3 favorite (and least favorite) original "Twilight Zone" episodes EVER!

I'm surprised there hadn't been a thread already, specifically asking "What are your Top 3 Best & Worst "Twilight Zone" episodes?"

They don't have to be episodes that are recognized as "classics", just your personal opinion. Which ones affected you the most, or which episodes are the most poorly written/executed to you.

Top 3 for me:
"The Shelter"- Always been my favorite. Your town is about to get nuked and your "friends" are racist, selfish a-holes. Blew my mind as a kid and still does.
"The Encounter"- Just watched it recently again, and it is a brilliant piece of writing.
Tie- ok, I couldn't decide between
"The Hitch-hiker"- Very beliveable and well acted and written. Some episodes have holes the size of Monster Truck tires, and some are solidily written, or
"Come Wander With Me"- About the only "TZ" episode that allowed itself to go "David Lynch"-ian, where not everything is explained and it's cool that we don't know what the heck it all means.

Bottom 3:
"The Bewitchin' Pool"- I'm sorry, this poor episode has so many problems. Bad writing, bad acting, bad dubbing, just a mess.
"Elegy"- Supposed to be part of the "Season 1 is the best" sentiment, but it's just style over substance. Yeah, they got a lot of people to stand still a while. The plot is paper-thin and kinda dumb, and really mean to those poor astrounauts.
"Mute"- Can't stand it, it's like witnessing child abuse

 

Only three?

Three *of my* favorites would be:

To Serve Man - The punchline was just brilliant! Still remember watching that one for the first time.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - When the gremlin is outside the curtain Shatner opens, it causes me to jump every time I watch the episode. Great ending when the camera reveals that the damage to the plane was real.

The Odyssey of Flight 33 - Clever time traveling story.

Bottom three:

Black Leather Jackets
Caesar and Me
The Dummy

 

Favorites:

"The Hitchhiker" - Because it's somewhat believable and Inger Stevens was great in it.
"To Serve Man" - The ultimate play-on-words made for great entertainment!
"Living Doll" - A perfect episode, with a somewhat realistic ending.

Least Favorites:

"The Invaders" - I never quite got what made that episode so great with Agnes Moorehead squirming around and all
"In Praise Of Pip" - For a "season opener", it was a disappointment.
"The Mighty Casey" - Oh come on now, do I have to explain it?

 

Faves:

Walking Distance
The Howling Man
Nick of Time

Least faves:

Bewitchin' Pool (that damn dubbed voice!)
Jess-Belle
Four O'Clock

 

One of the worst was the one where the little girl gets trapped in another dimension and her parents are trying to get her out. Most of the show takes place in the child's bedroom. Throughout the show, you can hear an adult pretending to be the girl, mimicking the girl's voice, saying, "Mommy, Daddy, get me out."

Does anyone remember this one?

 

Top three:

And When The Sky was Opened
The Last Flight
Two

Bottom three:

The Bewitchin' Pool
Cavender Is Coming
Come Wander With Me

 

Of course, "Little Girl Lost". That one I can get past the badly dubbed voice and the hysterical Mom, because the plot is brilliant and the neighbor/physicist's acting is very good.

 

I can see why somebody wouldn't like "Come Wander With Me" on the surface, but there are such brilliant moments (like where the black clad Mary Rachael is in the background like the cover of "Black Sabbath" a couple of time), and the knowledge it's a never-ending loop. "Cavender Is Coming" is actually BETTER with the laugh track. I don't necessarily get all the hate for it. Carol Burnett is very good in it and there were way less funny "comedy" episodes in the series ("Mr. Bevis", for one).

 

3 Favorites:

The After Hours
Time Enough At Last
The Lonely

 

There was a very bad one with Burgess Meredith, not "Time Enough At Last," but another one with him as the star. I think this was the hour long season. He played a citizen in the future arguing with a panel about why he "was not obsolete."

This went on for an entire hour and was quite tedious.

 

Three favorites:

1. "The New Exhibit" - probably the only one of the 1-hour episodes that I like.

2. "Night Call"

3. "The Last Night of a Jockey"


My least favorite would be any of the war story episodes.

 

The Obsolete Man - the final ep. of Season 2, and thus not an hour long.

Perhaps it just seemed like it?

 

Well, it takes me an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.

 

Favorite 3:

Long Live Walter Jameson - starred Kevin McCarthy as a history professor who seemed to have enough knowledge of the Civil War that you'd swear he had been there

And When The Sky Was Opened - one of the astronauts-return-from-space-and-something is terribly wrong episodes. Starred James Hutton, father of Timothy Hutton.

The 30 Fathom Grave - from the infamous fourth season of hour-long episodes, this one may not be critically-acclaimed but it creeped me out as a child, about the ghost of a WWII sailor tapping on a sunken submarine. Starred Simon Oakland, Bill Bixby

 

Little Girl Lost - written by sci-fi writer Richard Matheson. This one is generally considered one of the classic TZ episodes and inspired, to some degree, the movie Poltergeist many years later. I think it's a pretty good episode, a definitely creepy "what if this really happened" idea.

 

I've been working my way through the series lately, and that's definitely one of the worst episodes I've seen so far.... 25 minutes of nothing but screaming, grunting, shouting, and more screaming.... so annoying!

 

I always like this episode because of the location filming at the deserted amusement park...very eerie. Was also the first TV show to mention the war in Vietnam, I believe.

 

That episode is one of my favorites, and the audio play version (starring Jason Alexander) is even better (with most of the audio play versions they add details that weren't in the original episode). Anyway...

Favorite Episodes Of The Classic Series:

• The Obsolete Man
• A World Of His Own
  
• Time Enough At Last (also excellent as an audio play starring Tim Kazurinsky)

Least Liked Episodes Of The Classic Series (of the ones I've seen):

• An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge
• Two
• Four O'Clock

 

Depending on how you want to define it, that one's not really technically a TZ episode. It was a French short film that they decided to air as a special presentation on the show. Serling seemed to really like it, based on some interviews I've seen, so I think he was probably the one who pushed to air it.

 

In praise Of Pip
Bewitching Pool
Willowby

actually I enjoyed them all and i do not have a least favorite.

 

it was different from the other episodes...too different.

 

really? I though it was clever...great ending as well.

 

the walls in my home when I was a youngster took on a different light! freaked me out!

 

I love that episode. It's strange, creepy and magical.