Além da Imaginação

Just recently, I finished a kick of re-watching all 156 episodes of the original Twilight Zone series. If I were to average out all my individual episode rankings, that number would probably fall between 7-8 stars. Yet, when looked at as a whole rather than the sum of its parts, The Twilight Zone is 10/10 all the way.

When TZ is hitting on all cylinders, it is easily one of the greatest anthology pieces ever produced. The lion's share of the credit here goes to show creator and writer Rod Serling, who is truly one of the most inspired individuals to ever put pen to paper in screenplay format. The deeper themes about society or humanity are just as relevant now (if not sometimes more so!) than they were upon original airing.

It absolutely astounds me that this show premiered in 1959. That was ten years before the moon landing! I can't imagine what my grandparents would have thought about a show like this, dealing with space travels, aliens, and all manner of oddities hardly a decade removed from the Second World War and firmly in the Cold War.

Like I said, the best TZ episodes are treasures that will be enjoyed and studied for decades to come. Does the show have its share of clunkers? Of course. But only a true handful of episodes are truly bad. The others largely depend on personal sci-fi tastes or the time-period in which they are viewed.

About the only reason I would even consider dropping this from a perfect ranking is the fourth season of the show, which produced hour-long episodes. Those efforts aren't bad, per se, but are simply padded with dialogue to fill time rather than written for a longer runtime, for the most part.

When taking the long view, however, The Twilight Zone firmly resides in my top-five television programs of all-time. Despite premiering well before it could fully be appreciated, having to deal with the inane TV standards and practices of the era, and being constantly underfunded, Serling managed to keep everything afloat and write some of the best multi-genre material ever seen on the small screen. Whether comedy, mystery, horror, sci-fi, human drama, or any other genre is your game, you'll likely find something to enjoy in the breadth of The Twilight Zone.

I would assume that everyone knows "The Twilight Zone"'s theme song, and recognizes Rod Serling's monotone explanations of how the given character has just crossed over into the Twilight Zone. I'm not sure which episode is my favorite. There's "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet", in which William Shatner sees a monster tearing at an airplane wing, and there's also "Time Enough at Last", where Burgess Meredith plays a bookworm who gets enough time to read as much as he wants...or does he? Or, it might be another episode. But no matter. "The Twilight Zone" never ceases to impress me. Even the 1983 movie was pretty interesting, not something that many movies based on TV shows accomplish. You should try to see the show.

Rod Serling's distinctive approach gave "The Twilight Zone" a unique character that will always keep it among the best-remembered of all classic television shows. Not only that, but it set high goals for itself, and it took a lot of chances - and not chances in the phony, trivial sense in which a lot of more recent series "take chances" by resorting to unnecessarily provocative or indecent material that actually guarantees them attention and acclaim.

"The Twilight Zone" took chances by experimenting with many different kinds of stories and material, and by aiming to provide high-quality entertainment while simultaneously giving you something to think about. As a result, there were a few episodes that didn't quite click, and that seem odd or even dull. But when it worked - as it did a great deal of the time - no television show then or now was more imaginative.

In a short review, it would be impossible to list all of the memorable episodes, or even to cover the full range of the kinds of material that it used. There were chilling episodes like "To Serve Man", which is often remembered by those who saw it decades ago, and there were thought-provoking episodes like "In the Eye of the Beholder", which was also imaginatively filmed.

Many episodes relied primarily on a well-written and well-conceived story, while others, like "The Invaders", relied heavily on excellent acting performances (in that case, by Agnes Moorehead). There were occasional light-hearted episodes like "Once Upon a Time", which was also a nice showcase for the great Buster Keaton.

It's too bad that these anthology-style series went out of fashion, because a number of them were of high quality. This one, in particular, stands well above its subsequent imitators. The best science fiction, like the best of any genre or art form, appeals to the imagination, not to the senses, and imagination is what "The Twilight Zone" was all about.

This show never gets old. It ages extremely well. The psychological horror of this is SO much better than any CGI horror you'll see these days. Every episode (or at least all the good ones) have a spooky element or something out of the ordinary, a twist ending, and a moral or something to think about. There are so many of these that are just, SO GOOD. Rod serling is a greek god. tres bien.

It is completely impossible to narrow down the best episodes of this classic TV series...everything about it (writing, acting, production values) is leaps and bounds above anything around today! That being said, since the Christmas season is approaching, Serling made two holiday episodes that are worth taking the time to watch all over again: "The Night of the Meek" with Art Carney and (my personal favorite) "The Changing of the Guard" with Donald Pleasance. Both are timeless classics, and show a very sentimental side to the Twilight Zone...Every year at the holiday season I like to sit back and take these episodes in; they get better and better with each repeated viewing! Merry Christmas & Enjoy!