SYFY TZ Marathon - King Nine Will Not Return

 While I don't think "King Nine Will Not Return" is recognized as necessarily upper echelon Twilight Zone, I find Robert Cummings as a fighter pilot from WWII stuck in Africa "circa 1943" going mad at the illusions of the ghosts of former soldiers he once knew quite compelling every time I've seen the episode. And I have seen this one a bunch of times, going back to the mid 90s when I was watching these marathons on Sci-fi Channel during Forth of Julies. I bet you I have VHS tapes of these marathons in my shed. I should investigate...I bet there are some fun advertisements and Sci-fi channel specific related material of particular interest. I do remember "King Nine" was quite  a favorite of mine back then, but then into the 2000s, it sort of slipped to the back. But in the last five or so years, "King Nine" made a resurgence and became an episode I always look forward to. The bleak setting, the B-25 laid bare under the hot desert sun, the harsh environs, the sand in the shoes and the dirt on Cummings' face as he observes a rather grim situation. And Cummings laughing maniacally. The sand from the shoes and Cummings asking two doctors if it was possible he "went back there" (revealed that he was ill (or reported as so, but admitting he actually was just scared to go back) and didn't go on this particular mission) leaves that question of the mind's "tricks" and guilt and how real something can become if it gets enough real estate...but to actually go there and feel that isolation and see those ghosts, I think the episode, thanks to Cummings, manifests that guilt and regret in a way TZ did impressively. Much like the first episode of the first season, Cummings is all alone in a place where he longs for human contact and no one is there. Except in the first episode of the second season, Cummings sees sand and hot sun wherever he stares. At least in the Twilight Zone, he woke up in a bed. Unless his fallen fellow officers.