Oh, and a wild, woolly, absolutely maddening gremlin on the wing. Killing time in a cafe, the superstitious man and his wife (Patricia Breslin) begin feeding pennies into a fortune teller machine. In typical Zone fashion, we never actually hear her speaking on the other end of the line, leaving audiences to debate whether it’s really her or simply a child grappling with death for the first time. His jaw is tight; even when he talks, his mouth barely seems to be moving. STC, 11. “Lady, you’re on the side of the angels,” the mechanic tells her, amazed she’s unscathed. DF, 16. ', CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images, Everett Collection (2). But it also exemplifies what Serling’s groundbreaking show did best: take a fantastic premise, add equal parts existential horror and irony, then marinate it all in metaphor and let the whole thing simmer. “It’s a Good Life” is naturally dominated by young actor Bill Mumy (a.k.a. It’s a simple plot: a woman, in search of a gift for her mother, gets trapped in a department store. “The Midnight Sun” (Season 3, Episode 10) Before he goes gently into the night, however, the man has one caveat: his future “mourners” must spend the evening wearing grotesque masks until the clock strikes midnight. Still, this Season Three episode was happy to remind Sixties TV viewers how much mileage you could get from a spooky reaction shot of, per Serling, “a brash stick of kindling.” Cliff Robertson is a nightclub entertainer who’s convinced his mouthy wooden partner, Willie, is actually alive … and more than a little sick and tired of having a hand up his back. 1. And from the moment everyone puts these horrific things on — the better to reveal the ugliness inside all of them, my dear — we’re treated to one of the most unsettling collections of blank-faced characters delving into a dark night of the soul short of that Eyes Wide Shut orgy. “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (Season 5, Episode 3) A nice, bare-bones tale of doppelgänger paranoia. DF, 8. With all the amazing episodes of the show that exist, it's hard to trust just one person's opinion of what the top classic Twilight Zone episodes of all time are. STC, 15. The Twilight Zone is still considered one of the scariest and best-written TV shows of all-time.It deals with mature themes and commentaries on society and blends them into well-crafted creepy and suspenseful stories that have terrified viewers from generation to generation. The combination of shapeshifting and an underworld demimonde gives the proceedings a distinctly Lynchian flair, which may be why frequent Lynch collaborator Trent Reznor borrowed the title for a deep cut on his 2008 album The Slip. And they are us. STC, 4. AM, 9. There’s no message to speak of in this Sartre-gone-sci-fi story of five strangers trapped together in a cylindrical limbo — just a classic Twilight Zone probe into the darker recesses of your brain. It correctly predicts that he will get a major promotion at work; then it warns these newlyweds about leaving the premises. Rudy Giuliani Will Definitely Regret Filming ‘Borat’ Sequel Interview, Keith Richards Drops Video for ‘Hate It When You Leave’ Packed With Everyday Scenes, Paul McCartney Announces New Album, ‘McCartney III’, Jordan Peele steps into Serling’s shoes and gives us a. There’s no one left to keep the hen-pecked Henry from doing the one thing he pines for more than anything else. At the end, Serling delivers a line that helps cement the half hour’s place as one of the series’ greatest episodes: “Just how normal are we?” AM, 13. A close-quarters survival-horror story that prefigures The Birds, Wait Until Dark and Night of the Living Dead by years. “Long Distance Call” (Season 2, Episode 22)Most Twilight Zone fans know Billy Mumy as the omnipotent kid who sent a Perry Como fan to the cornfield in “It’s a Good Life.” But before that, the child actor an episode about a boy who communicates with his dead grandma through a toy telephone she gifted him before she passed away. The lights are dim, the floor is silent. AM 9. Episodes The Twilight Zone (Original Series) Release year: 1963. When (or how) he’ll shuffle off this mortal coil is the mystery here, though what sticks with you are the dream sequences, all German Expressionism set design and unrelenting dread. Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted. Rocky (Larry Blyden) is a petty thief who gets gunned down by the fuzz after a job goes south. When he tries to blackmail a gangster in the guise of a man the mobster had executed, he winds up on the run — and the new face he changes into will lead to him to his doom. The guy in the suit is always there, sitting in a booth in the back of restaurant or at a table in a nightclub. “Be careful what you wish for” is the core thesis for a lot of Twilight Zone episodes, and that notion is cracked open like a heart-surgery patient’s rib cage in this early Season Three highlight. “The Four of Us Are Dying” (Season 1, Episode 13) “To Serve Man” (Season 3, Episode 24) Yes, aliens were manipulating events on Maple Street … and then they let good old-fashioned human nature do their dirty work for them. “Living Doll” (Season 5, Episode 6) Soon, this loser crook finds himself neck-deep in women and gambling winnings, with his every wish coming true. Maybe he’s popping out of an alleyway or from behind a tree in the woods, or perhaps strolling into living rooms and crime scenes. “What would it be like to be stuck somewhere, alive and conscious, forever?” A ballerina, a bagpipe player, an old-school hobo, a pretty serious clown, a gung-ho Army major and a featureless chamber to keep them all in: To paraphrase David Bowie, such is the stuff from where nightmares are woven. A seemingly benevolent alien civilization solves all of Earth’s problems. You get three guesses as to the mystery man is, and the first two don’t count. We want to hear from you! “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” (Season 1, Episode 22) The eyelash-batting doll appears innocent and lifeless; she’s nit just alive, however, but also bent on murdering the stepfather of the sweet little girl that owns her. “A Game of Pool” (Season 3, Episode 5) Fats comes back from the grave to let this would-be champion test his skills in a life-or-death game. Long before Chucky, there was Talky Tina. © Copyright 2020 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. Miranda Lambert Shows Off Her Husband in 'Settling Down' Video, Dolly Parton Made Stephen Colbert Cry With an Old Folk Song on ‘The Late Show’. STC, 17. And no amount of wishing can get that dreadful image that follows Fremont’s father uttering it out of your head. This nearly wordless outing stars Agnes Moorehead as an old woman whose remote cabin finds itself besieged by tiny beings from an extraterrestrial spacecraft. List of the best The Twilight Zone episodes, as determined by voters like you. “The Dummy” (Season 3, Episode 33) Later, she spots a woman who likes just like her reflected in a bathroom mirror. STC. The Hollywood legend holds her own against the alien incursion, struggling and screaming and fighting for her life in what amounts to a one-woman show. A senseless tragedy land a full-scale riot in the streets ensue. DF, 7. A twist reverses the nature of the doomsday scenario, but it pales in comparison to the unbearable you-are-there feeling of that broiling apartment. But it all comes down to that rain-soaked cabin window and the two beings on either side of it: a monster determined to defy all rational explanation, and a man whose failing to convince his fellow passengers of the danger they all face. Before he’d become a Zone MVP thanks to a long flight, a window seat and a gremlin, William Shatner made an earlier appearance on the show (written by the great Richard Matheson) as one half of a couple stuck in Ridgeville, Ohio when their car breaks down. Poor Henry Bemis — so many books to read, so little time. As in “Beauty is in …,” get it? His voice is unmistakable. When Millicent Barnes (Psycho‘s Vera Miles) asks a porter when her late bus is arriving, she’s told she just asked the same question 15 minutes ago … except she hadn’t. A first-ballot candidate for the Twilight Zone hall of pop-culture fame, this episode revolves a woman (Maxine Stuart) undergoing surgery to fix her hideous disfigurement. A bug-eyed Jack Elam acting extra-cuckoo! “Where Is Everybody?” (Season 1, Episode 1) Meet Arch Hammer, a con man played by Harry Townes … and Ross Martin … and Phillip Pine … and Don Gordon. DF, 6. The best use of a greasy-spoon counter since Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks”! The question soon becomes: Will his ticker give out before he loses his mind, or vice versa? “Time Enough at Last” (Season 1, Episode 8) Willie has other ideas. But the nerve-racking intensity of a woman besieged speaks directly to more down-to-earth dread, from violence against women to the simple fear of growing old and vulnerable. Soon, however, this “charter member in the fraternity of dreamers” may have an abundance of the latter, courtesy of a bank vault and the H-Bomb. STC, 10. And dig those Dutch angles! It may also be the single sweatiest episode of the entire run. “Two” (Season 3, Episode 1)One of the more formally audacious half hours of the show’s five-year run, this literal two-hander finds a brutish soldier (Charles Bronson) duking it out with his female counterpart (Elizabeth Montgomery) as the last two survivors of World War III. Richard Conte is man with a heart condition who’s plagued by recurring nightmares. If not, don’t worry—a character will literally say so at the close of the episode.

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