![]() Strong’s Death is frightening, able to appear out of nowhere and refusing to be left behind at a series of loney gas stations and cafes on a desert road far from anywhere. But a curious grace is allowed to slip into it stealthily. The simple story of a young woman ( Inger Stevens) dogged by a mysterious figure (Leonard Strong) who turns out to be Death could be a cold tale of the inevitability of life’s end. “The Hitch-Hiker” (Season 1, episode 16). And there’s a helplessness watching a suburban neighborhood turn on each other in how little we’ve progressed and in many ways regressed since that episode originally aired. Divide and conquer is a devastating strategy because it works. It's also a glum reminder of how at the end of the day we are more than capable of destroying ourselves from the inside than from any perceived outside threat. This is perhaps the episode that should be shown in high school history and civics classes as a warning and a rebuke to being ruled by fear. “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” (Season 1, episode 22). Robertson’s shock and fear quickly give way to desperately trying to find any kind of aid for his son and to get back to him. The past and present being one is a frequent theme of “The Twilight Zone” and this is one of its better variations. ![]() Hoping to find water over the next ridge he walks ahead to discover he’s walked a hundred years into the future. Cliff Robertson plays the leader of a nineteenth century wagon train whose son is dying. The lengths parents will go to aid their children is illustrated another way in this story of a father who accidentally stumbles into the future. “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim” (Season 2, episode 23). “Little Girl Lost” is exceptional for showing how “The Twilight Zone” could take the sets and budgets of sixties television and make something that truly felt otherworldly out of them. A little girl falls through a dimensional warp in her room into a strange out of time and space plane and her parents and a neighbor have so much time to find her and bring her home before the doorway closes for good. “Little Girl Lost” is effectively the latter half of Spielberg and Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist” done in half an hour. Spielberg directed one of the segments of the "Twilight Zone" movie in 1983 and the show’s influence on his work is seen clearly in this episode. “Little Girl Lost” (Season 3, episode 26). His eyes gleaming for fire and fury simply because they have the means to. Andrew’s villain is another “Twilight Zone” character that’s gained an uncomfortable sheen of the timely. A remarkably tense thriller for its 30 minutes, the dread of discovery handing over them as sure as the dread of destruction when the bombs start falling. Time is running out for their escape, and they’ve attracted the attention of an oily coworker (Edward Andrews) who loves needless destruction almost as much as he hates the idea of refugees fleeing to safety. Fritz Weaver got a turn to be the hero in this episode as a scientist trying to save his family from war that will destroy the planet. “Third From the Sun” (Season 1, episode 14). ![]() ![]() Meredith turned in several iconic performances on “The Twilight Zone” but my favorite is his librarian in “The Obsolete Man,” the quiet resistance of free will and the soul that gnaws through the root of fascism. Weaver has underestimated Meredith’s courage, and cunning, and on a visit to gloat at the man’s impending death he finds himself locked in Meredith’s apartment, forced to share the man’s fate unless he relents and admits that their might be more to life, and the universe than the hard, inflexible code he has destroyed society with. Don’t you wish anti-fascist parables could stop being described with the phrase “surprisingly timely”? In a totalitarian society a librarian ( Burgess Meredith) is judged obsolete by a tribunal led by a merciless Fritz Weaver. “The Obsolete Man” (Season 2, episode 29). By turns tough and tender, Montgomery in the more difficult role of having no dialogue says pages with a suspicious flick of the eyes, or a hard won wary smile. If you’re familiar with Bronson and Montgomery for their later work as a tough action movie bruiser and Montgomery as the perky witch housewife on “ Bewitched,” both play fascinatingly against those roles. That the two will eventually reach accord is for granted, but it’s a terrific nearly wordless episode watching the pair get there. Unfortunately she is from the opposite side of the war that destroyed all human life on the planet. In time after a devastating nuclear war the last man on Earth ( Charles Bronson) finds out he’s not alone one day while making his rounds when he stumbles across another survivor (Elizabeth Montgomery). ![]()
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