Twilight Zone | What are your favorite episodes?

Now you've all got me thinking about those great shows, and I can't remember the title of the one about the lost airliner searching for a landing site through time.  Please post it so I can get it out of my mind.  Thanks.

In reply to Jim Pettengill :

The Odyssey of Flight 33

And tonight we watched “I Shot an Arrow Into the Air” and “The Hitch-Hiker.”

I’d give “Arrow” a solid B–maybe even a B+. At the time, it probably seemed more dramatic. Are they marooned on an astroid? Will any of them get rescued despite the long odds? Will radio contact be restored? And where are they?

Ta-da, they landed back on Earth! (Odd that they never noticed a plane passing overhead, but I guess things were different back then.)

This one should also get bonus points for what it doesn’t show. You never see the crashed rocket, but you know it’s there. 

“Hitch-Hiker” is a favorite. It’s dark and ominous, with the main character slowing cracking up as the miles pass. Who is that man following her? How can she escape his presence? Will she break the spell upon arriving in California? I‘d say this is one you gotta watch. 

Another sad twist one is "The Long Morrow" - astronaut falls in love before his 30 year mission and has the dilemma of going into stasis while she ages on Earth.

"The Lonely" is also interesting sci-fi, a prisoner is given a girl robot to keep him company in exile. Relevant today with AI.

Both are contrived to the make the main characters suffer.

One for the Angels -S1-E2

Intro

Street scene: Summer. The present. Man on a sidewalk named Lew Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Lew Bookman, a fixture of the summer, a rather minor component to a hot July, a nondescript, commonplace little man whose life is a treadmill built out of sidewalks. And in just a moment, Lew Bookman will have to concern himself with survival – because as of three o'clock this hot July afternoon, he'll be stalked by Mr. Death.

Closing

Lewis J. Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Formerly a fixture of the summer, formerly a rather minor component to a hot July. But, throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore, a most important man. Couldn't happen, you say? Probably not in most places – but it did happen in the Twilight Zone.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

If I remember correctly, I was in a creative writing class where we read the short story the episode is based on, and then watched the episode.

I don't remember the exact point of the lesson, but I guess it stood out to me.

j_tso said:

Both are contrived to the make the main characters suffer.

I'm not sure what it says about me, but I find the portrayal of human suffering compelling.

(Wow, writing that out makes it sound way more weird than it did in my head.)

Maybe that's why one of my favorite media genres is anything post-apocalypse. I don't care as much about how the world ended, I just want to see how humanity adapts.

I loved "The Invaders." The dialogue was great.

Colin Wood said:

j_tso said:

Both are contrived to the make the main characters suffer.

I'm not sure what it says about me, but I find the portrayal of human suffering compelling.

[The people at party around him, slowly back away]

Maybe that's why one of my favorite media genres is anything post-apocalypse. I don't care as much about how the world ended, I just want to see how humanity adapts.

I do love those also.

If you have not seen The Road.... it might break you of it, but it's definitely one of them.  

The game Fallout (and even the Amazon series a bit) is very much that also (if you are into games)

David S. Wallens said:

“Hitch-Hiker” is a favorite. It’s dark and ominous, with the main character slowing cracking up as the miles pass. Who is that man following her? How can she escape his presence? Will she break the spell upon arriving in California? I‘d say this is one you gotta watch.

Yes!  I was trying to remember this one.  Thank you.

In reply to Duke :

You’re welcome. If I wanted to welcome someone to the series, that would be high on the list: fast pacing, simple narrative, likable main character, unexpected twist at the end. 

For some reason I watched this one a lot.
"The After Hours"

"But it makes you wonder, doesn't it, just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask . . . particularly in the Twilight Zone."

In reply to aircooled :

Oh yeah, I fell into the deep when I played Fallout 3 for the first time (if only I could recapture the moment of walking out of Vault 101 for the first time again) and I also love the show.

I've not seen The Road, but it sounds familiar, I'll have to add it to my list.

Similarly, I enjoyed the S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Metro 2033 video games (I know, I should read the Metro 2033 books, too).

We watched “The Purple Testament” the other night. 

The opening narration:

Infantry platoon, U.S. Army, Philippine Islands, 1945. These are the faces of the young men who fight, as if some omniscient painter had mixed a tube of oils that were at one time earth brown, dust gray, blood red, beard black, and fear—yellow white, and these men were the models. For this is the province of combat, and these are the faces of war.

It reminds me a bit of “Time Enough to Last” where the main character is simply damned without asking for it. 

Got to an episode I haven’t seen before–and I think it’s now a favorite:  Long Live Walter Jameson.

The opening narration:

You're looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours of dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive.

The narration continues after the camera cuts to an elderly man seated among the students during Jameson's lecture.

In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn't come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon.

What happens then?

You can watch a summary here:

Twilight Zone marathon on PlutoTV now, on the Classic TV Drama channel.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Thanks for the heads up. Been watching them today with the family. Finished season 1 a little while ago. 

My two favs have already been mentioned:  The Night of the Meek, and The Odyssey of Flight 33.

"The Obsolete Man"

I watched this on the recommendation of Mr. Wallens the last time I saw a "Twilight Zone" thread pop up, as I did not remember ever seeing the episode.  It quickly became my favorite.

The Plot was great, but the the way it amplified the narration at the end...  With Serling on camera:  "Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete".

A case to be filed under "M" for "mankind".

I don't recall what episode he said this in, but his words stuck with me, and they seem more prescient than ever:  

"Logic is an enemy and truth is a menace."

-Rod Serling

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Yes, a good one. Some episodes are a little light-hearted but, I admit, I prefer the darker ones that make you really look into our souls. 

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

Same one:

Twilight Zone: Episode 65 - The Obsolete Man

You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace. This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He's a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he's built out of flesh and because he has a mind.[2]Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in The Twilight Zone.

One that didn’t go or end the way I expected: “The Lateness of the Hour.”

Opening narration:

The residence of Dr. William Loren, which is in reality a menagerie for machines. We're about to discover that sometimes the product of man's talent and genius can walk amongst us untouched by the normal ravages of time. These are Dr. Loren's robots, built to functional as well as artistic perfection. But in a moment Dr. William Loren, wife and daughter will discover that perfection is relative, that even robots have to be paid for, and very shortly will be shown exactly what is the bill.

Teaser/spoiler alert:

The Midnight Sun always hits me - it's the one where the women are in an apartment and the Earth is plunging towards the sun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midnight_Sun_(The_Twilight_Zone)

The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is 'doomed,' because the people you've just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the Sun. And all of man's little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries—they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight it's high noon, the hottest day in history, and you're about to spend it - in the Twilight Zone.

In reply to brandonsmash :

Yeah, another classic. It’s not getting hotter, it’s getting colder!