I was reading up on The Battle Of Little Bighorn the other day and remembered "The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms". It had been years since I have seen it so I decided to watch it. Pulled up Netflix and Twilight Zone is gone! Ok, I'll just watch it on Prime.... Gone! So now it looks like the series has been removed unless you have Paramount+ (which I don't because I don't really want to add another streaming service). I will ask my wife for the complete series on Blu-ray for Christmas. It is decently priced (at least right now). I could probably wait for the episode on MeTV but it would be nice to have the complete series since Season 4 wasn't on streaming anyway for some odd reason.
I have Amazon Prime and any time I looked at a TWILIGHT ZONE on there, the image was full of "banding" - large grey areas were separated into lighter and darker bands - really annoying. The same was true with Paramount+ or its prior name of CBS All Access. It ALWAYS looks fabulous on the Blu-ray set. If it's currently reasonable, don't hesitate to purchase it - it's worth every penny - and I recall a time not that long ago when this set shot up to the stratosphere in price when the original Image license lapsed.
My Top Ten: 1. A Stop at Willoughby 2. Walking Distance 3. Midnight Sun 4. To Serve Man 5. Hitch-Hiker 6. Eye Of The Beholder 7.Nothing In The Dark 8. The Masks 9.Night Call 10The Arrival
Too bad when SYFY does their marathons they don't tend to play the more rare ones. If I never ssw the Shatner one with the plane again it would be too soon. I'm currently starting to watch ones I never saw before.
I totally disagree about 4 to 9. Some of my favorites are in that pack. I like those better than 1 to 3, especially the third one. I like 1 and 2 but Five Characters in Search of an Exit is the most overrated one in my opinion.
This one is my favorite also, I just recently bought the dvd box set, can’t wait until this episode comes up.
"I Shot An Arrow Through The Air" is one of my favorites". The Twilight Zone 1959 015 I Shot an Arrow into the Air - Video Dailymotion
The Masks is the one that everyone always raves about that I just do not get. And it gets worse every time I watch it. First, extra powers in the show typically come from God or are supernatural. They're not given to a character to use as he sees fit. Second, old crotchety dude, give your Goddamn money to someone else. You clearly don't have to give it to your family, you say so yourself. You don't seem to have any friends or any other interests, I doubt you are blameless in how your family turned out, even though the show tries hard to make it seem so. But just give the money to someone else, your family won't show up, you hate them anyway, you aren't entrapping them into years of misery through some sadistic trick. At some point old crotchety dude is going on about art appreciation. You're going to scar people for life over art appreciation. Granted at that point I'm ready to kill him myself. You were young once. Maybe your vapid granddaughter will mature, if you actually gave her a chance. No, you decide to scar her for life as well, you sadistic creep. Really haven't seen much else with as whacked morals as The Masks. It might work as horror, but we're clearly supposed to see it as a morality play.
All the way, down the line! Here's the set I have that I bought at Walmart a few years ago. It even contains the rare episode about the bigoted war-mongering American captain in an Asian war suddenly turns Asian. It was so controversial that it hadn't seen the light of day since the 60s.
This is hilarious , never thought of all those points. I watched Walking Distance last night , a terrific episode , made all that much more poignant I thought, knowing what happened to Gig Young in life. Perfect in that part.
For Christmas my wife bought me some Twilight Zone books (old stories but recent pressings with updated covers). Walking Distance is in the first collection and I read it last week. Was a nice read. I like reading stories of the episodes.
During the marathon I recorded some of my favorites. Mainly I was looking for the hour long episodes. Haven't seen those in a while as when they were on Netflix, Season 4 was not for some reason (same with Prime). I enjoyed "Thursday We Leave For Home". Watched it yesterday.
My favorite that has not yet been mentioned is "Four O'clock" with the great Theodore Bikel as a man obsessed with destroying evil. Bikel didn't have a lot of scenery-chewing performances but this one...yow. The story isn't the most original but his performance is brilliantly OTT.
I think you may be confusing two episodes. The one you describe was called "A Quality Of Mercy" where Dean Stockwell is transformed into a Japanese enemy soldier. That episode also had Leonard Nimoy in a minor role. The episode that was missing for years was from late in Season Five and was called "The Encounter". It had not been part of the syndication package due to a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement (along with "The Miniature" and "A Short Drink From A Certain Fountain"). Later the cases were all settled and the episodes started showing up on TV and in home video packages. "The Encounter" featured George Takei and Neville Brand. Brand hires Takei to help clean out his attic and old WWII hostilities break out between the two.
I've felt this from the getgo. The old man is sort of the worst of them all, entirely judgemental, I think a better ending would be if he wore a mask that changed his face as well. I really wanted to like it since I am an Ida Lupino superfan when it comes to her directorial films (when will Outrage get released?) Earlier I eluded to 4-9 being overrated, which I would defend this way (spoilers): 4) To Serve Man - rightly famous for the ending, but that is pretty much all there is. The lead up to it isn't all that compelling, there is no moral and it doesn't hold up to rewatches IMO. 5) The Invaders - love so much about this episode but one thing drops the ball, there is no way those are spacesuits for humans, unless Orson Welles became an astronaut. 6) Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - similar to the above, the SPFX are the main issue here. When I watch TZ I don't like to say "keep in mind it was 1963." The more timeless episodes don't need to be excused on such grounds, for instance Shatner's other (and superior) episode Nick of Time. 7) Masks - same reason as stated by another. 8) Game of Pool - I'm surprised it is that famous, really talky, and I feel that Winters cheated the built in rules at the end. 9) Will the Real Martian Stand Up? - Maybe this one will grow on me, a whodunit, but this sorta paranoia was more meaningful in Monsters are Due on Maple Street. Here is a hastily done top 40: 1) Eye of the Beholder 2) It's a Good Life 3) Monsters Are Due on Maple Street 4) The After Hours 5) Walking Distance 6) Nick of Time 7) The Living Doll 8) Perchance to Dream 9) Five Characters in Search of an Exit 10) The Silence 11) And the Sky Was Opened 12) The Obsolete Man 13) The Midnight Sun 14) One for the Angels 15) The Invaders 16) Printer's Devil 17) I Shot an Arrow in the Air 18) Number 12 Looks Just Like You 19) The Howling Man 20) In His Image 21) Trouble with Templeton 22) Mirror Image 23) Nightmare at 20,000 Feet 24) To Serve Man 25) Penny for Your Thoughts 26) A Nice Place to Visit 27) Ring-a-Ding Girl 28) Miniature 29) What's in the Box 30) The Self Improvement of Salvatore Ross 31) In Praise of Pip 32) Young Man's Fancy 33) The New Exhibit 34) A Piano in the House 35) The Lonely 36) People Are Alike All Over 37) A World of Difference 38) Lateness of the Hour 39) Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room 40) Shadow Play Honestly, I would more curious to read someone's bottom 20.
I've been watching eps since the '70s as a kid and I had all the videotapes... I watch the NYE marathon each year, but that is mainly for the community that forms on Twitter and it's cool to get in on the conversations -- the episodes themselves are edited to hell... SyFy is editing out about an extra two to three minutes out of each ep.
I don’t know if I have it in me to rank twenty, but “The Fear,” the next-to-last episode of the series, is pretty abysmal. Mark Scott Zicree described the dialogue between the two leads as Rod Serling (who scripted) having a conversation with himself, or words to that effect, and it’s absolutely true. But there are many things wrong with this one. Though it’s bookended by “Come Wander With Me” and “The Bewitching Pool,” both very good and favorites of mine.
Possibly - the reasons are unclear according to Marc Scott Zicree, but the other episode, "A Quality Of Mercy" was never withheld for any reason. It was always in the syndication package.
As a matter of fact, i've been watching it for the last couple of weeks, bouncing from one episode to another. The picture and sound quality are excellent. But, i'm missing a "Play all" option on the menu.
Wow, too bad. My older Image Blu-ray set has a Play All option. Here's a quick & dirty phone picture of a main menu screen.
