My family didn’t have many traditions. When I was a child we had family dinners and lit Jew candles on Friday nights. Other than that, we didn’t do much together. Holiday dinners, I guess, were about as normal as we could be. But there was one tradition that I always enjoyed, and I am trying to continue as I age. In short, it is watching the annual New Year’s Twilight Zone television marathon.
In New Jersey, New Years’ day is usually really, really cold. From an early age, my father, sister, and sometimes my mother, would usually convene in our living room to watch as many episodes as we could. I liked to lay on the floor below where our television was mounted and put my bare feet against the heating vents on the wall. I would stare up at the television for hours. During commercials we would discuss our favorite episodes. If the network was airing ones we hadn’t seen, we would predict outcomes. As recently as my last New Year’s Eve in New Jersey (three years ago), I made sure to catch a portion of the marathon with my father and sister. Each year I’ve been in Los Angeles, I’ve had Nicci join me to watch as many episodes as we could fit into our schedule. She doesn’t know them all yet, but I think she’s enjoyed all the ones she’s seen. Maybe she even has a favorite one or two.
That said, here’s my list of favorite Twilight Zone episodes. For the most part, the list is similar to most of the others you’ll find across the Internet. But if there is even one unusual choice in the bunch, I hope that you’ll seek it out and watch it. I’ll try not to spoil any of the outcomes or fillips.
The Top Ten Episodes Of The Twilight Zone
Honorable Mention:
· Living Doll – Before there was Chucky, there was Talking Tina. Before there was The Puppet Master, there was Tiny Tina. More chilling a doll, perhaps, because she’s a little girl with pigtails. “A lifelike creation of plastic and springs and painted smile,” says Rod Serling. Featuring Telly Savalas, and a solo clarinet score by Bernard Herrmann.
· The Silence – A classic Twilight Zone ending here. The basic premise is, one member of an exclusive club bets another member that he could not go without speaking for an entire year. The reward: half a million dollars. How does the silenced man proceed? You’ll have to see for yourself.
· In Praise Of Pip – The final episode starring Jack Klugman. Having gone to overnight camp with Klugman’s nephew, I developed my admiration for his acting talent from an early age. His performance here is heart-rending, enough so to catapult it nearly to the top ten best episodes to ever air.
· To Serve Man – One of the all-time beloved episodes in the series. It made the episodes title a household reference. Like many episodes of the show (Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Time Enough To Last et. al.), its climax has been referenced or spoofed by countless television shows and movies. It just barely missed my list.
10. Game Of Pool – Another great Jack Klugman performance. Here he plays pool shark Jesse Cardiff, who is visited by the ghost of “Fats” Brown, the one man standing in the way of Jesse being considered the best pool player of all time. Jesse is given one shot to beat Fats. If he wins, Jesse will be acknowledged as the greatest, but if he loses, he will lose his life.
09. The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms – I’ve always been something of a history buff, so this story of three United States soldiers potentially traveling through time as they participate in a wargame conducted near the Battle of Little Bighorn. My appreciation for this episode skyrocketed after visiting Little Bighorn in 2005, and I do my best to make sure that I see it when it airs during the yearly marathon. The fact that it deals with both history and time travel blends two topics which fascinate me.
08. Stopover In A Quiet Town – There are a handful of predominant themes present in almost every episode of The Twilight Zone. One of these is the idea of displacement: a person is removed from their rightful place and set down somewhere new. Such is the case with this episode. A young couple returning to the city from a party in the country take a detour of sorts. They awaken in an unfamiliar house in a deserted town. Where are they? Where is everybody? Why do they keep hearing a child’s laughter? I love how the closing narration of this episode includes the moral “Don’t drink and drive.”
07. A Quality Of Mercy – So many episodes of the show written by Rod Serling deal with the idea of war. Serling fought in the Pacific Theater of World War II. He was seriously wounded during combat. So affected was he by his war experiences, later in life he would suffer from nightmares and flashbacks. His progressive social views became increasingly noticeable as the series continued. This episode follows a gung-ho American soldier fighting in the Pacific Theater of World War II (hmm…), who suddenly finds himself at a different time and place, as a member of the Japanese army. This episode also includes a terse but touching closing narration.
06. The Hitch-Hiker – This was the first episodes of the show I ever watched. I was home sick from school, and my babysitter sat by as I became perturbed by the story. A woman has been in a car accident on a cross-country road trip. She is taken to a nearby town to have her car fixed, and just before she leaves she notices a man hitchhiking. As she drives, she continually sees the man, and he is always asking to be picked up. The woman becomes convinced she is being stalked, or that she is trying to be killed. Like I said, this is the first episode I ever watched, and without it I probably wouldn’t have bothered watching the other 150+ episodes, some of them multiple times over.
05. It’s A Good Life – Along with To Serve Man, this is the favorite episode of many fans. A small town in Ohio is being terrorized by a six year old boy with ungodly mental powers. He’s forced every resident to feign happiness at the risk of being horribly disfigured or sent into the cornfield. The message that evil lurks where you don’t expect it is overshadowed by the creepiness of the episode. We don’t learn anything about the cornfield, or what the child has done for years and years just to make everyone so terrified. Spooky.
04. Time Enough To Last – One of the first episodes written for the series, starring Burgess Meredith (who along with Jack Klugman acted in the most episodes of the series: four). “The story of a man who seeks salvation in the rubble of a ruined world,” introduced audiences what would become ongoing themes the series would explore: isolation vs. solitude and “be careful what you wish for” would be two of the more prominent ones. This is probably the most parodied episode of The Twilight Zone, and for good reason.
03. The Eye Of The Beholder – Also oft-parodied, this episode revolves around a woman who has undergone nearly a dozen treatments designed to help her look like everybody else. The nature of the treatment is never explained. We just see the woman, wrapped in bandages, awaiting the time when her doctors will finally reveal her face. A perfect example of the “lost in a sea of conformity” theme so commonly discussed throughout the series. How can an outsider find acceptance in a world where he or she is deemed “not normal?” …”Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”
02. The Invaders – My father’s favorite episode, and another of the first episodes I ever watched. Originally airing in 1961, until the very last moments of the episode there is no dialog. Agnes Moorehead is an old woman living alone in a cabin with no real amenities. Suddenly, she is thrust into battle when small invaders from a miniature flying saucer land on her house. At my young age, I was a bit frightened by the old woman, but at the same time I wanted her to defeat the invaders. If The Hitch-hiker piqued my interest in the show, the conclusion of The Invaders solidified my respect for it. After this, I was officially a fan.
01. Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up – The tables were turned on the audience in May of 1961. Rather than a character on the show, they were placed in the Twilight Zone. During the opening narration, Rod Serling asked that those watching the show join an “investigation team” on the hunt for the Martian whose UFO crashed in a small town on a wintry February night. The episode plays out inside a small diner, where two state troopers interrogate bus passengers from Boston in an attempt to discover who among them is the stranded alien. The proverbial “everyone is a suspect” rule of Who-Dunnit storytelling apply. Entertaining, lively, and engaging, this makes for — I believe — the best episode in the series. It’s also a perfect episode with which to introduce someone new to the show. So good!
So, what’s your favorite episode, and why?
