Whats great about July 4th?....Twilight Zone Marathon!

[njperfection]

Every year I look foward to watching the Twilight Zone marathon on SciFi on July 4th. This 4th my wife and I are having a BBQ so most are being DVR'd and I can't wait to watch them.
Rod Serling was a genuis and his thoughts and episodes were way ahead of his time.....
Cn you imagine living in that era watching the Twilight Zone when they first aired. People must have freaked.
Clssic episodes such as Mirror Image, The Maska, Howling Man, The Eye of the Beholder, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, and Terror at 20,000 Feet...etc.....are brilliant. The way Sterling takes science fiction and blends it with real issues at the time such as space travel, nuclear war, mass hysteria and McCarthyism is amazing.
Lets pay homage to a genuis and one of the best shows ever on tv.
What are your favorite episodes??

 

[GW Emperor]

Hows it going fellow Twilight Zone fan?

Man I wish I lived in the US so that I can view Twilight Zone marathons.
Seeing The Twilight Zone in the UK on television is very rare these days.
I have to purchase the DVD box sets in order to view what was by far the greatest anthology series of all time.
I currently own Seasons 1, 2, and 3 of the original series and of the episodes that I have seen I would say that my favourite episodes are as follows:

Walking Distance.
And when the Sky was Opened.
The Last Fleight.
The Purple Testament.
The Monsters are due on Maple Street.
The After Hours.
Back There.
The Trouble with Templeton.
A Penny for your Thoughts.
Twenty Two.
Static.
Long Distance Call.
A Hundred Yards Over the Rim.
The Passersby.
Nothing in the Dark.

I havent seen all of Season 3 yet and I have yet to see Seasons 4 and 5. Have you seen Seasons 4 and 5, and if so what did you make of them?

Rod Serling was a legend. Without a doubt the greatest Sci-Fi writer of all time, if not of all genre's.
I totally agree with you also that The Twilight Zone was way ahead of it's time. Nothing I have seen from this period compared to this. In fact nothing I have seen from any decade, past or present, has compared to this when it comes to the Sci-Fi genre.

 

[X]

Awesome thread! I've been a huge Serling and TZ fan since I was about 5 years old and my father used to play the classics for me. I must've seen every episode of the series (not counting the 80s and 00s attempts at remakes) and I still never get tired of it. In an age of horror coming from some guy torturing a bunch of people for fun, madmen in the woods with axes and a new Japanese remake out every week, Twilight Zone will still scare the shit out of me, even though I know exactly whats going to happen.

Take for example the classic episode with the dummy. There were a few, but the one I'm referring to is with the old washed up ventriloquist who's dummy finally puts the joke on him and turns him into a dummy? That dummy still freaks me out to this day. Same thing with the hitch hiker episode, or man there are just so many classic episodes. I spent all of July 4th getting drunk and watching Twilight Zone, and I couldn't of planned the day better myself.

Rod Serling indeed was a legend, no, a genius. Find me a more well-written or clever show then the Twilight Zone, and I'll be calling you a liar.

 

[klunderbunker]

About 4 years ago I "discovered" this show on Sci Fi at midnight and I've been hooked ever since. The scripts to this show, even though they're going on 50 years old, these things are still some of the most amazing stories that I've ever heard. Sterling hasn't ever really gotten the credit he deserves as he may be the best television writer of all time. As for favorite episodes, I'd have to go with ones like To Serve Man, It's a Good Life and unsure about the title, but the episode in which astronauts find a tiny race and become their gods. The irony alone of these stories strike me as amazing all on their own. Simply amazing stuff.