Twilight Zone Independence Day Evening Stretch

Father and Son chat; Walking Distance

I wasn’t going to comment much on the remaining episodes, but this was perhaps the first time I had a chance to see Gig Young’s conversation with a little Ronny Howard about marbles and The Sloan House. Walking Distance gets me every time. The really close shots right into Gig’s face, his contemplative reflection. A final conversation between father and son. An older Martin meeting his younger self carving his name into the post. All the thoughts of home, the reminiscing of the past now manifested for Martin so he can get one more chance to return to his youth, to put it ultimately behind him. On Twitter some felt while indeed more than a bit melancholy the hope that the future won’t be so bad for Martin, perhaps the rewarding nature of the episode is that he looks for the good that might still exist instead of living forever in his youth. Being a nostalgia freak, a sentimentalist, I do have a bit of sadness lingering every time I watch this because the innocence of youth (for some, there wasn’t merry-go-rounds, cotton candy, the band, sunny walks in the park, but for Martin there was…) seemed such a preferred place to exist compared to the frustrations of adulthood and all its worries, fast pace, concerns. The score has a lot to do with it, the moment where time stops, the merry-go-round goes dark, and the past screeches to halt with Pop telling his grown son that he must not stay…Walking Distance tells us that we just can’t stay where youth is…as adults time marches on whether we like it or not. We must grow up.

I chose the obvious route towards concluding the marathon. Independence Day, even when SyFy did commit to the marathons mid-year for this particular holiday, just isn’t the same at the big New Years Eve and Day marathon, but I think 2019’s was quite a nice welcome departure considering I decided to watch all my episodes uncut from either my DVD complete series set or Netflix. Monday-Wednesday were also fun triple-episode evenings I considered quite a nice lead-in to Thursday. I do look forward to eventually reviewing for my blog The Midnight Sun and Living Doll, both of which I watched for the first time uncut I believe. While Living Doll doesn’t feel like the cut content was as obvious, what is missing from The Midnight Sun is egregious…SyFy does TZ fans such a disservice. I did notice that over the next few mornings, SyFy appears to be showing blocks of episodes all the way to Sunday. I’m just not sure why they just didn’t go with today instead of choosing that route. The Midnight Sun, during tonight’s viewing, really came across as incredible but very depressing. This episode doesn’t seem to get as much of the “classic prime time” love as it should. Climate change advocates might just replace the “knocked out of orbit” plot applied in the episode for mankind’s misuse of their planet in its place. Still, I really plan to give it a lot of time and attention with my writeup treatment when the time comes. I planned on doing a special writeup for Living Doll but decided to wait for another day when I could give it the time it deserves. The last two aren’t Monsters Due, Real Martian, or After Hours, as I decided on ending with a couple that aren’t ever among my typical viewing schedule. Mr. Bevis was a pleasant diversion thanks to the affable, lovably silly oddball titular character played to the hilt by Orson Bean but I found The Chaser to not have aged well at all, with a plot (a lovestruck nuisance can't accept no for an answer despite his muse's consistent rejection so he goes to a professor for a love potion that does the trick, eventually leading to the woman of his dreams loving him so obsessively it begins to turn him off) that left me not quite particularly amused although it was clearly going for that intention. J. Pat O'Malley as the professor in a big library trying to persuade McIntire to look for something else instead helps to padding the thud of this dud somewhat.

Here was my “home stretch” from 5:30 – 12 Midnight:

Walking Distance 5/5

To Serve Man 5/5

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet 5/5

Eye of the Beholder 5/5

Living Doll 4.5/5

The Dummy 4.5/5

The Invaders 3.5/5

The Masks 5/5

The Midnight Sun 4.5/5

The Hitch Hiker 5/5

Mr. Bevis (First Time viewing) 3/5

The Chaser 1.5/5