MovieChat Forums > The Twilight Zone (1959) Discussion > Type of "Twilight Zone" episod...

Type of "Twilight Zone" episode you can't stand?


Genie and guardian angel episodes for me.

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Sports (especially boxing), but that's not a critique of the series so much as a lack of interest on my part. I pretty much never watch those.

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I didn't mind though the boxing in "The Big Tall Wish" because it took a back seat to the poignant relationship between Bolie and Henry.

I happen to love baseball (I played it as a kid -- the only kind of person, really, that likes baseball) and I was hard-pressed to sit though the entirety of "The Might Casey." (Serling's opening is great, I admit, and deserving of a better episode.)

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One thing that would make me cringe were the space props, like space suits. They haven't aged well. Also, dolls that become alive, not my thing. One of the reasons I disliked The Outer Limits were monsters and aliens, things like that age quickly. Since the very pilot the twilight zone was about humanity, the human condition, conscious and the unconscious, and this is where the series excel.

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I may be in the minority here but I thought the space suits in "Elegy" were pretty great even by today's standards. You are right that the space-oriented episodes have a high-camp quality that undermines the eeriness. I do like, though, the aforementioned "Elegy," as well as "People Are Alike All Over" (the Martians sporting togas is hysterical) because despite their kitschy-trappings they both pull off pretty macabre endings that can stick with someone forever.

Episodes like "And When The Sky Was Opened" and "Shadow Play" are for me the near-pinnacle of "The Twilight Zone" owing to how they exemplify all the attributes of a good "Zone" episode you cited.

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Most of the ones with comedy.

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The ones in which Burgess Meredith is cast as a wimp.

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Yeah miss. While some were funny they had paper thin storylines and the costumes weren't anything to write home about.

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For starters, any ep longer than 24 minutes (yeah, the dreadful fourth year). Next, anything set in the civil war,
although I love "The Passersby."

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The ones with Orson Bean and Carol Burnett, can't remember the titles, are basically the same story.

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You're thinking of "Mr. Bevis" and "Cavender Is Coming" Margo.

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Thanks doug! Those are the ones. Very much the same story. Both were cute and light hearted. Just not TZ material in my opinion.

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Yeah, those lighthearted episodes seem a bit out of place in the TZ universe. The same with "A Penny for Your Thoughts" with Dick York.

I loved him as the original Darrin Stephens, but those topics of lightheared stories just don't seem like Twilight Zone stories. I want a twist ending or a real shocker (To Serve Man) or at least a surprising commeuppance for a nasty or evil character.

One of the abolute worst was "The Mind and the Matter" with Shelley Berman playing the cranky Archibald Beechcraft who hated society. He wipes out everyone but then gets lonely and repopulates the world with Archibald clones. The scene in the elevator with all the actors wearing masks to look like him is laughable (and not in a good way!)

I don't mind if an episode ends on a positive note, but for me, the humorous episdes just don't fit the theme of the show.

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😜

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I don't like anything to do with wars or Nazi's. Two things I don't want to be entertained by on a tv show.

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My dad fought the Nazis. I hate everything about them and everything they stood for. Their cruelty to humanity is beyond debate. But, to me, they make the most wonderful tv and movie characters because they are the ultimate villains. I don't really understand why, but I am just fascinated with Nazi Germany. I can't get enough of AHC when they run WWII documentaries on the European war, or documentaries about Nazi Germany specifically.

And to be clear, I hope every Nazi is (or will be soon) burning in Hell.

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Oh wow, I can't even imagine how scary that was. I totally understand how Nazi Germany would be fascinating to learn about, I wish I had more patience to learn about it or any wars in general.

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Just last week on “60 Minutes” was an interview with Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor who participated in the Nuremberg Trials. An extremely fascinating segment it was for sure. Ferencz is now aged 97, remarkably fit, and very short. (He tried to enlist in the Air Corps, but they said “No, your legs are too short to reach the pedal controls in our airplanes.”)

The segment is still up at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-the-last-nuremberg-prosecutor-alive-wants-the-world-to-know/ if you missed it or would like to see it.

On the right side of the page is another portion of Ferencz’s interview that wasn’t used in the main segment. In it, he describes his only encounters with Marlene Dietrich. Although “softer” to be sure, it’s another “must-see.”

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Thank you very much, I appreciate that info. I will look at it right now.

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You're quite welcome, Blondie.

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☺️

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I just watched it and wow what a fascinating story. Ben is an amazing man, I can't believe he's 97 (or 5 ft tall lol )
I really didn't know much about the Nuremberg trials and I really found it interesting. It's so difficult to hear what those people went through.

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I'm not really a fan of Western themed episodes.

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Same. Not my genre.

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I can't stand the ones about the American Civil War, it's just a comparatively boring setting and there are too many of them.

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The west I felt was overused. I know they were popular and I do like one with the witch book yet most are uninspired.

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