"Zone" One

As a birthday gift (to myself) I bought the definitive Twlight Zone and am embarked on a viewing of the complete series.

I remember--sometimes vaguely, sometimes vividly—many of these episodes (I was 10 when TZ debuted).

The Zone is at once more realistic than I recalled (many an episode has a naturalistic/Ashcan feel), more postmodern than I ever recognized (many a Pirandelloish touch), more political (by far the most thematically daring TV of its day), more sentimental (numerous tearjerkers), and more repetitive (36 episodes in its first season necessitate recycling gimmicks).

Here are the the Season-Oners I especially liked:

“One for the Angels”—Ed Wynn bargains with death (The Graduate’s Mr. Robinson) without resorting to chess.

“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine"—Sunset Boulevard meets Purple Rose of Cairo meets Sherlock, Jr.

“Walking Distance”—Gig Young’s shoes are made for time travel.

“Escape Clause”—A nasty hypochondriac sells his soul for immortality and then ends up imprisoned for life for his wife’s death.

“Time Enough at Last”—Burgess Meredith (channeling Mr. Magoo) and the public library survive a nuclear blast but then he breaks his specs.

“Third from the Sun”—The Atomic Age meets the Space Age as two scientists seek to flee Armageddon by commandeering a rocket ship.

“The Hitch-Hiker”—A woman driving cross-country finally realizes she was killed in a car accident.

“The Last Flight”—A Great War British pilot time jumps to the present and is given an opportunity to redeem an act of cowardice.

“I Shot an Arrow into the Air”—Crash-landed astronauts mistake the Mojave for a distant asteroid.

“The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”—A masterful episode about suburban paranoia.

“A World of Difference”—A businessman is really an actor—or is he?

“Long Live Walter Jameson”—A professor (Kevin McCarthy) has been around for a very long, long time and doesn’t even have a painting that ages for him.

“Execution”—A modern scientist’s time machine inadvertently snatches a vicious criminal about to be hanged in the Old West.

“Nightmare as a Child”—A woman’s childhood self saves her from the killer who murdered their mother.

“A Stop at Willoughby”—A “mad man” just can’t take it on Madison Avenue anymore and leaps from a train into a Currier and Ives world.

“The After Hours”—Anne Francis turns out to be a mannequin, and mannequins turn out to have their own world (on the the 9th floor).

“The Mighty Casey”—A scientist builds a robot pitcher, who is unhitable until he gets a heart.

Except for “The Last Flight” and “A World of Difference” (both by the great Richard Matheson), and “Long Live Water Jameson (penned by frequent collaborator Charles Beaumont), each of these was written by Rod Serling. Take that David Kelley.