Favorite Twilight Zone 1959 Episodes

[Guttersnipe]

I'm inflicting some serious pain on myself by choosing these episodes from their masterful contemporaries. Here goes.

"The Obsolete Man"
"A World of Difference"
"It's a Good Life"
"To Serve Man"
"Five Characters in Search of an Exit"
"The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross"
"The Invaders"
"The Night of the Meek"
"The Midnight Sun"
"Number 12 Looks Just Like You"

You can pick less or more than ten.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I would add "Walking Distance" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Eye of the Beholder" (sometimes known as "A Private World of Darkness") to this list.

 

[Guttersnipe]

I would add "Walking Distance" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Eye of the Beholder" (sometimes known as "A Private World of Darkness") to this list.

Yeah, those are the quintessentials.

 

[Timebender]

* Perhaps to Dream
* Mirror Image
* The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
* The After Hours
* A Thing About Machines
* The Howling Man
* Eye of the Beholder
* Shadow Play
* The Obsolete Man
* Deaths-Head Revisited
* The Jungle
* Five Characters in Search of an Exit
* One More Pallbearer
* The Dummy
* He's Alive
* Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
* Living Doll
* Night Call
* The Masks
* The Fear

 

[Jeffbert]

I just finished s4, & of the 6 I watched Sunday The New Exhibit & On Thursday We Leave for Home tickled me most! Though I must admit Catwoman made rather pleasing Devil on Of Late I Think of Cliffordville, which itself was funny when that poor guy got the worst of the deal, & went from CEO to janitor!

As for listing my favorites, I would have difficulty with the #1, as it is a tie between To Serve Man & The Howling Man.

I would surely include the ones with Burgess Meredith & William Shatner; James (Roscoe P.) Best is also one of my favorites.

This time, I have watched from the first one and am going to finish the series in a month or two. Some of my best memories are in B&W!

 

[Jeffbert]

Oopsie!

I must amend my top choice to Nightmare at 20,000 Feet! To Serve Man & The Howling Man are great stories, but in them, the fun begins near the end; but Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is fun from the very start. It may be in part because it was parodied in THE SIMPSONS' Halloween episode, but regardless, it was funny throughout!

 

[Jeffbert]

Just saw S5, 22, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge! This was classic TTZ, though it just is not the kind to ever be on the New Year's Day marathon. The ending even took me by surprise. Sadly, once seen, it loses its punch.

S5, 24, What's in the Box was wonderful! Similar theme to that one about the camera, guy's TV is on the fritz, & repairman 'really' fixes it! On channel 10, which to anyone but Joe Britt (William Demarest) it is just distortion. But he sees his own future actions. I would have never guessed Joan Blondell was his wife. She was so very pretty during the 1930s. She still had large eyes, but --

Anyway, this was just as funny as 20,000 feet!

 

[narrativus]

The Midnight Sun was interesting. It was about a woman waiting in her apartment while the Earth grew hotter as it fell closer to the Sun. Or...did it?

 

[BAYLOR]

Walking Distance with Gig Young and some of the best acting he ever did . It's a got a great and very soulful musical score by Bernard Herman. This episodes is evocative , wonderful and sad. Young plays a high powered executive who stops a a gas station a mile from the town he was born which is walking distance hence the episode title. he finds the town as it was 25 years ago when he was a child.

 

[pogopossum]

Totally agree as to the quality of the above mentioned episodes.
I must, however, have a slightly different sensibility. Nobody mentioned One For The Angels, episode 2.
Not only does it have the charming Ed Wynn, but it also acheives a humerous spin on the deal with the devil trope.
It has, like few others in the series, a positive depiction of humanity.

 

[KGeo777]

Person or Persons Unknown
The Brain Center at Whipples
Hocus Pocus, and Frisby
The Little People

 

[BAYLOR]

Judgement night

 

[BAYLOR]

The Midnight Sun was interesting. It was about a woman waiting in her apartment while the Earth grew hotter as it fell closer to the Sun. Or...did it?

It had a most ironic ending.

 

[Jeffbert]

Stopover in a Quiet Town "Be careful with your pets, dear, daddy brought them all the way from Earth"

Though it did have the error of assuming a giant child's voice would seem like a human child's voice. I think it ought to have been just a bit different.


I finally finished the whole series! Started with s1 e1, & watched in order.

 

[BAYLOR]

Just saw S5, 22, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge! This was classic TTZ, though it just is not the kind to ever be on the New Year's Day marathon. The ending even took me by surprise. Sadly, once seen, it loses its punch.

S5, 24, What's in the Box was wonderful! Similar theme to that one about the camera, guy's TV is on the fritz, & repairman 'really' fixes it! On channel 10, which to anyone but Joe Britt (William Demarest) it is just distortion. But he sees his own future actions. I would have never guessed Joan Blondell was his wife. She was so very pretty during the 1930s. She still had large eyes, but --

Anyway, this was just as funny as 20,000 feet!

An Occurrence at Owl Creek in terms style and story telling its totally unlike the typical Zone episode.



Whats in the Box. Joe Britt cooked his own goose, all he had to do was think and not react .In seeing what he saw , he should have stepped of the pathway that was leading to that fate. Even at the very last, all he had to do was not get into an argument with his wife.

 

[Matteo]

A Stop at Willoughby is a favourite of mine.

 

[Extollager]

The Midnight Sun was interesting. It was about a woman waiting in her apartment while the Earth grew hotter as it fell closer to the Sun. Or...did it?

One of our favorites in this household -- without doubt in the top ten for the entire series. A scary science fiction premise combined with genuine human interest.

 

[Timebender]

A scary science fiction premise combined with genuine human interest.

That might just sum up the central appeal of The Twilight Zone as a whole.

 

[pogopossum]

From Wikipedia, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (French: La Rivière du hibou, lit. "The Owl River") is a 1962 French short film, almost without dialogue. It was based on the 1891 American short story of the same name by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce. It was directed by Robert Enrico and produced by Marcel Ichac and Paul de Roubaix with music by Henri Lanoë. It won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards. It was also screened on American television as episode 142 (season 5, episode 22) of The Twilight Zone on 28 February 1964."
And as such (as well as I remember) unique in the series, not being written by or produced by Serling. Other descriptions note that the story is one of the most anthologized in the English language. Waaaay back when I first saw it, I remembered having previously read it

 

[Guttersnipe]

@pogopossum It was also made into an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode.