AG Monday!
The signpost up ahead? It's the Twilight Zone!
At the signpost up ahead, your next stop, the latest episode of Ancient Geeks! The Twilight Zone was a ubiquitous feature of television when we were growing up, and possibly the most generally popular bit of geek culture outside of geekdom until Star Wars. Rod Serling’s anthology series used tales of the fantastic to tell meaningful stories, often allegories about contemporary America. Serling’s life was just as interesting as his television shows, and he epitomized the screenwriter as celebrity.
“Helpful” aliens! Gremlins! Panicked suburbanites! Evil psychic children! Satan in lockup! Plot twists! It’s all here.
Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of culture. We were geeks before it was chic!
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Got in about two thirds on the drive to work (heavy traffic).
I do like TZ, enough to even call it TZ, but, as per the Philip J. Fry Principle: lots of episodes, a few dozen good ones 🙂
IMO, a lot of them are horror rather than science fiction, even many with a science fiction heavy setting or theme. This is not necessarily bad, but horror is not a genre I’m interested in.
That said, my top two are Obsolete Man, and Number 12 Looks Just Like You
Then there’s Kathy’s Theory on TZ eps:, which states there are four kind of Twilight Zone episodes:
1) Ones you saw and don’t recall well or at all
2) Ones you saw and recall well
3) Ones you haven’t seen but know a lot about; either because they’re satirized or adapted elsewhere, or because people talk a lot about them, or both.
4) Ones you’ve seen and recall, but are from a different anthology show (usually Night Gallery).
Last, Futurama parodied TZ as The Scary Door
Six degrees of separation
From WikiP:
I remember hearing about Rod Serling’s death on the radio.
I was born in Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester in January of 1948.
One of the few classes that I actually attended at Southern Illinois University (1968) was a comparative religion course taught by the Reverend John F. Hayward.
In 1996 Reverend Hayward officiated my only marriage. ($50) When we went to his home in Carbondale for an interview before the ceremony there was photo of Rod Serling on the wall and he mentioned his friendship with Rod Serling and the eulogy he gave.
There were aspects of my married life that were straight out of the Twilight Zone but that’s another story. (div. 2004)
(I was a heavy smoker. 3 packs a day when I separated from the chokes 30 years ago.)
Stephen, you know I like arguing with you, even when we agree – but the original Outer Limits was so much more thought provoking than Twilight Zone. My favorite episode, Architects of Fear, opened my eyes to how government can manipulate people. But, both are great shows.
@HelloWorld:
The Twilight Zone’s plots are IMO significantly more sophisticated and still referred to today more than have a century after production. I would have never known about Outer Limits though, were it not for this meme being circulated within our company in reference to our new operations manager whom it fits to a tee. Yes, he’s precisely that full of himself.
BTW, about the 1980s TZ movie. It’s really remakes of older TZ eps, including a remake of It’s a Good Life*. I knew this. What I didn’t know, until just now that I looked it up, is that Bill Mummy was in that segment.
In the original ep, he played the monster, Anthony. In the movie he plays a different character.
He’d also later replay Anthony, much older, in a sequel in one of the latter TV remakes/revivals of the show. I’ve never seen it.
*IMO, while the ep is good, it’s wildly overrated.
John Lennon
October 9, 1940-December 8, 1980
RIP
On anthology shows, how about an anthology limited series?
I ran across one on Amazon video, which is no longer on the platform, called Electric Dreams, consisting of ten adaptations of Philip K. Dick short stories. Unfortunately it was taken off before I could finish it.
Some were rather good. One, Autofac, which I could compare to the original short story, was far better.