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[January 16, 1962] Accidents (un)happen (The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episodes 13-16)

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by Gideon Marcus

It is common practice in statistics to average out data over time in a rolling fashion.  This gives you smoother lines, free of the jagged spikes of noisy data.  For the last several months, The Twilight Zone has shown a definite tendency toward the lower end of the quality scale, at least in comparison with its brilliant earlier seasons. 

But, I'm happy to report that the last month (ending January 5, anyway) showed a distinct and sustained improvement.  I'll let the Young Traveler do most of the talking this time around since I find I don't have much to improve upon her insights!

(Once upon a time, written by Richard Matheson and featuring the great Buster Keaton as a janitor who is propelled from the late 19th Century into the world of today…)


by Lorelei Marcus

Going into these four weeks, I was really dreading what was to come. Prior experience had given me doubts about the quality of these most recent Twilight Zone episodes. Thankfully, this time around, you will not have to hear me rant about how awful these past few episodes were!

To start us off, we had a charming little episode about a man from 1892. He goes to the present (1962) and finds a large scientist who just so happens to be obsessed with that earlier time period. I won't say much more about the plot since I highly recommend you see the episode yourself. It did give us a lot of laughs, and was partly shot in the old, silent movie style. This was definitely a breath of fresh air from the usual grim twilight zone themes.

(Five Characters in Search of an Exit, adapted by Rod Serling from a story by Marvin Petal, whose title is literally descriptive…)

This second episode did return to a darker feel, but this time it was done fairly well. The episode started out with a small group of oddly specific but different people. A soldier, clown, ballerina, hobo and piper stuck in a completely metal prison, but with an open top. Despite guessing the answer at pretty much the beginning of the episode, it still managed to reveal just little enough information to keep it interesting.  At one point I wondered if this was a metaphor for depression, that feeling of being trapped with no exit, accepting the hopelessness of escape, and eventually giving up entirely.  Just to keep you on your toes, I won't tell you the ending. I do recommend you watch this episode yourself. Even though me and my father predicted many things that happened, it never felt like the episode went on for too long, which frankly, is a real treat these days.

(A Quality of Mercy, adapted by Rod Serling from an idea by Sam Rolfe, in which an American platoon Lieutenant must weigh the virtues of assaulting a beleaguered Japanese position on the eve of V-J day…)

Unfortunately, this batch was not quite four for four. At least this episode was forgettable enough that I could pretend it didn't happen at all! Alas no, I must do a review on it for you readers, so here I go. As I said before, the episode itself was entirely mediocre, but I did like the message and the effects. “Everyone is human, even if they are the enemy” is a great lesson that I think to be very true. The makeup was fairly impressive at making one of the actors look asian, and the Japanese accents weren't completely atrocious. I would recommend spending your 20 minutes in a more productive manner, but I will not stop you from watching this episode.


by Gideon Marcus

My problem with this episode was absence of crisis.  Rather than allowing the Lieutenant to learn from his jaunt through the Twilight Zone, and then let the audience judge the wisdom of his actions, instead decisions are made for the protagonist, and the whole plot sort of meanders along without influence by the show's participants.  More tightly written, and with actual consequences, this could have been a great one.  C'est la TV.

(Intermission, in which the Traveler family detours away from The Twilight Zone by way of The Twilight Zone…)


by Lorelei Marcus

Before we watched this fourth episode, my dad got caught up in the game show, The Price Is Right, where people were bidding on this cool looking soda fountain! When it ended we changed the channel and started watching. The episode had a much different feel this time, being more of a comedy sitcom rather than the usual Twilight Zone format. The twist seemed to be that one of the cast members was a talking horse! Oh wait a minute, we weren't watching Twilight Zone, we were watching Mr. Ed! Oops.

So Mr. Ed finishes and we go to watch Twilight Zone. Perhaps, we thought, we would be able to catch the end of it, enough to make a review on. We were pretty sure we'd found the right show; it certainly was more true to Twilight Zone in that it had a lot of scientific themes. Still, it was very different, mainly in the fact that it was entirely cast with puppets!  Oops, again! Turns out we were watching Supercar, not Twilight Zone. 

That's when we realized were still on the wrong network. So we turn to CBS, and find…The Andy Griffith show. Good enough. I like this show. 

Still, what happened to Twilight Zone? We start getting ready for bed, only then remembering that this was Monday, and Twilight Zone airs on Friday. OOPS. Darned winter break. Made us forget entirely what day of the week it was!

(Nothing in the Dark, by George Clayton Johnson, featuring a return of Mr. Death and the woman whose profound fear of him has kept her alive – so far…)

Well, the Friday after that wild goose chase, we did end up watching the last Twilight Zone episode. This episode was a lot more reminiscent of older Twilight Zone shows, which was really nice to see after all the lousy newer ones. Like the second episode, it had a good theme ("Things in darkness are the same as they are in the light, and should not be feared") which I really appreciated. The episode was just long enough to tell a full satisfying story, and it was never too predictable. The acting was slightly off, but it was intentionally so, hinting at certain hidden truths, but not all out saying them. Over all it was a well rounded episode that I thoroughly enjoyed.

My episode scores, in order, are 4, 3, 2, and 3.5. This comes out to an average of 3 stars out of 5. I very much enjoyed most of these episodes and recommend you watch the first, third, and fourth ones. With such a good lineup, it's starting to look a little more promising in terms of episode quality. Hopefully it will continue to be this way for the next few weeks!

This is the Young Traveler, signing off.

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TV

[December 8, 1961] Fore!  (The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episodes 9-12)

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by Gideon Marcus

I feel badly, I really do.  Earlier this year, I was given an award by Rod Serling's people.  It's an honor I treasure tremendously.  After all, Mr. Serling has given us some of the greatest television since the medium was invented.

But now the wheels are coming off The Twilight Zone, and I can't help but be candid about it.  This half hour show that used to be the highlight of Fridays is now something of a chore, an event I might well skip if I hadn't committed to covering it in its entirety. 

Serling himself confessed last Spring, "I've never felt quite so drained of ideas as I do at this moment.  Stories used to bubble out of me so fast I couldn't set them down on paper quick enough – but in the last two years I've written forty-seven of the sixty-eight Twilight Zone scripts, and I've done thirteen of the first twenty-six for the next season.  I've written so much I'm woozy.  It's just more than you really should do.  You can't retain quality.  You start borrowing from yourself, making your own cliches.  I notice that more and more."

The fact is, of this latest batch of four episodes, none of them are particularly worth watching.  There's Death's Head Revisited, about a sadistic Nazi concentration camp commander who goes back to Dachau to relive happy memories.  He is haunted and tortured by the spirits of those he tormented.  Great subject matter, but tediously treated.  It's heavy handed and a bore.

Then you've got The Midnight Sun, where the Earth is knocked out of its orbit, spiraling inevitably toward a fiery death.  A woman and her landlady struggle against the rising heat futilely until the both succumb…only for us to find out that the woman was actually in a fevered dream, and the Earth is spiraling away from the sun toward a frozen doom.  I like Lois Nettleton, the star (I also enjoyed her the following week in Route 66), but there just wasn't much to the episode.  Still, it may well have been the best of the four.

Still Valley, in which a Confederate sergeant gains the power to stop the Civil War, but only by enlisting the aid of the Devil, has its moments.  In the end, though, it's too static a piece to recommend.  Moreover, we've seen the gimmick of actors frozen in their tracks for long periods in the first season episode, Elegy.

Finally, there's Jungle.  It starts promisingly enough, with a stuffy corporate board deciding to approve a dam-building project in Africa, despite the threat of curse from local witch doctors.  But the second act, where John Dehner flees the drums of the Dark Continent overlaying a quiet New York night scene, never leads to a third.  It simply goes on and on before reaching an utterly predictable climax.  It's well shot and acted, but there's no there there. 

None of these episodes merit more than two, maybe two-and-a-half stars.  If not for the production quality, I'd think I was watching one of the lesser anthologies like the one Roald Dahl hosts.  If things don't get better, I fear this may be the last season for this Hugo-winning has-been.


by Lorelei Marcus

After another four weeks, I have yet to be impressed by Twilight Zone's newest episodes. Four out of four episodes were mediocre and forgettable.

To start off we have an episode about another man that goes insane. The victim is a sadistic Nazi soldier, who revisits an old concentration camp he used to run. He gets haunted by the ghosts of his tortured victims, and they subject him to the same, unspeakably terrible things he did to them. The visuals were alright, and I didn't know what to expect at the beginning of the episode, which seems to be getting rarer and rarer for Twilight Zone, but never the less it was pretty mediocre.

The next episode was a sci-fi apocalypse “what if” situation. The Earth had gotten knocked out of its orbit and was moving closer and closer to the sun. It stars two women, and tells the story of how they're trying to survive. I did like some of the effects in the episode, especially when they got creative and made a painting out of wax so they could make it appear as if it was melting. However, even the effects really didn't make up for the stereotypical plot. The ending was alright, even if the twist was fairly predictable. I suppose I should be grateful that there even was a twist considering that's starting to become a rarity in Twilight Zone episodes too. After having just read Fritz Leiber's A Pail of Air, which is a short story with a similar concept, I think this episode could've been written much better. Still, it proved to be my favorite out of the bunch.

The third episode was another take on a Civil War scenario. There has been a lot of Civil War themed content due to its recent 100th anniversary! The episode starts off with a confederate soldier coming across a town of “Yankees.” The only catch is they're all frozen! Not dead, but frozen in place, unable to move. We soon find out that the cause of this was an old man who practiced witchcraft. Eventually the old man gives the soldier the book, and leaves. The episode ends with the soldier throwing away the book, because even if he could use this book to win the war, the guilt of going against God would be strong. So he burns the book instead. Seeing all the people frozen in place was interesting, but otherwise it was another bland episode.

Finally, the last episode was all about superstitions. The entire episode was predictable and much longer than it needed to be. I did like how there was a real lion in the show, but that was about the only part I liked. I was very bored for basically the entire episode. The plot was extremely simple, and there wasn't even a twist! I was thoroughly unimpressed.

Overall, the episodes all had decent effects, but lacked plots and pacing. The twists were dull or non-existent, the pacing was much too slow, and the endings were entirely too predictable. I give these episodes an average of 1.75 stars, with the first being 1, second being 2.5, third being 2, and fourth 1.5.

This bunch was thoroughly unsatisfying, and I hope to see better from Mr. Serling in the future.

This is the Young Traveler, Signing Off.

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TV

[Nov. 5, 1961] Settling in (The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episodes 5-8)

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by Gideon Marcus

and


by Lorelei Marcus

The house that Rod built was showing signs of decay, but, as happened last season, The Twilight Zone has gotten a little better a few episodes in.  It's not perfect, mind you, but I'm still tuning in on Friday.  In fact, Serling's show, Andy Griffith, and Route 66 are my strongest bulwark against the "vast wasteland" lying behind the screen of the one-eyed monster (sadly, Route 66 wasn't on this week, more's the pity).

Anyway, submitted for your approval are the next four episodes of the Third Season (descriptions followed by commentary by the Traveler and then the Young Traveler):

Jack Klugman returns for a amazing turn in A Game of Pool as a aspiring billiards shark who wants nothing more than to beat the best – a deceased legend called "Fats" (played by comedian, Jonathan Winters in a surprisingly humorless performance).  Well, he gets his chance…since this is The Twilight Zone. 

The writing is some of the pithiest I've seen on this show, and Klugman is an absolute scene-stealer. If there's any kind of downer, it's the ending.  While logical, it also feels "safest" for the show (I understand no one was really happy with Pool's conclusion, and it was shot several ways).  Four stars.

For the past four weeks I've watched another four episodes of Twilight Zone with my father!  The first episode we watched was about a wannabe legendary pool player, who had a pool game with the legend of that time.  I won't spoil the ending or anything, but it was very suspenseful and had great pacing.  I enjoyed it very much, there was just enough mystery to keep it interesting.  It was refreshing after a lot of badly paced and bland episodes.  Three and a half stars.

Up next is The Mirror, featuring a Castro stand-in (played by the decidedly non-Latin Peter Falk) as the paranoid dictator of a Cuba stand-in.  After Falk is notified by the captured Bautista stand-in that he has inherited a mirror that shows him his would-be assassins, the island dictator quickly dispatches his compatriots. 

Did I say quickly?  I meant over the course of twenty minutes of swaggering, tedious, brown-faced, fake-bearded monologues.  Falk may have been nominated for the Oscar last year, but this performance wouldn't let you on to that info.  On the other hand, while bad, the episode has the virtue of being memorable, at least.  My daughter and I have taken to doing faux-Castro/Falk impressions whenever we see each other in the bathroom looking glass…  Two stars.

Speaking of "badly paced and bland episodes," the next episode we watched was bad.  It was about a new Cuban leader who ends up murdering all his friends due to mistrust.  It's as boring as my father makes it sound.  The worst part, is this drags on for 20 minutes!  It's like they thought of one semi-interesting idea, and decided to stretch it so thin across the run time, that there was practically nothing there.  Please, save yourself some time and don't watch this episode.  One and a half stars.

The Grave is a Halloweeny piece set in the Old West.  Lee Marvin plays a bounty hunter who has been on the trail of an outlaw for months, never quite summoning the courage to face the criminal down.  The bandit's demise comes at the hands of his own kin, the people of his town resolving to finish the job themselves.  But with his last gasp, the outlaw threatens to strangle Marvin from beyond the grave.  After a good amount of whiskey-fueled goading, and after a little more whiskey-fueled loin-girding, Marvin visits the outlaw's burial site…and is found dead the next day.  Was it a heart attack?  Or the satisfaction of a death curse? 

A plodding episode, but with some decent acting.  Two and a half stars.

This third episode was fairly forgettable.  So forgettable that I actually had to get up, halfway through writing this, and ask my father what it was about again.  I found the ending to be the most interesting part, so I won't spoil it, however getting to there was painfully slow.  There wasn't a setting change until the very end, and the middle was just people sitting and talking.  I must admit that I almost fell asleep at times; still you may watch this if you like.  As I said before, it has a decent ending, but its a matter of if you want to waste your time getting there.  Two stars.

Last up is the thoroughly unpleasant It's a Good Life, starring Bill Mumy, a tyke who starred in one of last season's episodes.  The boy has the psychic ability to do, well, anything.  And, like most 6-year old kids with untempered power, he is a terror.  His fellow rural villagers live in constant fear of being brutally murdered and then "wished into the cornfield."  One brave soul decides he can't take anymore and attempts to distract Mumy with an angry outburst, entreating the adults to take the opportunity bash the kid's head in.  Alas, the townspeople, while they clearly are miserable, can't overcome their fears.  The rebel is slaughtered, and life, such as it is, goes on. 

As horror, Life is effective if overwrought.  I take it as allegory, however.  Life depicts the discomfort humans will endure to avoid a worse fate, even when these same humans have the power to eliminate the source of their discomfort.  As such, I found it effective.  Three stars.

Finally, today's episode.  I really don't have much to say about it honestly.  The story was very straightforward, and there was no real message or conflict.  I kept waiting for something to happen that would change the course of the story, but no, it was just a boy with mind powers who didn't feel empathy.  I felt it went on a little too long, like most Twilight Zone episodes do, and could've used another element to help keep the story interesting.  Two and a half stars.

In total I give all these episodes a mean of 2.5 stars.  They were fairly average, and I really only recommend the first one to watch.  The fourth one might be good to see as well, just to be literate (as I imagine "wishing people into the cornfield" is going to become a popular phrase); however I wouldn't recommend it otherwise.

This is the Young Traveler, signing off….

…and the less-Young Traveler, also signing off.  Next stop…Japan!  Stay tuned for pictures and articles from the Land of the Rising Sun.

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[Oct. 15, 1961] Top of the Third (The Twilight Zone, Season 3)

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by Gideon Marcus

and


by Lorelei Marcus

Two years ago, CBS aired the first episode of a new television anthology, one destined for the history books.  It was called The Twilight Zone, and it featured science fiction and fantasy themed stories in a most sophisticated fashion.  Twilight Zone garnered its creator, Rod Serling, a much deserved Emmy, and if Serling be remembered for nothing else, it's certain he will leave a lasting legacy.

The new season began last month, and though I had high hopes, Serling's creation is starting to feel a little tired.  Word through the grapevine is he's a bit storied out, and the episodes that used to flow like water from his pen come a lot more sluggishly.  That said, a half hour of Twilight Zone is still better than most hours of other television — and two hours have already been aired this year.  Let's take a look, shall we?  (Synopsis first, then my commentary followed by the Young Traveler's)

First up is Two, and it's easily my favorite of the new crop.  This may well be attributable to it having been written by someone other than Serling – in this case, writer/director Montgomery Pittman.  Two features an abandoned urban setting some years after the start of World War Three.  A ragged young invader (Elizabeth Montgomery) in a threadbare uniform is scavenging for scraps when she runs across a similarly bedraggled native soldier (Charles Bronson).  Though the latter would be quite happy to forget the horrors of war, the Russian woman continues the conflict, repeatedly attacking the American.  Ultimately, through kindness and appeal to reason, Bronson convinces Montgomery to give up the fight, her gun, her uniform, and the two head off into the sunset as friends. 

There is little dialogue in this episode and no twist.  It's just a little post-apocalyptic meet cute.  What makes Two work is the sublime cinematography, the deft acting.  Bronson has already proven to be a charismatic leading man (q.v. Master of the Air), and Montgomery delivered her virtually wordless role convincingly.  Four stars.

Over the past couple of weeks, me and my father have been watching the first few episodes of the new season!  The first episode was fairly standard.  It was, once again, about life after a nuclear dust-up.  There were only two characters, a male and female soldier from opposite sides of the war.  The episode was basically just them interacting, and almost no words were spoken.  It was exactly what it was trying to be, and I don't really have much else to say about it.  You may watch it if you like, but honestly, I would recommend skipping this episode.  Two stars.

Serling-penned The Arrival begins compellingly enough: a DC-3 lands at a busy airport with not a single soul or piece of luggage on board.  Grant Sheckly, an FAA investigator, is brought in to crack the case.  A little past halfway, realizing that none of the pieces are adding up to a coherent whole, Sheckly concludes that the plane is an illusion, the result of some kind of hypnosis.  In a tense scene, Sheckly places his hand in the path of the plane's spinning propeller, and the aircraft disappears…along with the rest of the airport crew in the hangar with him! 

Sadly, this is the peak of the episode.  It turns out that the DC-3 is not some kind of ghost ship, nor is there some sinister purpose behind the apparition.  Rather, the plane is a personal demon of Sheckly's; 17 years ago, the plane had disappeared without a trace, and Sheckly's inability to solve the case has haunted him ever since.  It's entirely too prosaic an explanation for The Twilight Zone, quite possibly the least satisfying resolution to what started as a most promising episode.  Two stars.

The second episode was interesting, at least until the end.  It was about a ghost plane with no one on it, and the man who was trying to figure out how it landed by itself.  His eventual conclusion was that the plane simply didn't exist, and that turned out to be true.  In the end, the man was just crazy, end of story.  In my opinion there were a lot of stupid moments that could've easily been avoided that really damaged the story.  It was an interesting concept, but not very well carried out.  Despite the bad ending, I would recommend watching this one, as there were some interesting parts.  Two and a half stars.

The lackluster run continues through The Shelter, another Serling story.  A convivial birthday party for a neighborhood doctor is broken up by a bulletin from CONELRAD: unidentified flying objects, believed to be missiles, have been detected, and there is but a matter of minutes to reach safety.  The forward-thinking sawbones had built a shelter in his basement, and he quickly repairs there with his family.  Then the doctor's friends arrive, each pleading to be let in, but the doctor refuses.  Whipped into a panicked frenzy, the neighbors bickeringly debate breaking into the shelter, then fight amongst themselves for the privilege of displacing the doctor's family.  Racial slurs are cast against the one Jewish neighbor.  Just as the friends batter down the door to the shelter, CONELRAD announces that the UFOs were harmless space debris.  The neighbors, shamefaced, attempt to apologize to the doctor, but it is clear that the trappings of civilization cling loosely to them – and to the physician, as well, who refused to share his refuge. 

It's not horrible, but this message was done more satisfyingly (and in a less over-the-top fashion) in the first season episode, The Monsters are due on Maple Street.  Two stars.

Episode three was fairly straight-forward.  It re-explored a common Twilight Zone topic of testing human nature under immense stress and danger.  I didn't enjoy it very much, simply because people going crazy and yelling at eachother is not my cup of tea.  However, it is still an interesting episode and I recommend you watch it.  Three stars.

Last up for now is yet another Serling episode, the Civil War piece, The Passerby.  In the wake of Appomattox, a train of bedraggled soldiers trudges past a burned out home toward a final destination.  The inhabitant of the house is a fever-ridden widow whose husband died at Gettysburg.  She is joined by a maimed Confederate sergeant, who keeps her company as they are visited by several spectral forms in uniform.  One is the husband of one of the widow's friends, a man the widow believed had been killed.  Then a Union lieutenant whose death the sergeant personally witnessed arrives, asking for water. 

The next morning, the sergeant confesses to a deep desire to continue down the road.  As the widow pleads for him not to leave, she hears the rich baritone of her husband.  He arrives, embracing her, and it is clear now that he, the sergeant, and even the widow are all ghosts of the war dead.  Last up the road is Honest Abe, himself, the last casualty of the "Great Unpleasantness."

The first half is a talky muddle, the widow giving an overwrought performance of the kind I might expect in a high school play.  Yet, even though it was clear where the story was going (and I have, in fact made fun of shows employing this exact gimmick), I found its resolution somewhat moving.  It's nicely scored, too.  It deserves two stars, but I'll give it three anyway.

Last week's episode was probably my favorite.  It was about a civil war fighter on the long road home who stops, seeking hospitality from a nice young woman.  I won't spoil too much (though it looks like my dad may have), but despite the predictable ending, I still enjoyed the episode.  The acting was good, the sets, though simple, were attractive, and just overall it had a moody feel.  Of course, I highly recommend you watch this one on your own.  Three and a half stars.

So ends the first batch of the third season.  A mediocre batch, to be sure, though I have to remember that Season Two started badly, too. 

Next week, Galactic Journey will return to the written word.  It's a little book called The Planet Strappers, and I think you'll enjoy it (the review, if not the book).  In the meantime, as you know, I went to a small convention in Seattle last week.  While there, I met a lovely young lady who has since become a fan of this column.  She is a fashion model as well as the owner of a clothing store, and she sent me a photo to be included in the column as a kind of advertisement.  Please meet Sarah, the Journey's latest Fellow Traveler.

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TV

[June 11, 1961] Until we meet again… (Twilight Zone Second Season wrap up)

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When Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone debuted in October 1959, it was a fresh breeze across "the vast wasteland" of television.  Superior writing, brilliant cinematography, fine scoring, and, of course, consistently good acting earned its creator a deserved Emmy last year.

The show's sophomore season had a high expectation to meet, and it didn't quite.  That said, it was still head and shoulders above its competitors (Roald Dahl's Way Out, Boris Karloff's Thriller, etc.) The last two episodes of this year's batch were par for the course: decent, but not outstanding:

Take Will the Real Martian please stand up.  A pair of policemen track the survivor of a flying saucer crash into a remote coffee house.  None of the folks inside will confess to being an alien, but it is certain one of them, all seemingly human, is no Terran.  Paranoia ensues, heightened by some electrical hijinks.  The show keeps you guessing to the end, and then there's a bit of a twist. 

I think I'd have liked this piece more if it hadn't been done better in first season's The Monsters are due on Maple Street.  The episode was also a bit padded, with some unnecessary expository exposition.  I guess I'll call it three stars, if only for getting to see John Hoyt again.  Jack Elam, who trades on looking weird, was also fun to watch.

I liked this episode a lot, even if it was slow.  It was similar to a previous episode of Twilight Zone, but the difference was this one almost turned the idea of people going crazy out of mistrust on its head (resolving the problem rather than going insane). 

The whole plot of the episode hinges on the fact that “There were only six passengers on the bus, and now there's seven at the diner!"  At first I thought the twist was that there were only six passengers and the driver, a total of seven, until I did a headcount about halfway through the episode.

Something funny: earlier today I'd been watching the sit-com Angel, which had James Garner as a guest star!  Towards the end they had an in-show commercial for cereal.  In this Twilight Zone episode, one of the men was talking about how good his cigarettes tasted, and I thought for a moment he was going to break into an advertisement.  Of course that didn't come until the end — when Rod Serling recommended Oasis cigarettes “for the freshest of tastes”.

I would give this episode a solid four.  It wasn't perfect, and the pacing was a little slow, but I still loved the kooky special effects and funny story.  Even though it was simple, the story had me wondering the whole time.  I was hoping for a little more of a twist out of the end, but over all it was a good episode, and I highly recommend you watch it yourself.

The last episode of the second season, Obsolete, was a morality play.  A meek librarian endures a show trial under a regime clearly informed by Nazi Germany.  In it, he is declared "obsolete" and sentenced to execution.  The defiant man's sole remaining right is to choose the method of his execution.  The librarian's choice ultimately places the sentencing chancellor's life in jeopardy as well.  Let us just say that one faces death more nobly than the other. 

It's a beautifully shot piece, and the first half genuinely engages.  But the latter portion drags and is so monochromatic in its allegory that there is no room for pondering.  The God-loving, book-toting little man is right.  The Hitler-analogue is wrong.  Aren't we glad that's not us?  I give it three stars, but that comes from averaging the two halves.

I thought this episode was only fair.  The concept wasn't that interesting and it was a pretty predictable episode overall.  The episode starred Burgess Meredith, who has already starred in two other Twilight Zone episodes.  The acting was alright, but the concept was so simple that the episode was almost bland.

The episode was about a society built on the idea that, if you were obsolete, you were killed.  There really wasn't much else to the episode.  The man was tried, declared obsolete, and killed.  It felt even more drawn out than Martian.

I would give this episode a two and a half.  It was entirely mediocre and predictable the whole way through.  I would recommend skipping this one, because, to put it bluntly, it's just not good.

And that's that!  Next week's episode is a summer rerun of the first of the first season, Where is Everybody.  Go check it out if you want to see where it all began.  Until next time,

This is the Traveler…

And, this is the Young Traveler, signing off.

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TV

[May 29, 1961] Oasis in a Wasteland (The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episodes 25-27)

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Newton Minow, the new Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, offered the following challenge to the National Association of Broadcasters earlier this month (May 9, 1961). 

"I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland…

…When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse."

He is, of course, stating the obvious.  If you park yourself in front of the idiot box all day, your mind will be turned to mush by the soap operas, game shows, inferior anthologies, and the endless commercials (sometimes as many as ten 30-second spots per hour!).  But, for the more discriminating, there are about six hours of good TV on any given week.  If you like Westerns (and you'd better..because there are so many!), there's Rawhide and Maverick, though the latter is much reduced in watchability since James Garner left the cast.  You've got Route 66.  Andy Griffith has got a fun show.  Dobie Gillis is still amusing on occasion.

And then you've got Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone.  I'm shed much ink over the fact that this second season hasn't been as good as the first.  The last three episodes, however, comprise a solid streak of goodness that I think you'll enjoy if you catch them during the summer reruns (and, as is now tradition, you'll get a one-two review punch with both me and the Young Traveler reporting our thoughts):

——

The Silence, aired about a month ago, is a most peculiar episode.  For the first time since Zone's debut segment, we have 25 minutes without a single science fictional or fantastic twist.  Rather, this show, about a rather obnoxious Gentleman's Club regular who is bet that he can't keep his mouth shut for a year, relies solely on fine acting, lush cinematography, and compelling storytelling to hold your attention until the final reveal.  It's a neat trick, and Serling probably could only get away with it because we were all expecting a gimmick.  Four stars.

I highly enjoyed this episode.  It really had the feel of a first season Twilight Zone episode, with its creepy twist.  The sets were interesting, the plot intriguing, and the acting spectacular.  I appreciate that the episode was more realistic than other episodes, with the character's actions having consequences, rather than some unknown force messing with them.

I enjoyed the concept, and it had the right amount of creepiness.  The actor's expressions really helped convey different parts of the story and I absolutely loved the twist.  I won't spoil it for you, but it is very good.

I give this episode a solid 3 and a ½ out of five stars.  I highly recommend you watch this episode for yourself, and enjoy this well done story, just as I did.

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Shadowplay is a gripping piece.  A man on Death Row (a cliched, broad version thereof) attempts to convince his attorney, his prosecutor, his contact at the newspaper, that the world is just a solipsistic fantasy.  Once the convict sits in the electric chair, and the circuits are opened, it will not be the criminal who dies, but the entire world.  Moreover, this will not be a one-time event: in fact, it is all the nightly dream of the condemned man.  Over and over, he almost convinces the phantoms to grant a stay of execution.  Almost.  Not quite.

The tension of the episode derives from this iteration's outcome.  Will he break the cycle this time?  Four stars.

I felt that this episode was actually kind of slow.  I was somewhat unsatisfied by the end because it felt like despite there being some tension, the ending was actually fairly predictable. There was no twist in this one, the story simply unfolded and then it was done.

The cinematography and acting was very good, but I really disliked the plot.  I have never particularly liked the whole “people going crazy” angle that Twilight Zone likes to use, and this episode started right off with it.  I was also slightly disturbed with the episode's concept, which I suppose is what they want you to be, but it just left an overall bad taste in my mouth.

I would give this episode 2 out of five stars, however this is simply my opinion, and if you enjoy this concept, then I would highly recommend you watch this episode, if not for the plot, then the cinematography.

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Last up is The Mind and the Matter, a comedy piece starring comedian Shelley Berman.  Berman plays a finicky insurance clerk, hemmed in at all times by people.  People on the subway.  People in the cafeteria.  People at the office.  Crowds everywhere.  When he discovers the psychic ability to wish everyone away, or in the alternative, make them all like himself (the one fellow he thinks he can stand), it seems he's finally found the answer.  Relief, however, is short-lived in both cases.

While not an outstanding episode, I could not help noting how attractive it was, with truly crisp cinematography.  Also, as with the other pieces on which I report this month, the emphasis is increasingly on characterization, making you care about the people portrayed beyond the twist ending.  Three stars.

I actually enjoyed this episode a lot.  The cinematography was just as good as the last one, the pacing was good, and the plot had a lot I could relate to.  Though I don't “despise people” like the main character did, I related a lot to the loneliness and boredom he felt towards the middle of the episode.  When you have no responsibilities and there's no one to talk to, you can get pretty bored, and I think that was wonderfully conveyed so we could relate to it. 

As I said earlier, the cinematography and acting was very good.  The special effects were amazing, making everyone the same person, it really allowed for some funny moments.  I think the thing I liked most about the episode though, is the ending.  It didn't end with any crazy people, or a terrible twist; the man simply learned his lesson, and continued his life.

I would give this episode a solid 3 1/2 stars.  It was funny, lighthearted, and I highly recommend you watch it yourself.

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[April 22, 1961] Out of time (Twilight Zone, Season 2, Eps. 22-24)

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I've mentioned in previous articles that Rod Serling's horror/science fiction anthology show, The Twilight Zone, has been lackluster this second season.  But things have been looking up recently, and I'm happy to announce that the latest run has been quite solid.  The show did not air on the 14th, owing to some stop-press coverage of Gagarin's flight, so I just have three episodes for you this time around.  They are all worthy watching, should you catch them in the summer reruns.

First up is yet another of the awful run of video-tape experiments.  This is #6 for the season, and I hope they'll give up the effort soon.  Twilight Zone is superlative in so many ways; it's a shame when it has to settle for, at best, mediocre cinematography.  Long-Distance Call makes do rather admirably, however.  A 5-year old boy loses his doting grandmother but finds he can still reach her on the toy telephone she gave him just before she died.  Tragically for the boy's parents, the grandma exhorts the tyke to join her – and there's only one way that is possible.  It's a strong episode, another episode that telegraphs its twist a mile away but has stand-out character development.  Three stars.

100 Yards over the Rim not only gives the gimmick away early, it's a theme we've seen several times before on this show: namely, a fish out of water time travel story.  Chris Horne, a homesteader working his way West in a truncated wagon train, heads over a rise to secure game and water for his desperate party.  He finds, instead, a 1961 trucker's diner, and a very puzzled man-and-wife pair of owners. 

Despite the hackneyed premise, it's actually quite an excellent watch thanks to the efforts of the writer and the actors.  Cliff Robertson goes out of his way to recreate a pioneer from 1847.  Eschewing the cowboy duds that would have been used in a lesser show, Horne is inappropriately dressed for the desert in his Easterner's clothes, complete with stovepipe hat.  Not only is he out of place in the future, but in desolate New Mexico.  Also effectively conveyed is the idea that folks are pretty much the same, regardless of era.  I liked it.  Four stars.

It's pretty clear that the following episode, The Rip Van Winkle Caper, was shot at the same time so as to save costs – the backdrop is the same desert.  Interestingly enough, this episode is another time travel story, though of an entirely different sort.  It starts where Rim leaves off: in modern day.  Four men, one a scientist, hijack a million dollars in Fort Knox gold.  Their plan is to hide away in side a hill, put themselves in suspended animation for a century, and then stroll back into civilization with their ill-gotten, but now forgotten, gains.  It would be the perfect plan, if there were any honor among thieves…

Caper is a good watch, and it does a fine job of keeping you in suspense as to the outcome until the end.  It's a bit padded for the first half, however, and the characters are not quite so engaging as in Rim.  Three stars.

That's that for April.  There can't be too much left to the season, so I'll probably break up the remaining episodes into a couple of parts, with the latter summarizing the season as a whole.  Next up: the May 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction!

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[April 2, 1961] Uprooting itself (The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episodes 17, 19, 20, 21)

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Twenty years ago, even ten (and zero in some places), science fiction was all about the twist ending.  Aliens would seed a dead planet with life only for it to turn out…that planet was EARTH!  Or folks might spend a story in a struggle to stay alive, only to find out THEY WERE ALREADY DEAD!  And so on.  Stories would usually end with a shock sentence, often with copious slammers (!!!)

But the genre matured.  Characters, writing, and fully explored concepts appeared.  These days, the "gimmick" often takes the back seat, facilitating rather than dominating the story.

The Twilight Zone, the science fiction/fantasy/horror anthology created by Rod Serling, is generally a cut above anything else on TV.  This includes its pale competitors like One Step Beyond and Way Out.  Unfortunately, several times in the first season, and more frequently in this, the second season, the show has aped the gimmick stories of print sf.  The result is a run of predictable, sub-par episodes.  There is light at the end of this tunnel, however – the most recent episodes have returned the focus to interesting characters and genuine drama. 

First, we have to get there:

The episode preceding the lackluster The Odyssey of Flight 33 was the lackluster 22.  In it, a young dancer has been committed to hospital for an apparent case of nerves.  She repeats a chilling dream: she awakens, a glass crashes to the floor, she follows a nurse to the hospital basement, and there she finds the nurse waiting behind a door marked "22" – the morgue.  It is a clear case of precognition, though no one believes her, including herself.  At the episode's end, the dancer, wide awake, is about to board a plane.  Just before she does, something crashes to the terminal floor, and she notes the plane is number 22, its stewardess the nurse of her dreams.  She falls in hysterics and watches wide-eyed as the plane takes off without her…and explodes over the runway.

It sounds a lot better when I type it than when you watch it, which is the problem.  It's yet another of the episodes captured on videotape rather than film, an unsuccessful experiment I hope is ended soon.  The acting is a notch too broad, particularly the sardonic, uncaring doctor (though perhaps this is intended to make us think that even the dancer's waking scenes are dreams).  In short, good concept, mediocre presentation.  Two stars.

Burgess Meredith is back for the silly Mr. Dingle, the Strong.  Take the most nebbishy of folks and give him the strength of Superman; then sit back and watch the fun unfold.  Of course, you can't leave it there, so rob him of his powers at a critical juncture to ensure maximum humiliation. 

It's somehow not awful.  In particular, the strength effects are nicely done.  Lots of scenes with a scrawny fellow lifting heavy objects, punching holes in walls, etc.  Also, the aliens that bestow strength are genuinely hilarious.  Bad concept…but good presentation.  Three stars.

The dreary Static, in which a regretful old man tunes into the past on a magic radio, could have been good.  Like any bad gimmick story, it draws out far too long without developing the characters beyond bare pencil sketches.  Videotape doesn't help this one either.  One star.

Things end on a high note, though.  The Prime Mover is an excellent character study that starts right – with the focus on the players, not the twist.  Ace Larsen is a fellow who feels down on his luck, despite co-ownership of a little coffee shop, the love of a lovely co-worker, Kitty, and the unflagging friendship of the other owner, Jimbo Cobb.  It's Ace's desire for more, what he considers his due, that promises to be his undoing, especially when it turns out Cobb has the power of psychokinesis, able to manipulate items with his mind.

They end up in Vegas, with Ace raking in the dough at the craps and roulette tables.  With winnings totaling $200,000, both Kitty and Cobb urge Ace to pack it in, but Ace wants one more game, even if it means losing Kitty, and perhaps, sight of what's really important.  At a high-stakes craps bout with a notorious gangster, Cobb "blows a fuse" right as Ace lets his fortune ride.  Ace is left with nothing.

Or is he?  The event proves a watershed for the basically good-hearted Ace.  He laughs off the loss, returns back to the restaurant and proposes to Kitty, who accepts.  As a coda, we see that the seemingly simple Cobb hadn't lost his power at all.  It was all orchestrated for Ace's maximum benefit.  Now there's a friend. 

The episode works because the gimmick, Cobb's psionic ability, is almost incidental.  It isn't even revealed until almost a quarter-way through.  While I was pretty sure Ace was going to lose his winnings in the end, I was delighted to see that it wasn't the point.  Excellent acting and cinematography help, too.  Five stars.

More good news: the succeeding episode was also good…but you'll just have to wait until the next round-up to read about it!

Coming up, Part 2 of my article on the Women of Science Fiction.  Expect it day-after-day-after-tomorrow.

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TV

[February 26, 1961] A Choice to Make (The Odyssey of Flight 33)

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Friday night is The Twilight Zone night.  It's true that the second season has not been as consistent in terms of quality as the show's first season, but it has had enough good episodes to remain regular watching. 

Normally, I wait until I have a month's worth of episodes before I summarize, but this week's episode, The Odyssey of Flight 33 impacted me such that I wanted to talk about it with my readers.

The episode takes place entirely within the confines of a (refreshingly accurate mock-up of a) 707 jetliner.  On its way from London to New York, flight Global 33 comes across a superpowerful tail wind.  The hapless plane is accelerated to a ground speed of 3000 miles per hour and then plunged through a barrier of turbulence.  The flight crew loses all radio contact with the ground.

A dramatically changed ground—all traces of habitation have disappeared from the mid-Atlantic coast, though the contours of Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Hudson River are all recognizable.  When the co-pilot spots a Brontosaurus grazing in primeval jungles of New York, it is clear that the plane has somehow been transported far into the past.

On a hunch, the pilot takes the jet back into the heavens to ride the mysterious tailwind again.  Another crash of turbulence, and the plane's radios come to life, the familiar skyline of Manhattan appears, and all seems well.

That is, until the pilot surveys the site of the United Nations.  Instead of that familiar building, he sees the distinctive structures of the World Exposition of 1939.  The plane has come back, but not quite all the way.

At that point, the pilot is faced with a choice: risk a landing at La Guardia, low on fuel, without radar, and on a runway that's too short, or ascend again for one last try.  He chooses the latter, and on that note, the episode ends.

There is much to like and dislike about the episode.  On the con side, it is ploddingly paced and utterly predictable.  Within the first ten seconds, my daughter exclaimed, "Is the plane going to go back in time?"  The scene with the dinosaur is ludicrous, not just in the dodgy special effects, but conceptually.  The Hudson Valley is an artifact of the last glacial period.  Certainly no aspect of the Eastern seaboard would be remotely identifiable 100 million years ago.  The cockpit of Global 33 is cramped with five crewmembers, one of whom seems to have no purpose but to take dictation for the Captain.

On the other hand, the cockpit action is extremely accurate (aside from that last point).  As an aviation enthusiast and former leisure pilot, the terminology and procedures are spot-on.  The acting is universally good (we've seen the Captain before, as an angel in the first season episode , A Passage for Trumpet).  The soundtrack is excellent.

Most importantly, the show provoked a long, thoughtful discussion afterwards.  What a choice to have to make.  Is it worth the gamble that you might end up in the primordial past or the unfathomable future just to get a little closer to your proper time?  Could you relive the last 22 years, understanding that the entire course of history would be altered?  Knowing that every person on the plane had a younger self down there? 

I'll say it flat out: I would land the plane.  22 years is close enough.  I would not risk the lives of my passengers on a slim hope, nor could I pass up the opportunity to avoid the horrendous toll of the second world war.  It's not an ideal solution, but it entails the lesser risk, in my estimation.

Of course, as my wife points out, I spend much of my life dreaming about the past, anyway.  Perhaps the thought of being a temporal castaway is less appealing to most.  Or playing God with history…

What would you do?

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TV

[February 7, 1961] TV Addiction (The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episodes 13-16)

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I've been watching a lot of television, lately.  It's embarrassing.  I should be reading more books or doing more than cursorily scanning the front page of the newspaper.  Instead, after work I flip on the set and vegetate for an hour.  I hope this doesn't become a habit!

It's certainly not as if TV has gotten significantly better.  Mr. Ed, My Sister Eileen, the umpteenth season of the Jack Benny Show, none of these are going to win any awards.  On the other hand, The Twilight Zone has already won an award (an Emmy last year), and I'm hoping that my continued watching and review of that show excuses my overindulgence in the others.

What did we see last month?  First off, there was Back There.  Corrigian, a youngish historian, departs for home from his Gentleman's Club after a rousing discussion on time travel.  One step outside the Club, and he finds himself in April 1865 on the eve of Lincoln's shooting.  Of course, he tries to avert the tragedy, but only one fellow, a sympathetic policeman believes him.  Then Corrigan is waylaid by none other than the assassin, John Wilkes Booth.  The President is slain, despite the policeman's herculean efforts to warn him, and the professor returns to a seemingly unchanged present.  Or is it?  The servant who saw Corrigan out is now a wealthy businessman.  It turns out he's the great grandson of the policeman from the past, whose attempts to save Lincoln won him acclaim.  The lesson: the river of time doesn't like to make drastic changes of course, but it can meander a little.  Not bad.  Not great.  Three stars.

Second up, we have yet another of the hard-to-watch videotape episodes, The Whole Truth.  The gimmick for this one was spoiled in the prior week's preview and in the opening of the episode: a crook of a used car salesman buys a haunted Model A, the purchase of which compels the new owner to always tell the truth.  This proves fatal to the fellow's business until he hatches a plan to sell the vehicle to none other than Nikita Khruschev.  It's an episode that relies on the charisma (or convincing lack thereof) of the main character.  Jack Carson does a pretty good job.  Three stars.

I looked forward to Invaders; Richard Matheson did the screenplay, and it was billed as a masterpiece of lines-less drama.  Something must have happened between the writer's pen and the screen because watching 22 turgid minutes of a farm woman menaced by a pair of miniature Michelin Men was excruciating.  My first instinct is to put a good portion of the blame on the actress, Agnes Morehead.  There was enough ham in her silent performance to poison a dozen shuls.  On the other hand, it might be the director's fault.  I heard through the grapevine that Matheson was not happy with the final product—he'd written in twice the action, and the alien invaders (who turn out to be human astronauts in a world of giants) had their screen time kept to a minimum in his version.  That would have been nice; they did not bear being in full view very well.  My daughter spent much of the show groaning in agonized boredom, pounding the floor.  I'm lucky the cops didn't come to take me away for bad parenting.  One star.

Thankfully, the follow-up show was a lot of fun.  Dick York plays a harried banker who gains the ability to read minds for a day.  He figures out what's going on with refreshing haste and uses the gift to great advantage, preventing a potential robbery, halting a bad loan, and getting the girl (who was too shy to verbalize her interest).  The scene where he listens in on the thoughts of a vacant-eyed bank patron who turns out not to be thinking about anything is a nice touch.  Four stars.

Not a bad run, and good enough to keep us watching on Fridays.  Are you tuning in, too?

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