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Eight. Great performance by Dan Duryea. Tension-filled climax. Poignant tale of redemption that may be a little too on the nose (Mr. Fate) but satisfies still. An allegory, I believe, for the arms race going on then between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
A pretty standard episode elevated considerably by Warren Stevens. He makes both his characters distinct without over-selling either. George Grizzard and Joe Mantell in "In His Image" and "Nervous Man In A Four Dollar Room" respectively also convinced while playing two separate personas.
Did you catch the remake of "Dead Man's Shoes" with Helen Miren in the '80s? Surprisingly watchable.
I agree with the consensus on "San Junipero." Not so much "White Christmas."
"Nightmare logic" is indeed a better term. I should probably re-label this post.
I would add "And When The Sky Was Opened" and "Mirror Image."
"Spur of the Moment" is one of the better Season Five episodes. I didn't like though that ripple effect they used when transitioning from one reality to the other It reminds me of the effect employed in "Wayne's World." The transitions were done much better in "A Stop at Willoughby."
I need to watch "Westworld." Nathanael Booth tweeted once that "In His Image," a season four episode of the "Zone", was "like a better version of the best parts of 'Westworld.'"
"Black Mirror" is great. "White Christmas" was overstuffed though. It should have just focused on that woman not realizing she was a 'cookie.' That's the part of the episode that struck a chord the most. An episode of the "Zone" called "A World of Difference" deals with a theme not dissimilar to this one.
"The Matrix" was a "Twilght Zone" episode that unfortunately someone saw fit to fatten up into a feature-length film. Ditto "The Others" and "The Sixth Sense"
What's cool about "The Twilight Zone" is that it takes feature-length stories and shortens them to twenty-five minutes, without compromising their themes (in some cases, despite briefer running times, deepening them).
So, it's fun seeing stories you're familiar with get "The Twilight Zone" treatment. Serling and his fellow scribes were masters at packing a great deal into a finite amount of time.
I tend to find that the Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes more frequently reflects my opinion than the Tomatometer. "Get Out", according to the Audience Score, resides at 90 percent, which is closer to how I feel about it. Or, take another horror movie: "Drag Me To Hell." The Tomatometer awards it a 92 percent. The Audience Score, meanwhile, rests at a much more modest 62 percent. Like "Get Out", I prefer the Audience Score of "Drag Me To Hell."
Thankfully, the best episodes have more to offer than just twist endings. I knew how both "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Eye of the Beholder" ended and still adored them.
The way she behaves, the way the lady reacts to Liz breaking her vase, the whole oft-kilter feel to the airport scene makes us wonder, as Serling warned us we would in his intro, just where is the bright divide between what is real and what isn't.
If this were set in modern times Lou Bookman, sadly, would probably find himself sitting across from Chris Hansen at some point.
How would you rate "One For The Angels" and "Where is Everybody"?
Why does she sport an evil grin? Does she set a bomb off or something? This episode leaves a lot of questions unanswered (which contributes to its unsettling air).
I like how just before the plane goes up in flames Liz in her voice-over questions repeatedly if she's awake or asleep. She never does get a concrete answer to her query.
It's great too that the episode ends immediately after the plane explodes. Nothing gets dragged out. That way the viewer is left all the more shaken.
I agree. Those with a yen for lectures, and in possession of a nest egg, have plenty of colleges to choose from.
What's great about "Willoughby," and Serling's output absent of bombast, is that more than one reading works. Depending on who you are "Willoughby" might be a story of hope or one gloomy piece of TV. Take the critic at Midnite Reviews who terms "Willoughby" prime fodder for those "who prefer Serling's gentler offerings." One of the hosts at the podcast "The Fifth Dimension" on the other hand calls it "the darkest episode that there is ..." How this not-easily-categorizable classic got made in a medium rife with a brown shirt distaste for its ilk is beyond me.
SPOILERS AHEAD
But in his outro Serling says the hospital's prognosis concerning Liz is "with rest and care she'll probably recover." But she's just been released from the hospital, suggesting that the rest and care Serling references has come to an end. Did the experience of seeing the plane explode send Liz back to the hospital where her treatment was resumed? Or did she never leave the hospital? Is what we're witnessing in the episode's climatic moments a dream, part of an ongoing cycle Liz has yet to break? Serling's outro also mentions "that the cure to some nightmares is not to be found in any known journals." Perhaps Liz is not cured. Perhaps Liz is doomed to remain in the throes of a crippling madness that will forever confine her to a hospital bed and the sleazy ministrations of, in her words, "laughing boy."
Your reading is still definitely creepy.
Probably a 6 or a 7. Wynn and Hamilton have a nice rapport. Doesn't seem to hit its stride until the little girl's life hangs in the balance. Wynn's willingness to sacrifice himself for Maggie is touching. Serling's outro resonates.
He doesn't seem to have any reservations about inflicting serious harm on Wilma for some pretty minor infractions. At one point Wilma's lack of initiative in mixing Dane's drink of choice prompts him to ask "Do I have to break your arm?"
I felt the denouement in "Psycho" was more egregious than the one here. What the military brass has to say actually deepens our understanding of what we've just seen: Ferris cracked, his lack of companionship the cause, a lack intensified by being stuck in an isolation booth for over four hundred hours. The explanation fleshes out Ferris and lends context to "Everybody," tying it to the topical "space race" happening at the time. Ferris even prophetically assures the moon as he's being carried out in a stretcher that either he or another astronaut will be up there soon (even though this optimism is tempered somewhat by Serling's rather ominous outro). The conclusion of "Psycho," on the other hand, leaves us wondering just how stupid the movie thinks we are (no doubt the result of a meddlesome studio convinced they know better than a master).
Did you notice, incidentally, the clock Ferris knocks over when he's in the kitchen at the start of the episode? It reads "6:15." Just before Ferris is pulled out of the isolation booth, having spent a day, perhaps longer, in the town, did you notice what time it was on the clock in the booth? "6:15" as well.
I'd put it in the Top 20. It addresses many of the themes "The Twilight Zone" would explore ad nauseam later on: isolation, loneliness, paranoia, dreams vs reality, and the space age. Plus the camerawork and music are top notch and Earl Holliman's performance, the only performance for much of the episode, is a solid piece of work devoid largely of the hamminess that characterizes much of the acting of that era.
"Willoughby" works so well because Serling eschews the soapbox and instead creates a murky world so unlike his social injustice tracts that often paint everything in stark black and white terms. We feel Gart Williams' disorientation as we too try to get our bearings. The fact that "Willoughby," like most dreams, isn't easy to pin down with just a viewing or two is what makes it timeless. When Serling favors sermonizing instead we get the insufferable likes of the end of "The Shelter" where the main character Dr. Stockton -- a stand-in for Serling himself -- lectures the other characters and the audience on how "We were spared a bomb tonight, but I wonder if we weren't destroyed even without it." Lines like these work better visualized not verbalized.
Nine. The gold standard for pilots.