LOC 68: Top 50 Twilight Zone Episodes

[Darth Geek]

I'm surprised Printer's Devil didn't make it onto the list. Burgess Meredith was great as The Devil.

[Tripe]

My list:

1.   The Encounter - (The Twilight Zone)
2.   A World of His Own - (The Twilight Zone)
3.   Mr. Garrity and the Graves - (The Twilight Zone)
4.   Where Is Everybody? - (The Twilight Zone)
5.   Queen of the Nile - (The Twilight Zone)
6.   An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - (The Twilight Zone)
7.   The Eye of the Beholder - (The Twilight Zone)
8.   Time Enough at Last - (The Twilight Zone)
9.   A Small Talent for War - (The New Twilight Zone)
10.   To Serve Man - (The Twilight Zone)
11.   Hocus-Pocus and Frisby - (The Twilight Zone)
12.   The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
13.   The Howling Man - (The Twilight Zone)
14.   Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - (The Twilight Zone)
15.   Of Late I Think of Cliffordville - (The Twilight Zone)
16.   The Obsolete Man - (The Twilight Zone)
17.   The Shadow Man - (The New Twilight Zone)
18.   Kick the Can - (The Twilight Zone)
19.   Passage on the Lady Anne - (The Twilight Zone)
20.   The Brain Center at Whipple's - (The Twilight Zone)
21.   The Last Flight - (The Twilight Zone)
22.   Steel - (The Twilight Zone)
23.   The Arrival - (The Twilight Zone)
24.   Deaths-Head Revisited - (The Twilight Zone)
25.   Azoth the Avenger Is a Friend of Mine - (2002 Twilight Zone)


I really should have had It Is Still A Good Life. on reflection but I like Azoth.

Did I highlight all of the ones from the countdown?

[jasimon1]

BTW, great job sicgirl.  I might have gotten discouraged with so few lists but this turned out to be a great list nonetheless and you did a great job.  Was this your first time?  You should host more often.

Aww, thank you! Yes, it was my first time. It was really fun seeing the lists come in, wish we had had more.

[Pak-Man]

Nicely run, Sicgirl!

My list:

1. Nick of Time
2. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street
3. Mr. Bevis
4. I Sing the Body Electric
5. To Serve Man
6. The Masks
7. Mr. Dingle the Strong
8. The Midnight Sun
9. The Howling Man
10. Night of the Meek
11. Living Doll
12. Five Characters in Search of an Exit
13. The Obsolete Man
14. Kick the Can
15. The Invaders
16. Mr. Garrity And The Graves
17. A Stop at Willoughby
18. A Kind of Stopwatch
19. Time Enough at Last
20. The Changing of the Guard
21. A Game of Pool
22. The Hunt
23. The Dummy
24. The Lonely
25. A Most Unusual Camera

[Tripe]

Yep fantastic work.

[Compound]

My list, BTW:

1   To Serve Man
2   Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
3   Profile in Silver
4   Will the Real Martians Please Stand Up?
5   A Penny for Your Thoughts
6   Time Enough At Last
7   Wordplay
8   To  See the Invisible Man
9   The Obsolete Man
10   Back There
11   The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
12   Nick of Time
13   The 7th is Made of Phantoms
14   Shadow Play
15   A Passage for Trumpet
16   Chameleon
17   The Passersby
18   The Midnight Sun
19   Extra Innings
20   The Silence
21   Ye Gods
22   A Small Talent for War
23   A Kind of Stopwatch
24   It's a Good Life
25   Button, Button

I ended up with a good number more episodes from the 80s reboot than I expected. I guess they stuck with me more than I thought. (Even the one with Marc Singer as a washed up baseball player.)

I will speak of the one of my top 10 that didn't make the list: Back There.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It stars Russell "The Professor" Johnson as a professor arguing with his colleagues at a club in Washington DC on whether or not history could be changed. As he leaves, he falls faint and wakes up in 1865, on the day of Lincoln's assassination. He tries to warn people, but they believe him to be a soldier who's suffering from shell shock and jail him for his own good. Only two people believe him- a young cop who also tries to warn others and a Mr. Wellington, who drugs The Professor to keep him quiet. Wellington drops a handkerchief monogrammed with the initials "JWB" as he leaves.

The Professor wakes up back in the 60s to discover that the former doorman for the club is now a member as his grandfather was a police officer who gained his fortune after trying to warn people of Lincoln's impending assassination. So the Professor muses that some things can be changed as he stares at Booth's handkerchief.

It's a nice set piece when watched with "Profile in Silver."

[Johnny Unusual]

BTW with a new TZ series in the works, who do you think would do some good writer for the show, aside from adapting Richard Matheson works.  I bet Paul Dini would be good at it.  Also, PLEASE LET THE NEW TZ BE HALF HOUR EPISODES!  It really should be short and punchy.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Just watched several of the episodes from the list I thought I had never seen, turns out I had seen some of them.  But not The Obsolete Man and The Grave.  The Grave was awesome, The Obsolete Man was pretty good, not great.

[MightyJack]

^Obsolete Man is a structurally odd one to me. And while I understand that when TZ had a message, it hit that message hard -- I felt like I was getting a lecture rather than watching a short film with that one. I liked it, but yeah, not my favorite Zone.

Saying that, the only one on the top 50 I flat out didn't care for -with due respect to those who voted for it- was I Sing The Body Electric.

[Johnny Unusual]

Yeah, I was surprised it made it.  I thought it had a reputation for not-goodness.  Rebuttal, Pak?

[Johnny Unusual]

No, no I meant I Sing the Body Electric.  That's the one I heard wasn't so good.

[Space version 2.0]

No, no I meant I Sing the Body Electric.  That's the one I heard wasn't so good.

It was the first episode I ever saw, since I was on a Ray Bradbury kick at the time. Didn't like it the first time, but just watched it again now that I'm going through the whole series and did enjoy it a bit. Wouldn't have made my list, but not terrible.

[Pak-Man]

I was introduced to "I Sing the Body Electric" as a youth via the movie "The Electric Grandmother" which either had the same source material or was blatant plagerism. I loved the movie when I was 10, and some of that spilled over into "I Sing the Body Electric" when I saw it. I'll admit it isn't the snappiest or most profound TZ, but it's a neat story and a personal favorite. :^)

[Mrs. Dick Courier]

One of my faves didn't make it

"The Last Rites of Jeff Mrytlebank"

Check it ou