Tag: SF&F TV Show Reviews

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 13 – Once Upon a Time

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I beg the indulgence of any readers under the age of fifty.  This episode is an homage to the age of silent films.  And anyone under the half century mark probably has had no experience with silent films.  So please bear with me if I seem to be doting on an episode that looks like a museum piece and lacks any point of reference for the young.

Buster Keaton plays Woodrow Mulligan, a disgruntled janitor complaining about the high prices, noisiness and high-speed bicycle traffic of pre-automobile 1890 small town America.  He works for an inventor and as he’s walking to work, he is almost run over by a bicycle and falls into a horse trough and has to hang up his pants while they dry on the clothes line.  But even in his boxer shorts he picks up a broom and proceeds to sweep the inventor’s offices.  While sweeping he hears the inventors celebrating their invention of a “time helmet” which will allow its wearer to travel forward and back in time for thirty minutes.  Hearing this, Woodrow thinks it would be a great idea to travel through time to escape the hectic, aggravating life of 1890.  So, he puts on the helmet and heads onto the street to see the future.  As he is preparing to leave a chicken flies into his arms and then he is transported into 1962.  And of course, if he thought bicycle traffic was too fast imagine how aggravated rush hour automobile traffic made him?  Stuck in the middle of the street, he loses his helmet to an accidental passerby’s protruding arm.  Then a little boy on roller skates picks it up and skates away.  Now Woodrow commandeers a bicycle from a sidewalk rack and chases after the boy.  Of course, the cop on the beat sees a middle-aged man without pants chasing a boy on roller skates and immediately pursues on foot.

The boy turns down an alley and collides with a man named Rollo.  The helmet falls off the boy’s head and he skates off without it.  Woodrow rounds the corner and also collides with Rollo.  Woodrow collects his helmet but discovers that it’s broken.  Bewailing his fate, he tells his story to Rollo.  By a coincidence Rollo is a scientist and observing Woodrow’s clothing and other trappings he believes the story and agrees to help Woodrow to repair the helmet before the thirty-minute deadline passes.  They go to an Electrical Appliance Repair Shop and spend most of the rest of the episode trying to explain what needs to be fixed and allowing Woodrow to become confused by vacuum cleaners and television sets.

When the helmet is repaired Rollo steals it saying he wants to go back to the peaceful 1890s.  Woodrow chases Rollo and at the very last second, he leaps onto Rollo and they both are transported back to 1890.  In the next scene Woodrow shows a renewed appreciation for local conditions in 1890.  But Rollo is miserable in the pre-electronic age he sent himself to and pines for modernity.  Woodrow responds rapidly and plants the helmet on Rollo’s head and turns the dial to 1962 and sends him back to his time.

The conceit in this one is that the portions of the story that take place in 1890 are filmed as a silent film with background music and subtitle but no voices.  The 1960s portions were just the typical Twilight Zone era television format.  The episode is a broad comedy to honor and play to the style of the famous silent comedy star Buster Keaton.  In effect, it might as well have been a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  As an aside Rollo was played by Stanley Adams who appeared as Cyrano Jones in the Trouble with Tribbles episode of the original Star Trek series.  He is the salesman who sells a Tribble to one of the Enterprise crew.

So, for this episode tastes will vary greatly but I’ll be (as always) conservative and give it a B.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 12 – The Jungle

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Alan and Doris Richards are Manhattanites living on Central Park in a luxury apartment building.  By appearances they are very well off and shouldn’t have a care in the world.  But the Richards have just returned from central Africa where Alan is an engineer working on a large hydroelectric dam project.  When we first meet them, Alan is telling Doris the story of where he found his missing cuff link.  It was in her jewelry box but in addition to jewelry, he found a severed human finger, a vulture’s claw and several other voodoo good luck charms from the tribal culture that they were neighbors to in Africa.  When Alan threatens to throw the items in the fireplace Doris admits to keeping them and begs him to hold onto the items to protect him from the witch doctor’s wrath for interfering with the land used for the dam.  Alan tosses the items in the fire and heads off to his business meeting at the engineering firm he works for.

At the meeting we find out that Alan actually has a stronger belief in the power of the witch doctor’s spells than he let on to Doris.  When Alan tells the board what the witch doctor promised if the dam were built, they scoff.  In return he asks them about their own superstitions, a rabbit’s foot on one man’s key chain, astrology, knocking wood, not walking under ladders, the very building they were sitting in not having a thirteenth floor.  The board members are agitated but none plan to rescind the order to build the dam that will trigger the witch doctor’s curse.

In the next scene Alan is at a midtown bar drinking some scotch when he shows his friend a lion’s tooth that Doris has hidden in his jacket pocket to protect him from lions.  After scoffing at the superstitious talisman, he drops it on the bar and leaves.  But when he gets to his car it won’t start up.  He heads back to the bar and finds it closed and empty but on the bar, he can see the tooth.

He goes to a pay phone to call home but there’s no answer.  When he walks away the phone rings but when he picks it up all he hears on the line are jungle noises.  Now he starts walking toward home on the other side of Central Park but hears jungle drums and animals screeching and then a large animal in the tree above him.  At that moment a taxi appears and Alan jumps in the cab, gives his address and sits back in relief.  When the cab stops at a red light the driver slumps over dead in his seat and Alan retreats from the cab and starts walking home again in a near panic as the jungle noises get louder and louder.  A pan handler bums a ten dollar bill off him and Alan asks if the man will escort him home.  But when he asks the man about the jungle noises it must unnerve him because he disappears.

Now Alan runs home in full flight from the jungle drums and lion roars that surround him.  When he reaches his building, the sound reaches a crescendo and as he fumbles with the entrance door he falls to his knees in despair.  But suddenly the noises cease.  Relieved he enters the building and takes the elevator to his floor and enters his apartment where he pours himself a drink and exhales a sigh of relief.

But then he hears the sound of a lion grunting and quietly growling from his bedroom.  Alan walks over to the door, gathers his courage and slowly opens the door.  On the bed is a smashed but still lit lamp, the body of Doris and an enormous male lion.  We see the dazed expression on Alan’s face just before we are shown the lion leap from the bed and hear Alan’s death scream.

This is one of those goofy episodes that, depending on my mood, could be a D or if I feel sympathetic a B-.  In its favor Alan is played by John Dehner, one of my favorite Twilight Zone character actor.  He always contributes an aura of gravitas whether he is rescuing a marooned prisoner from an asteroid or selling resurrection (or insurance against) to the not quite mourning relatives of the dearly departed.  In the minus column is the spectacle of someone managing to be alone in midtown Manhattan.  Ah, let’s take the high road B-.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 11 – Still Valley

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I guess this would be called historical fantasy.

Sergeant Joseph Paradine is a confederate scout near the front in the Civil War, probably in and around northern Maryland.  While investigating troop movements he discovers that a whole column of Union soldiers is frozen in place on the main street of a small town.  The men are frozen in mid stride and some are even frozen in the act of drinking from a canteen or lifting a heavy weight.  They are as still as statues and nothing happening around them wakes them from this state.

While trying to figure what was going on, Paradine hears a noise coming from a house on the street and discovers a crazy old man named Teague who claims he is responsible for the frozen Yankee soldiers.  Asked how he did it he informs Paradine that he is the seventh son of the seventh son of a seventh son.  His family has been full of warlocks for generations and he has a book of spells that can freeze the whole Union Army.  When asked why he doesn’t he tells Paradine that he is about to die.  So, he tells the sergeant to take the book and do it for him.  But before he dies, he explicitly tells Paradine that when he casts the spells, he is invoking the Devil.

Back at the camp of Paradine’s outfit he returns and tells the tale of what he saw and what can be accomplished with the power of the book.  His commanding officer thinks Paradine is suffering from delusions.  But a company returns from an area where Paradine has tested the power of the book and attests that a frozen column of Yankee soldiers is indeed right over the ridge from their camp for all to see.

Now the soldiers are beginning to become excited by the prospect of snatching a Confederate victory out of the jaws of defeat.  But as Paradine starts to read the spell he realizes that it explicitly renounces God.  Now, even though his CO is urging him to read the spell, Paradine explains that if he reads the spell then instead of Damn Yankees it will be the Confederacy that will be damned.  His comrades beg him to remember that if he doesn’t do it the Confederacy is dead.  Paradine replies that if the Confederacy must die then at least it will be buried in hallowed ground.  And saying this he throws the book into the camp fire.  In the epilogue, Serling says that the troop headed north the next day and ended up in a town called Gettysburg.  The tone at the end is a little too solemn and righteous for a fantasy but it seemed well meaning.

Gary Merrill played Paradine and did an admirable job.  Teague was played by an actor named Vaughn Taylor that I am unfamiliar with but he was very amusingly over the top.

This is a minor tale but it gets the job done.  Tastes will vary on this one but I’ll stake it to a solid B.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 10 – The Midnight Sun

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When we meet Norma and her neighbor Mrs. Bronson, they are just becoming the last two people living in their Manhattan apartment building.  Their other neighbors, the Shusters are leaving town to head north to the Finger Lakes to escape the deadly heat associated with the death spiral of the Earth into the Sun.  Apparently, the temperature at midnight (when by the way the sun is still high in the sky) is 110◦F and in only a day or two survival will become impossible.  So, the cause of the change in Earth’s orbit is unexplained but we soldier on.

Norma is an artist and seems to specialize in landscapes featuring gigantic suns with hills and buildings in the foreground.  The women agonize over their fate and cry a lot.  In the next scene Norma has shed her dress and is stylishly sweating in her underwear which is actually a great improvement to the show.  It distracts from the lack of action.  When Norma goes to the store, she gets some fruit juice they open a can and cry some more.  Later on, a man breaks into the building and forces his way into Norma’s apartment and drinks all her water.  Then he tells us his wife and baby have died and he’s at the end of his rope.  He leaves and the women cry some more.  Then Norma paints a picture of a cool blue water fall and Mrs. Bronson goes crazy and wants to swim in the picture but luckily, she dies before she can try and Norma cries some more.

In the next scene it’s a 120◦F and the thermometer explodes and the liquid leaks out and the paint drips down from Norma’s paintings and she screams and falls down.

In the next scene it’s really, really dark and cold and Mrs. Bronson is alive again and we find out that Norma was having a fever dream about the heat and actually the Earth is flying away from the Sun and in a day or two survival will become impossible.  But at least nobody is crying at the moment.

Okay, I’m being a little sarcastic.  It’s not awful but it’s kinda slow.  The actresses are sympathetic and the acting isn’t terrible but let’s say my attention wavered.  The actress playing Norma is quite attractive and I’ll even give a half point for the surprise ending but honestly this is a C+ at best.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 9 – Deaths-Head Revisited

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A man shows up at a small hotel in a German town and signs in as Mr. Schmidt.  But the hotel clerk recognizes him as an SS officer who used to work at the local concentration camp during World War II (this story is taking place in 1960s Germany).

In the next scene the man is dropped off at the camp (Dachau) and walks around smiling and reminiscing about the death and torture he doled out during his time as Captain Lutze of the SS.  In the middle of his reverie he hears a door open and he sees a man dressed in the garb of one of the concentration camp prisoners of seventeen years ago.  And in fact, he remembers the man’s name was Becker.  Lutze commends Becker on his youthful appearance saying he looks very much as he remembered him seventeen years ago.  He asks Becker if he is a caretaker of the site and Becker evasively says that in a manner of speaking, he is.

Lutze attempts to convince Becker to put aside the past and accept that Lutze was only following orders when he worked at the camp.  Becker refuses this reasoning and instead characterizes Lutze as not a soldier but a sadist who relished his activities.  He lists Lutze’s crimes in the various areas of the camps.  The gallows where men were hanged by the neck or left hanging by their limbs in agony.  The medical building where vivisection of men, women and children was carried out.  The gate where men were machine gunned down in crowds.  Becker names all these things and then he reveals to Lutze that a trial will be conducted and judged by the men whom Lutze mistreated.

And as Lutze looks around one of the barracks, he sees the other prisoners in their uniforms looking at him with expressions that accused him of these high crimes.  As the charges are enumerated, Lutze panics and passes out.

When Lutze awakes Becker informs him that the trial is over and he has been found guilty.  Now Lutze becomes angry and arrogant dismissing Becker’s talk of punishment as foolish but as Lutze begins to act threateningly toward Becker, he stops short and seems shocked.  Becker smiles and tells Lutze that he has remembered correctly that Lutze killed him seventeen years ago just as the Americans were liberating the camp.  And so, it doesn’t seem as if Lutze will be able to murder his way out of this situation.  Now Becker speaks clearly about what is happening.  The ghosts of the men Lutze murdered haunt the camp and now that he has returned, they will pass judgement on him.

Becker pronounces the sentence.  He says Lutze will now experience all the agonies that he doled out against the prisoners of the camp for the rest of his life.  And that this pain would render him insane.  And finally, Becker ends by saying, “This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice. But this is only the beginning, Captain. Only the beginning. Your final judgment will come from God.”

Lutze goes insane and in the last scene a doctor and the police are gathering up Lutze and the doctor says of the camp, “Dachau. Why does it still stand? Why do we keep it standing?”

In his epilogue Serling says all the camps must remain because, “they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.”

Let me first address the artistic aspect of this episode.  Oscar Beregi plays Captain Lutze and I am not familiar with him.  Becker is played by Joseph Schildkraut who I best remember from a much lighter but memorable part he played in the depression era comedy, “The Shop Around the Corner.”  Both men did an admirable job with their decidedly difficult parts.

With respect to the didactic aspect of the episode I’ll address a couple of points.

This episode is said to be a reaction to the contemporary trial of Adolf Eichmann.  Eichmann had been the architect of the concentration camp system and Serling used this episode to make sure that the world had not forgotten the Nazi genocide of the European Jews.  When he says that keeping the camps around will prevent men from forgetting the lesson they teach, I’m afraid that is an overly optimistic assessment.  Even at the time, the USSR and the USA were poised with tens of thousands of ICBMs with a combined killing power to make the Holocaust look like a slipshod affair.  And as the Rwanda genocide showed us many years later you don’t have to be a Nazi (or even ever have heard of them) to butcher your fellow man on a wholesale basis.

My second comment has to do with Becker’s statement about Lutze’s sentence, “This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice.”  This seems unlikely.  For there not to be hatred and revenge associated with the victims of such atrocities would be non-human.  Even a saint would revolt at foregoing hatred and revenge for such evil.

A

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 8 – It’s a Good Life

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Okay, so this is it, this is the payoff.  This is the quintessential Twilight Zone episode.  Not even I dare to dispute the primacy of this one.  This is the A+ by which all other episodes are measured against and found wanting.

Rod Serling is standing in front of a map of the United States when the whole thing goes dark except for one dot on the map that he tells us is Peaksville, Ohio.  He tells us that the people there don’t know if the rest of the world was destroyed or if they have been removed from the rest of reality but either way, they are cut off from everything else.  And he tells us that this was done by a monster and that the monster rules this little world through fear and intimidation.  He has eliminated electric power, automobiles, radio and television and all other modern conveniences.  Then Mr. Serling shows us the monster.  It’s a cute little six-year-old boy named Anthony Fremont.  He can read thoughts and he can create or destroy anything he wants to just by thinking it.

Next, we see life in Peaksville.  A grocery store bicycle delivery man shows up at the Fremont farm and says some polite things about the three headed gophers that Anthony is playing with just in time for Anthony to get tired of it and kill it with his mind.  And then he sends it into the cornfield which means it disappears.

The deliveryman talks to Mrs. Fremont about the things that have run out in the store and about the tomato soup that he found because he knows Anthony likes it.  And we meet Aunt Amy who has been crack brained since Anthony stopped her from singing a while ago.  Anthony likes music but not singing.  And then we see Mr. Fremont in his room getting ready for a party that night and talking to Anthony about his day.  Anthony says that no children came to play with him and he wanted them to.  His father reminds Anthony that last time children visited him he sent them to the cornfield and if he keeps doing that eventually there won’t be anybody left.  Just then a collie dog starts barking outside and we find out that Anthony doesn’t like dogs, so soon we hear a yelp of pain and the dog joins the three headed gopher in the cornfield.

That night is a dual celebration.  Anthony will present one of his occasional television shows and it is also Dan Hollis’s birthday.  The television show is a vicious battle between two triceratopses jabbing each other with their horns and attempting to throw each other off a cliff.  When one dinosaur is victorious the television goes blank and Anthony declares, “that’s all the television there is.”  Ethel presents her husband Dan with two birthday presents, a bottle of brandy and a Perry Como record album.  Dan speculates that maybe they could listen to the instrumental introduction before the singing.  But Mr Fremont declares that it would be too risky.

While the rest of the party gathers around while Anthony listens to Pat Riley play the piano Dan Hollis starts getting drunk on his brandy.  Initially he just becomes maudlin about the dwindling supply of whiskey but eventually he starts railing against Anthony and blaming his parents for bringing him into the world.  When Anthony becomes angry with him, Dan tells Anthony, “that’s right you think those bad thoughts about me and maybe some man whose had enough of this will take some something hard across your skull and end this.”  For a second it looks like Aunt Amy is reaching for a fireplace poker but then she backs off.  Anthony says to Dan, “You’re a bad man, a very bad man and you keep thinking bad thoughts about me.”  Then he points his finger at Dan and as a shadow on the wall we see Dan turn into a jack in the box.  Then we see Dan’s face bobbing as if on the jack in the box.  Mr. Fremont begs his son, “please son, send it to the cornfield.”  And he does.  Then he warns Ethel Hollis that she better not think bad thoughts or he’ll do the same to her too.

While everyone tries to put a happy face on what has happened, they notice that it’s snowing (in the summer).  Mr. Fremont starts to say that that will destroy half the crop but then he squelches his thought and finishes off by saying it’s a good thing that Anthony made it snow.  And finally, he says with all the sincerity of a man with a gun to his head that tomorrow is gonna be a real good day.

This is the best Twilight Zone episode.  It’s the vision of hell on earth.  It’s a petulant child with the powers of life and death.  The story is original, creepy and fun.  A+

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 7 – The Grave

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A western themed Twilight Zone with Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef and Strother Martin, what’s not to like?  Lee Marvin is a bounty hunter named Conny Miller who comes home to find that the man he’s been hunting for months, Pinto Sykes, arrived back in town ahead of him and was finished off by an armed deputation of eight townsmen who opened fire on him all together.

The men tell Conny that before he died Pinto told them that Conny wasn’t really trying to catch him because he was afraid of Pinto.  And Pinto left word that if Conny ever showed up near his grave he would reach up and grab Conny.  Conny declared that he was never afraid of Pinto in life and he certainly wasn’t afraid of him now that he was dead.

Two of the men, Johnny Rob and Steinhart (played by Lee van Cleef) each bet Conny a twenty-dollar gold piece that he won’t visit the grave that night.  Another man named Mothershed (played by Strother Martin) said he would have bet against Conny too but he was out of cash.  Conny covers the bets and is about to leave when the men ask him how they will know if he really went all the way onto the grave.  It’s decided that he will stick a bowie knife into the earth and leave it there for them to see in the morning.

When Conny gets to the graveyard he meets pinto’s sister Ione Sykes who seems slightly unhinged and who laughs and tells Conny that Pinto is waiting for him.  She leaves and he heads for the grave.  At this point Conny is extremely jumpy and he pulls his gun when he hears something clanking in the high wind.  But he reaches the grave and plunges the knife into the grave.  But when he turns to leave, he seems to be pulled down onto the grave.

The next day the men are worried that something has happened to Conny.  They meet Ione who is going to place a dinner plate on Pinto’s grave as a memento.  When they get to the grave, they find Conny dead on the ground and are horrified.  But Steinhart explains it all as completely natural.  He theorized that Conny was very scared but managed to plunge his knife into the ground but as they could see he plunged it through the hem of his long coat and when he tried to get up, he felt the tug of the coat held by the knife and imagined Pinto was pulling him down and had a heart attack.  This seemed logical but Ione, who was wearing a long cape noted that the wind last night was the same as it was then and showed them that the wind couldn’t have blown his coat across the grave.

A very amusing ghost story with some of the best western actors of the time.  A-.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 6 – The Mirror

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Peter Falk is Ramos Clemente, who is a stand in for Fidel Castro.  Clemente and his four lieutenants are celebrating their victory over and capture of the former dictator De Cruz (a stand-in for Battista).  The five friends toast each other with the wine they’ve captured in the Presidential Palace.  De Cruz is brought in and Clemente taunts him with the prospect of a slow torturous death.  De Cruz dismisses his taunts and rails at Clemente with the reality that now he was the new dictator and he would be living in fear of the next avenging angel to follow.  De Cruz follows up by telling them that the ornate mirror on the wall of the Presidential Office is magic and will show Clemente the face of his would-be assassins.  Clemente sends off De Cruz to his fate but we can see that de Cruz’s words have hit home in Clemente’s mind.

At this point one of Clemente’s lieutenants upbraids him for treating De Cruz in an extralegal fashion.  He insists that Clemente cannot murder De Cruz but must have him tried in court.  Clemente explodes at him and calls him a fool and dismisses his criticism as stupid.  But when Clemente turns away from his critical comrade, he sees in the mirror that this man is now holding a gun as if he means to shoot Clemente.  But when he turns back to the man, he has no gun and isn’t even looking toward him.  But now Clemente remembers De Cruz’s words of the magic mirror.  He accuses the man of plotting his murder.  And immediately Clemente pushes his comrade through the balcony doors and throws him down to his death.

Now two of his other three lieutenants are shocked and agitated and upbraid him for what they see as insanity.  By the way one of these two is dressed and made up to look like Che Guevara.  Clemente argues with them and when he turns to the mirror again the two men are shown with a gun and knife.  He tells the two men to go down to the prison and make sure De Cruz hasn’t escaped.  They go reluctantly and as soon as they are gone, he calls the gate of the prison and tells the guards to kill his two lieutenants when the appear.  Then he tells the guards to let him know when it is done.

Facing his last comrade, he asks him whether his turn will be next to turn on Clemente.  The man says that there are two kinds of men, followers and leaders and he himself will follow Clemente until that day when he no longer thinks Clemente is the strongest.  But he also tells Clemente that he can never again think of other men as his friends.  A dictator has no friends, only followers or rivals.  This seems to satisfy Clemente.  Next the lieutenant answers the phone and informs Clemente that his two men have been executed by the prison guards.  This seems to depress Clemente and he turns away.  But when he looks in the mirror again, he sees his last comrade leering at him and holding a glass of wine.  When he turns around the man is not holding any wine.  When shortly after the man offers Clemente a glass of wine, he assumes the man is trying to poison him.  He slaps the glass out of his hand and accuses him.  The man mocks him for believing in magic mirrors but despite this Clemente shoots him dead.  Now he is alone.

In the next scene the Catholic priest in charge of the area comes to Clemente and demands that the firing squads that have been working around the clock killing De Cruz’s men end.  Clemente refuses saying he will kill off all his would-be assassins.  The priest leaves but he tells Clemente that all dictators always miss the one real assassin.

As he leaves and closes the door Clemente in desperation throws his gun through the mirror and a few seconds later the priest and the guards outside the door hear a shot ring out and enter to find Clemente has committed suicide.

At the time Castro was in the news having just overthrown Battista and taken control of Cuba.  Of course, no magic mirror overthrew Castro and he only finally died a few years ago but Peter Falk is so much fun to watch in this thing as a crazy Latin American dictator.   A-

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 5 – A Game of Pool

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Jack Klugman plays a small-time pool player named Jesse Cardiff.  He is bitter that even fifteen years after the death of pool master Fats Brown everyone still considered Fats the greatest pool player.  And he rails at a photo of Fats on the wall of his local pool hall and says, “I’d give anything, anything to play him one game!”

In the next scene we see Fats Brown (played by Jonathan Winters), apparently up in Heaven, and he’s being summoned by some kind of celestial appointment intercom.  He heads down to Earth and appears in Jesse Cardiff’s pool room and tells him his wish has been heard and Fats is there to grant it.  The catch is that the stakes for winning and losing are life and death.  Now Jesse is taken aback.  Sure, he’s anxious to prove his skill but betting his life seems nuts.  But Fats goads him and mocks him until he agrees to the bet.

They now engage in a long, skillful and fiercely fought game of pool.  At last it comes down to one ball and it is obvious that Fats has thrown the point and he tries to give Jesse one last chance not to take the crown of being the greatest pool player in the world.  But Jesse sinks the ball and wins.  Fats congratulates Jesse and leaves with a mysterious smile.  Jesse revels in his victory but then seems almost deflated by the anticlimax of having won.

In the next scene we’re back in heaven and Jesse is dejectedly sitting next to the celestial pool table waiting for the next challenge to take.  Being the champ is a grueling existence and Jesse must be envying Fats who Serling announces has gone fishing.

This is one of those goofy fantasy episodes.  Heaven arranges pool rivalries and allows life or death stakes on the outcome?  But who cares!  Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters ham it up to the hilt.

In my family, pool was a bizarre fetish.  My paternal grandfather had a pool table in his basement.  But we, his poor grandsons were anathema and weren’t even allowed to hold a cue near “the felt.”  There was a shrine where an autographed photo of Willie Mosconi presided over the pretty terrible players that my grandfather surrounded himself with.  So, pool had the reputation of being a boring waste of time.  We preferred street football or stickball.  Watching these two pool players agonize over fractions of a millimeter and an invisible degree of angle is strangely familiar in its futility.  Funny thing is there was a full sized pool table in my basement when I bought this house so I make a point of letting the grandsons play on it any way they please.  “The felt” is starting to look less than pristine but I don’t mind and neither do they.

Obviously, I have no objectivity about this subject but I find myself always enjoying this episode immensely.  I’ll call it an A.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 4 – The Passersby

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The scene opens on a woman sitting on the porch of a southern mansion that has been devastated by the Civil War.  On the road in front of her home a stream of war veterans from both sides is limping along.  A Confederate Sergeant asks the woman if he can have some water from her well and she graciously agrees.  While he drinks the water, they talk about the war and its aftermath.  He was wounded and has a serious leg injury.  She has lost her husband in the war and was herself recently deathly ill with a fever.  To cheer both of them he asks if he can play his guitar and she gladly agrees.

As we see more of the soldiers who are passing on the road it seems obvious that they are unbeknownst to themselves actually the dead.  One Union officer who had helped the Sergeant when he was wounded is revealed to be an animated corpse that shows no meaningful effect when the woman shoots him with a gun.  She does this at a point when being reminded of the pain of losing her husband she vows to take revenge on the Union soldiers.  After this event the Sergeant knows he must reach the end of the road.  But just as he is leaving the woman’s husband is heard approaching the house singing a song.  The husband tells his wife that they are both dead and there is nothing left holding them to this world.  He says he is headed to the end of the road and if she does not come with him now, he’ll wait for her at the end until she makes up her mind to come.  The Sergeant heads off down the road and the woman’s husband soon after that.  She unsuccessfully pleads with her husband to stay and then collapses on the road in front of the house in sorrow.

Just then Abraham Lincoln shows up walking down the road and tries to persuade her to proceed.  He tells her he is the last man on the road because he is the final casualty of the Civil War.  At first, she refuses but then changing her mind she runs down the road to catch up to her husband.

The story has a sort of melancholy grace to it and the characterization of the woman and the Sergeant are very affecting and natural.  Serling uses Lincoln as a touchstone to represent the tragic consequences of war for both sides.  Although I don’t think it describes the complexity of the psychic wounds that still stalk the land, I recognize that he wants to allow grace for both sides in the conflict and that is admirable.  B.