In two weeks, the new year will be upon us. The arrival of a new year is an occasion to indulge in some established, well–known traditions, like drinking champagne, getting a kiss for luck and singing "Auld Lang Syne."
Some traditions are not as obvious but are, nevertheless, significant.
For example, if you're like me, you love the original Twilight Zone TV series — the one that had Rod Serling and some great writers and some great performers.
And, if you love the Twilight Zone, perhaps you've gotten in the habit of watching the annual New Year's and Fourth of July Twilight Zone marathons on SciFi — excuse me, that is Syfy now.
Well, I have some news. If you watched the marathon last summer, you know that the first half of the marathon was devoted to episodes from the series' second incarnation — in the mid–1980s. Some Twilight Zone purists never really took to the revival. I don't know why. Maybe it was because it was in color or because Serling wasn't part of the project. Neither of those things could be changed. Television had long since converted to color programming by the time the revival came on the air, and Serling had been deceased for a decade.
Personally, I enjoyed the revival series, and I enjoyed seeing some of those episodes again last summer. I have seldom had the opportunity to see them since the first time they were shown.
Well, I've been looking at the schedule for the New Year's marathon at the Syfy website, and, unfortunately, it does not appear that the episodes from the second series will be part of it.
As I say, some Twilight Zone fans will see that as a good thing, and I guess it is hard to argue the point. It means there will be two consecutive days and nights, Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, of Rod Serling's original Twilight Zone, which is probably appropriate, since 2009 marked half a century since the debut of the Twilight Zone.
Anyway, I want to alert you to some of the best episodes and when you can see them.
I like to refer to TV.com on these things. Visitors can rate every episode of every TV series on that site, and last year I did a rundown of the series' top 10 — and when viewers could see them. Let's see if the top 10 episodes have changed and when each will be shown this year. (By the way, all times are Central because that is the time zone where I live.)
OK. I'll spare you some suspense. The order changed (based on visitors' ratings during the year), but nine of the Top 10 are the same as they were a year ago.
- The most popular episode is unchanged. "The Eye of the Beholder" from 1960 will be shown at 8:30 p.m. on New Year's Day. It stars Donna Douglas, who later played Elly Mae Clampett.
- Number 2, also from 1960, "A Stop at Willoughby," moves up from #3. It can be seen at 5:30 p.m. on New Year's Day.
- The third–rated episode, "The Midnight Sun," aired in 1961 and was rated second last year. It will be shown at 10:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve.
- "The After Hours" from 1960 made a rather dramatic jump, from sixth to fourth. I've never been terribly wild about it so it's hard for me to understand, but I guess it's a matter of taste. Judge for yourself at 9:30 p.m. on New Year's Day.
- The fifth–rated episode, 1962's "To Serve Man," is unchanged from last year. It will be shown at 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve.
- "It's a Good Life," from 1961, moves up from #8. It is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on New Year's Day.
- "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You," from 1964, tumbled from #4, which was fine with me. It airs at midnight on New Year's Eve.
- "The Masks," also from 1964, moved up from #9. Check it out at 8 p.m. on New Year's Day.
- "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" from 1961 moves up from 10th last year. It will be shown at 10 p.m. on New Year's Day.
- The newcomer to the top 10, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" from 1963, replaces 1961's "Five Characters in Search of an Exit," which was rated seventh last year but fell all the way out of the top 10. It's on at 5 p.m. on New Year's Eve.
- One of the things you seldom see are the one–hour episodes, which were originally aired exclusively in the fourth season (1962–63). There were only 18 of them, and they have a somewhat different tone from the others.
As I understand it, the Twilight Zone had been replaced in the fall 1962 lineup by an hour–long sitcom, which didn't last. Twilight Zone was brought back as a mid–season replacement in the sitcom's time slot, but that meant producing hour–long episodes instead of half–hour episodes. Apparently, few of those who worked on the series were wild about the change.
You can catch one of my favorites, "Valley of the Shadow," at 7 a.m. on New Year's Eve. In this episode, a reporter is trapped in a small town where people can do all kinds of fantastic things.
Then, if you happen to be up at 6 a.m. on New Year's Day, you can catch another one that I always recommend, "He's Alive," which stars a young Dennis Hopper as a neo–Nazi leader being advised by a shadowy figure — who turns out to be Hitler himself. Planning to sleep in on New Year's Day? Use your TiVo or a DVR and record it. Even after nearly 50 years, it is a timely story.
Then, at 7 a.m. on New Year's Day, you can watch "Death Ship," which is probably more dated. Three men on board a spacecraft land on a planet where they find the wreckage of a ship that looks a lot like theirs. Two of the men believe it is their ship and they are now dead. - I also look for half–hour episodes that I rarely see.
One that doesn't seem to be shown often is "Deaths–Head Revisited" from 1961. A former Nazi captain returns to the concentration camp he ran during the war — only he encounters the ghosts of the prisoners he victimized.
You can see it at noon on New Year's Day. - Another seldom seen episode, 1960's "The Last Flight," will be shown at 10 a.m. on New Year's Eve. It's about a World War I pilot who flies through a cloud and finds himself at a modern air base.
You might not recognize the English actor who plays the pilot. His name is Kenneth Haigh, and I think most of his work has been done on English productions. However, he did have a relatively small role in the Beatles' first motion picture, "A Hard Day's Night." - I guess I'm sort of partial to episodes about flight, and one of my favorites, which also seems to be shown fairly infrequently, is "The Odyssey of Flight 33" from 1961.
In the episode, an airliner is making what seems to be a routine trip from London to New York, but along the way it takes a trip back in time ... way back in time. In the attached clip, you will see a couple of brief segments using a dinosaur model from Jack Harris' 1961 film "Dinosaurus." Using that footage cost the producers of the show $2,500, making it the most expensive sequence aired in the original series. - If you happen to be up at 1 a.m. (again, that's Central time) on New Year's morning, you can catch 1961's "The Grave," an old West tale about a hired gun (played by Lee Marvin) who comes to a town looking for an outlaw who has already been killed in an ambush. As he was dying, the outlaw vowed to reach up from his grave and grab Marvin if he ever came near his resting place.
Of course, he does. - Immediately after that episode, you can see another episode from 1961, "Two," about two people — a man and a woman — from opposing armies, the only survivors of an apocalyptic war. Played by Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery, the two adhere, at first, to the mutual suspicions of their former governments, but they realize, as the show goes on, that they have no reason to fight anymore.
I always assumed that, because Bronson spoke in English and Montgomery spoke in what sounded (to my ear, at least) like Russian, it was an allegory for the U.S.–Soviet Union Cold War clash that raged at the time. Thus, it may seem quite dated now, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nearly 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But it's still worth watching, especially since it is rarely seen on TV anymore.
