Bookending the Twilight Zone
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When you look at the beginning and the ending efforts of arguably the best genre tv show in history, you need to expect there might be low’s and high’s to discuss. Furthermore, you‘d expect the first episode to have more lows than the last, simply because it is still finding its footing. But that isn’t the way we saw it. Episode one‘s story misdirection, although not suggestive of entering the Zone “Canon” enough to be formulated in the very next episode, did establish a great twist ending which is a hallmark of Serling’s best material. The last episode, judge for yourself, shows a great show fell apart on its last effort. Listen in and as always give us a shout because we would love to hear from you. Even if your accent isn’t truly Southern. Read More…
Twist Endings Part 2
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We have a double dose of Twist Endings Part Two for you this time. Two episodes, somewhat vastly different except we see they both involve space travel, misunderstandings, and violent deaths. Actually, both stories capitalize on the hubris of mankind to reach out into the stars with a blind eye to the consequences of interacting with a new environment and interacting with its inhabitants and even ourselves. Although both use space as their settings, what is truly magical about the Twilight Zone is once again the stories that Serling crests from there are so far away yet are able to look at mankind’s faults so closely. Read More…
Eye of the Beholder
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Joined by one of our listeners, Rick, this month we look at one of the most highly regarded Twilight Zone episodes of all time: “Eye of the Beholder.”
Darrell has a lot of books and DVD’s about the show. Robert reads everything he can find on the Net that is related to the show. Rick, my friends has Rick—which means an encyclopedic mind that can rattle off a list of episodes that didn‘t originally air plus he knows nearly everything else there is to know about the cast member’s previous and latter work. IMDB, Rick is calling and needs you to cite him for everything you know.
Seriously though, what a pleasure it was talking to Rick! Please listen in and send us your feedback or join us down the road for a podcast episode. Just be ready because Rick will already know everything you‘ve ever said on the subject and that’s fine by us.
All three of us agreed this is one of the best episodes there is. As the show points out it isn’t right to separate others for being different, but you can‘t help place this one high on the shelf of meaningful stories. Enjoy! Read More…
Walking Distance
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These 3 pairs of boots were made for walking the walk and the distance to a weird stroll down your hometown’s memory lane. Feedback caller extraordinaire, Bradley, sits in on his favorite classic episode. Robert Mr. Magoo‘d his observations again as he missed details, and Darrell and Bradley easily noticed every small intricately placed mirror angle and shading. Bradley dazzled us with theories about alternate realities and Robert just plain got dizzy keeping pace and settled for the view the episode is just a simple fun tale. Listen in and let us know how you felt about it. We‘d love to hear/read your thoughts. Read More…
Jack Klugman Episodes
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We really picked two amazing Jack Klugman Twilight Zone episodes in which each had its own version of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. One episode was darker than the other, but Klugman’s phenomenal acting was a bright, dichotomous dark star. In “A Passage For Trumpet” we explore the dark side of creativity and have a meta discussion of what is real when you perform inebriated versus when you perform sober. Clearly, Robert wished he would have had buckets of disinfecting alcohol to clean off double licked mouthpieces. And People, Please, Do Not Thump, or Tap a trumpet mouthpiece! But in “In Praise of Pip,” Klugman’s character gets his wish to die instead of his son. Problem is he is already dying, but Klugman’s performance doesn’t risk dying and so does that brilliant performance once again of child actor Billy Mummy. Simply put, Klugman is right up there with Shatner, Meredith, Hoffman, Brando, and Hackman as an actor’s actor. Just a fantastically intense actor. As always, we invite you to contact us with your thoughts. Thanks, and Enjoy! Read More…
Time Travel
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Yes, we finally got to a couple classic episodes we aren’t crazy about. That’s ok, IMDB ratings seemed to like them more than us, but for us wasn’t clear to why the TZ that is so famous for pointing out socio-historical injustice missed the mark in the time travel episode back to the battle of Little BigHorn. Only one line in the entire script that was positive about Native Americans. Nothing about their inhumane treatment up to either of the story’s timelines. And in the other episode, it seemed too full of an incredibly accurate portrayal of a calm flight crew in a TZ sound barrier time loop, but no mention of “what if” the plane landed in the wrong time line—what then? Read More…
When Toys Attack
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Are perceptions that toys (specifically human-looking dolls) are scary and sometimes evil a right of passage for childish thoughts? Are all of us born with those perceptions ingrained in our DNA? Do we perceive a toy to be threatening purely by the way it just sits on a shelf and looks at us with a blank, inanimate stare? Or, are toys merely a lifeless mirror we animate with our imaginative thoughts and amplify how we see the bad and evil around us and imbue them into a benign talisman in which we are to blame for it now being scary? Does a mean human deserve to be killed by an evil doll if he deserves to die? Read More…
Christmas in the Zone
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In two classic, albeit thematically loosely connected episodes by a Salvation Army collector’s Christmas bell, we see a story of one man’s salvation is found because he yearns so painfully for his existence to impact those meek people who desperately need help, and we see another story of a group of “people” who question their very odd, trapped existence and we see there is no hope for them anywhere.
Alien Invasions
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Martians, three-eyed short order cooks from Venus, and a little sci-fi nerd named Tommy wreak havoc in this month’s classic look back edition of the podcast. These episodes contain the one thing all great stories must contain to make them great—universal themes. These two episodes highlight the lowlight of the human condition that is the tendency to forgo reason in favor of attacking what we think we immediately see is the cause of a problem rather than seeking further the answers to that which scares us because we don’t understand it. Human imagination can be a wonderful thing, but left untempered by grounded cause and effect reasoning our imaginations can run wild and dream up grave thoughts with mob-like reactions to those thoughts. Robert and Darrell examine the universal theme that mankind is flawed, but share their own stories of how mankind does, in fact excel beyond those universal limitations. Read More…
Burgess Meredith I
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Here we are. Two tales of one actor as two different bookworms. Darrell and Robert take on the great, classic Burgess Meredith episodes and answer once and for all if Robert is or isn’t related to Lynn Venable, the original story writer of TIME ENOUGH AT LAST. That episode, adapted for the show by Rod Serling, is easily identified as one of the most recognizable stories not just for THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but it is arguably one of the most recognizable television episodes of any show of all time. The amazing thing though about this podcast episode is our guys just might have liked THE OBSOLETE MAN even more than TIME ENOUGH AT LAST. Listen in and share your thoughts if you’d like to join the conversation. Read More…
