Twilight Zone - Independence Day Eve Marathon

Probe 7, Over and Out is more than a bit heavy handed but I enjoy Basehart, who has to carry the episode almost entirely on his own, crashlanding astronaut sent on a mission to find a new planet, realizing when conversing back and forth with his underground Earth base that annihilation is imminent. Basehart’s terror and fear of loneliness is written very impressively on his face, while talking either to himself or to another “visitor” similarly lost on their new planet home. The messages on the human race and war, Adam and Eve (Antoinette Bower; as a humanoid female who speaks a different language) complete with apple and having the actual names of the biblical couple, rising above hate and violence, and starting over are all here and accounted for. Cobbled together by characters and themes from past Twilight Zone episodes (I couldn’t help but look at Bower and see Bewitched’ Liz Montgomery, reminded of Two), I don’t think Probe 7 is anything extraordinary but Basehart, to his credit, always kept me invested in his developing situation. Bower is the wide-eyed alien whose ship crashed as Basehart’s did, seemingly on a planet that was somehow knocked out of its orbit. Basehart spends some time on the damaged “probe”, talking with dour-faced Gould (the romantic love of Betty White’s Rose on “The Golden Girls”), who speaks of apocalyptic doom and radioactive fallout. I think what always does work to me is the back and forth in regards to how Gould’s world is about to come to an end while Basehart’s appears to be given a chance to begin anew on a new world…the realizations between both has a lingering sadness due to how Gould and Basehart speak as if in the same room yet couldn’t be more far apart, the former understanding all too well he will be dead soon while the latter has to come to terms with the loss of his former world and unknown of his current resting place. 2.5/5.

I think you can definitely tell that Serling was just sort of weathered creatively towards the end. A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain continues an alarming trend in Serling’s writing where women are portrayed as heartless, cold, self-absorbed, self-centered, predatory, nagging, cruel, and greedily corrupt. Patrick O’Neal (in old age makeup that isn’t particularly convincing) is an elderly and very wealthy retiree married to a vivacious, unfiltered, money-hungry wife forty years his junior (Ruta Lee plays her Flora as unbearable but easy on the eyes, a chorus girl who found her Mr. Moneybags and lets him know that his advanced age is a detriment). He wants to be young so he can keep up with her and appeal to her, requesting help from his scientist brother (Walter Brooke), who seems to be attempting to perfect a youth serum. Threatening to leap from his balcony if Brooke doesn’t agree, O’Neal gets his wish…and the serum, which hadn’t been tested on humans, ages him without stop until O’Neal is a baby!!! The twist is what this episode truly is all about, a fountain of youth that does its job a bit too well. The thought of Ruta raising O’Neal is horrifying, and I just don’t buy the bill of goods that Brooke will be able to make sure she doesn’t shirk her responsibilities. He won’t always be around and Ruta seems like just the kind of scheming, conniving wretch willing to murder the boy in his sleep when given the chance. This episode never worked for me and I get why it isn’t hardly ever featured much in marathons. 2/5.

Ed Wynn returned to The Twilight Zone in the final season after starring in one of the very first episodes of the series. Fitting and ironic the story is once again Wynn working hard to stay alive, except this time he isn't directly opposing or trying to outwit Mr. Death but keeping a grandfather clock ticking in order to remain alive and kicking. His pregnant granddaughter and her husband want him to dump the clock as it's space consuming and attention diverting to the point that Wynn neglects eating and sleeping. Ninety Years Without Slumbering benefits a great deal by having such a jovial sweetheart of a man at its center. The clock stops Wynn collapses, but eventually he tells a sort of disembodied spirit that believed wholeheartedly in the clock that he listened to his granddaughter's husband's shrink and no longer will allow fear/delusion to dictate how he lives his remaining years. I like Wynn in this although I think the overall story is slight. 2.5/5