty sense of what The
Twilight Zone has to offer.
9. “Nightmare at
20,000 Feet” (#5.3)
Here’s where the truth really hurts-yes, my friends, William
Shatner can act. Quite well when
given the chance, in fact. This
episode, which also features Christine White as Shatner’s forlorn wife, is one
of the most iconic of the series, and while the other Shatner episode (the
terrific “Nick of Time”) has a more terrifying and twist-y ending, this one is
more exhilarating in the moment.
The final scenes, with Shatner opening the airplane door amidst
certainty that the creature is going to take down the plane-you will be on the
edge of your chair. One of the
truly wonderful things about anthology television is that the rules of the show
(that the main characters cannot die or be wildly discredited) are gone, and
you’re left with a petrifying reality: the crazy man you scoff at may just be
telling the truth.
8. “Five Characters
in Search of an Exit” (#3.14)
The good Twilight Zone’s
now how to land that gut-punch final moment where we say, “ohhh” and realize
what has been in front of us the whole time. The great Twilight
Zones, though, manage to create something real before we get to the twist, and
make no mistake, “Five Characters” is one of those great episodes. We get to know a clown, ballerina, army
major, tramp, and bagpiper throughout the episode as they are trapped in a
large metal container, not knowing how they got there. Theories abound as to where they are,
including their dreams or even Hell (this is such a fun wink to the Twilight Zone, since both options would
totally be plausible within the context of the series). Instead, though, we discover that they
are all toys in a bin, abandoned and left for an orphanage, doomed to forever be
passed around without any connections.
It’s a heartbreaking ending, and a testament to all five actors involved
that they have made such an impact in twenty minutes.
7. “The Eye of the
Beholder” (#2.6)
One of those episodes we all know the ending of, and
probably figured out to begin with, but it’s such a cool concept and such a
wonderful spin on a story that you cannot help but fall in love with it. I adore the way that the story really
tries to keep you convinced that you are waiting to see the hideous nature of
the patient’s face, at least at first.
Had you not known to expect the unexpected (it is the Twilight Zone,
after all), you might not have realized that it was beautiful Donna Douglas
underneath the bandages (kudos to the filmmakers for not using her recognizable
voice to give away the ending).
The final moments, where we see the thinly veiled prejudice metaphor-chilling.
6. “Will the Real
Martian Please Stand Up?” (#2.28)
A classic whodunit, and largely a bottle episode for the
show, we get a handful of people abandoned in a diner, with one of them clearly
an alien. Throughout the episode,
which is almost entirely dialogue and little action, we see accusations fly
throughout, with each person coming under suspicion. The great thing about The
Twlight Zone is that the clues are all there as to which person is the
Martian, but they’re subtle enough that you don’t catch them. The truly great scene at the end,
though (parodied to death since, but who can blame them thanks to the cheeky
visuals?) where we learn that there is not one but two aliens in that diner, is
classic Twilight Zone-twisty and
still vastly entertaining throughout.
5. “The Masks”
(#5.25)
First off, trivia time: legendary actress Ida Lupino
directed this episode, making her the only person to both star in and direct
different episodes of The Twilight Zone. It’s also (probably) the least known of
these episodes, and appropriately seems to be the installment that rings in
midnight during the New Year’s Eve marathons. The reason it feels essential is because it is petrifying in
the absolute way it handles the evils of the characters. You don’t feel for the Harper family as
they sit back and wait for their patriarch (played by Robert Keith) to die,
hoping to get all of his money.
They are, of course, boorish, cruel, vain, and flighty. And yet when the masks come off and
they are hideously deformed, pity and shock overtake you as an audience. That’s what The Twilight Zone does best-it knows how to mess with your emotions
and gives you a concept that you rarely see in television: a lack of escape.
4. “Time Enough at
Last” (#1.8)
Like all of the great Twilight
Zone episodes, it’s been parodied to death and even parceled through
scientifically. That being said,
this is better than “To Serve Man” (the other quite iconic episode, and one
that just misses this list) thanks to the way that it sets up the entire
episode. So simple is the story
(one man’s quest for self-acceptance-that’s really what it’s about) that the
devastating ending hits even harder.
With his glasses on the ground and his entire life ruined (and that gun
too close by for comfort), Burgess Meredith screams, “there was time now!” It’s a message that holds true in real
life-that happiness, like all things, is fleeting and we don’t know when it
will leave us next.
3. “It’s a Good Life”
(#3.8)
If you want to go for full-on horror, there’s no beating
little Anthony Fremont. There’s
something petrifying about a little boy who is in charge of the world, and we
see that in this episode, as Anthony, given absolute power, wreaks havoc on the
entire town and tortures people into thinking only happy thoughts. The episode gave us the illusion of
being sent into the corn, and gave a young Cloris Leachman a great role as
Anthony’s mother, but the best part is the final moments, when someone has the
courage to stand up to Anthony in hopes that someone else will kill him, but
the people are too petrified to move (Rod Serling’s symbolism, once again) and
Anthony is left to destroy another day.
Modern horror films would kill to have such simple evil onscreen and such
terror elicited from their audience.
2. “The Obsolete Man”
(#2.29)
While Numbers three through about twelve on this list are
fairly fluid, the top two are written in granite. This episode, somehow even better than Burgess Meredith’s
previous one, is something you would never see on television today, at least
not without more niceties (the reality is that this show could never exist
today on television in any form-it’d be WAY too controversial, and how sad is
that?). Meredith plays a former
librarian who has been deemed obsolete by the state. Throughout the half hour, we see him argue with a
totalitarian member of the state, going into the philosophical need for art and
freedom of religion and speech.
The final moments are easy to see coming if you’re thinking about it,
but Serling spends too much time making you ponder your own government and your
own life to think about what is going to predict the next moves. It’s a groundbreaking installment in
the series, and one that never really loses its potency-it may be more relevant
now than when it first aired.
1. “The Monsters are
Due on Maple Street” (#1.22)
So tragically real, it’s one of the only major episodes of
the series that has not been lampooned in a Treehouse of Horror, perhaps
because it’s too frightening to mock.
A simple enough setting-the power is out after a giant flash, and a
little boy speculates that it may be something more sinister than a
meteor-perhaps an alien? The next
twenty minutes is a frightening look at mob mentality, and the way that people
begin to justify their increasingly violent and inhumane actions in the face of
approval from the person standing next to them. As I’ve alluded to above, realism is what truly makes this
series petrifying-it’s the fact that this sort of reaction to an unknown is
completely plausible, if not likely.
Later in the episode we see panic, and then a riot break out, and all
the while the aliens on the hill watch as the humans destroy themselves. An allegory for our reaction to
change? Nuclear war? Prejudice? It’s a story so universal it works on almost every level,
but the one it works best on? Damn
riveting television.
And those are my Top 10 Twilight
Zone episodes-do you have a favorite that was missed? Would you have rearranged the order? And what would be your number one? Share in the comments!
For more of my favorites: Girls, Pushing Daisies, How I Met Your Mother, Game of Thrones, The Office, Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, South Park, Mad Men,
No comments:
Post a Comment