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Black Lodge Laura Palmer is the kind of nightmare Freddy Krueger would wake up screaming from.
The ending of St. Elsewhere would have tickled the likes of Lynch and Serling (it's the only part of the series I'm familiar with since along with "Newhart" it always makes the lists of the strangest series finales ever).
I need to give HSB another chance. We certainly wouldn't be enjoying the glut of mature television today without it. I'd also like to take in another trend-setter from that period, St. Elsewhere, but finding the complete series anywhere is not an easy task.
Mark Frost is certainly gifted as his scripts for "Twin Peaks" early on demonstrate. He and Lynch working in tandem gave us one of television's most unique mysteries and for that I am eternally grateful.
The surrealism is why I sought "Twin Peaks" out in the first place. It took me getting used to the fact during my initial journey through the show that it's not all that. Personally, though, I wouldn't mind if it was. I'd be tickled if Lynch was audacious enough to set most of Season Three in the Black Lodge.
I think Frost brought "Hill Street Blues"- police procedural while Lynch brought the surrealism. Since I couldn't get beyond the first couple of episodes of "Hill Street Blues" I much more looking forward to Lynch's contributions.
Killer Bob committing one terrible act after another in the guise of Coop would be just too good.
I think you can interpret that shot of Sloan framed by the mirror of the cigarette machine any number of ways -- and yes it can be a time-traveling device if you choose (it's shots like that, incidentally, that make "Twilight Zone" so good).
"time traveling canon information and etiquette guidelines that we now have"
Imagine how much better Sloan's comportment in the past might have been had he been privy to those rules?
And Marty kept his hands to himself because his over-sexed mom wouldn't.
And while he kept his hands off his parents he certainly had no compunctions cold-cocking Biff and disrupting the time-space continuum as a result.
Ten sounds about right.
Marty McFly handled himself in the past pretty clumsily too: he gets hit by his mom's pop which triggers a chain of events that among other complications finds him the object of his mom's lust. If memory serves Cole got committed for his troubles. And Reese got arrested. So I wouldn't exactly say they handled their time-travelling in any less ungainly a manner than Martin Sloan. And Sloan's clumsiness in the past is in part a byproduct of his arrested development -- he's lived under the delusion that he can go home again, a delusion his experience cures him of for good.
What I liked about "Walking Distance" was that we're never shown any mechanism. In other words, there's nary a DeLorean to be seen. Since this is "The Twilight Zone" a supernatural element was probably involved. However, the subtlety of the episode, permits one, if so inclined, to chalk up Sloan's time-traveling as maybe just a dream he had after falling into a ditch or something whilst on his way to Homewood. And the limp he sports at the episode's end might just be an old injury exacerbated by the fall ... Again, Sloan probably went back in time but I appreciated the absence of any time-traveling device.
The lighting is good, so is the score, but the pacing is off and so is Agnes Moorehead's performance. Sure, the ending is a kick in the head but getting there is such a chore.
Which baffles me since if anything would seem like a sure-thing for "The Twilight Zone" it would be an adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story.
Never understand the love for "The Invaders." Like "Jaws" or "Jurassic Park" (hell, most of Spielberg's movies) "The Invaders" makes more of an impact, I think, if you saw it as a kid.
What do you think happen with "I Sing The Body Electric"? The first time I was going through the series I got so excited when I saw the episode coming up was by the estimable Mr. Bradbury. Imagine my surprise when I finished it and felt what I just sat through could have been written by anybody. "The Twilight Zone" owes such a huge debt to Mr. Bradbury and his contribution to it should have stood with the series' greats. So much potential was squandered here (which might explain why I rank it so low since while it's no "Cavender is Coming" it's so much harder to sit through owing to my higher expectations).
Its only virtue is the main character's name: Roswell Flemington.
"I Dream of Genie" from Season Four is worse.
In her binging habits -- locking herself in a dark room, remaining there for days, looking like she needs to avail herself to soap and water -- she isn't unlike some poor "Game of Thrones" junkies I know.
People crap all over this one but I like it. Good score. Great lead performance. Martin Balsam (who was the detective, as I'm sure you recall, in "Psycho") is his usual reliable self. Glad she escaped from jerks like that studio boss. I did think it was funny she felt that her former co-star's current occupation of running a chain of supermarkets (the precursor to Wall-Mart?) is beneath her. Like the world of show business is somehow a dignified profession by comparison. Anyway, eight for me.
I'd be surprised if Allen wasn't in some way inspired by this episode since his Mia Farrow/Jeff Daniels vehicle bears more than a passing resemblance to it.
I'm a huge Ray Bradbury fan (so was "The Twilight Zone" since he's referenced in both "A Stop at Willoughby" and "Walking Distance") but considering the final product if something besides a check occupied Bradbury's mind when he wrote "I Sing The Body Electric" I'd be very surprised.
If you want a Bradbury contribution to "The Twilight Zone" that's decent check out "The Burning Man" from the '80s series.
What is so stunning about Moorehead's performance? I would really be interested in knowing.
"The Twilight Zone" filtered through an '80s aesthetic can take some getting used to. I can tolerate it though I prefer the jazzy/noir feel of the original. Plus the black and white format lends the original an otherworldliness the color versions come nowhere near to touching.
According to Wikipedia the harmonica in the background is playing the Russian folksong "Stenka Razin."
If you think this episode resembles a movie made earlier wait until you get to "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine." So many people today cite Serling's innovativeness and while he certainly was ahead of his time in a lot of ways like Spielberg and Tarantino and other filmmakers of the modern age he wasn't above borrowing from other works (sometimes liberally) when it suited him.
If you want to watch something that seems to have heavily inspired "Twilight Zone", as well as the anthology format in general, I would encourage you to seek out 1945's "Dead of Night." The wraparound story is awesome and the ending is great too. The segments don't all work but the one with the ventriloquist is pretty unnerving to this day.
I agree that wrinkle relieves it of any "been-there-done-that" stigma.
What episode of "Black Mirror" do you like the most? How about least?