Marathoning Twilight Zone after the 4th (1)

***I made a critical error in the editing stage erasing written content. Will be updating later.***

Using the DECADES Independence Day lineup, after suffering disappointment in myself for a lack of incentive--and just feeling bummed out by my country's downward spiral--I am hoping I can summon some enthusiasm and interest in continuing Twilight Zone into the week after. 

Saturday July 4th

8:30PM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - A GAME OF POOL "Championship pool player Fats Brown returns from the grave for one last game." 

*I appreciate this more and more each viewing. It's on a lot of marathons and rightfully so. Klugman as the obsessive pool player yearning to "be the best" while Silverman's restrained and austere spirit of Fats offering him the life and death challenge to prove himself are the only players and no one else is needed. These two hold their own in this lowly pool hall in some ungodly hour of the night. Fats tries and fails to convince Jesse he should experience more in life than just pool but the latter just can't see through his obsession. I still wonder to this day if Fats left Jesse that last shot on purpose. It relieved him of further eternal duty to defend his legacy.

9:00PM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - THE SHELTER "When a nuclear attack appears imminent, several suburban friends and neighbors fight over control of a single bomb shelter." 

*Fear of nuclear fallout and being unprepared for its potential consequences, not to mention, the emotional surface of our most primal, latent, unsavory characteristics, with racism and mob mentality especially exemplified in reaction to threat of survival. Reminds me of The Monsters/Maple Street, echoes of how we really are when exposed under extreme circumstances when pushed to the edge. Yes, Serling can be overt and not altogether subtle in his messaging, but still I think no better time than now do we realize how true his warnings were. This episode hasn't always impacted me as others about the desintegration of the nuclear family when faced with crisis, and the heightened hysteria of the families desperate to break into the doctor's shelter might be considered a bit exaggerated, but we have seen just how easily and quickly civilization falls apart and descends into chaos. So Serling's genius taps into so much truth about the frailties of human nature.

9:30PM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - THE DUMMY "A ventriloquist is convinced that his dummy, Willie, is alive and evil. He makes plans for a new act with a new dummy: plans that Willie doesn't support!"

Its always fun to revisit this one over and over.

 10:00PM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - THE ODYSSEY OF FLIGHT 33 "A commercial aircraft mysteriously travels back through time." 

*The TZ aviation episodes were always a treat to me and if you include time travel, a dinosaur seen grazing out the porthole, and the 1939 World's Fair, with a neat cast of Twilight Zone familiars, such as Anderson (a TZ icon), Comi, Kenyon (just saw him in "The Shelter"), and Heffley, then I'm a shark to all the chum tossed at me. Included are brief visits with nervous stewardesses and passengers, and seeing the pilots cool under pressure despite every reason to freak out is additional bloody bucket foodstuff. The open-ended conclusion doesn't give us a denouement so what happens to them is up for debate. The pilot speak gives the episode authenticity.

10:30PM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - A NICE PLACE TO VISIT "A small time crook wakes up in his own personal heaven with a mysterious jovial man."

 11:00PM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - NICK OF TIME "A superstitious newlywed becomes obsessed by a penny fortune-telling machine when he and his new wife are stranded with car trouble." 

Currently my #6th favorite episode in the series

12:00AM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - PRINTER'S DEVIL "Douglas Winter's paper, The Courier, is in financial trouble. Mr. Smith appears and offers to pay off the debts, and run the linotype machine. Douglas agrees, but soon regrets when he realizes Mr. Smith is the devil. Mr. Smith offers him a contract guaranteeing The Courier's success in exchange for Doug's soul. Afraid of losing Mr. Smith, he agrees. Mr. Smith proceeds to cause all kinds of disasters. Doug asks him to stop, and Mr. Smith makes him another offer: He'll stop if Doug will kill himself. He agrees, but gets an idea. He sets in type a story that says he and the devil's contract is void, and that Mr. Smith is banished from Earth. He decides to run the paper fair and square; the first thing is to destroy that linotype machine." 

1:00AM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - NIGHT CALL "Mysterious phone calls haunt a disabled woman."

 1:30AM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - THE NIGHT OF THE MEEK "Fired on Christmas Eve, a down-on-his-luck department store Santa Claus finds a mysterious bag that gives out endless presents."

 2:00AM ET THE TWILIGHT ZONE - PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS "The lucky flip of a coin seems to give a mild-mannered bank clerk the power to read minds. But he soon learns that you can't believe everything you read." 

I have taken this episode for granted all these years.