Concluding TZ Marathon Post SYFY 2021. 1 of 3

 

Rod introduces A Most Unusual Camera

This was part of the New Year's Day block I slept through:

4:00am – A Piano in the House

4:30am – The Little People

5:00am – The Trade-Ins*

5:30am – A Kind of Stopwatch**

6:00am – A Most Unusual Camera

6:30am – Back There

7:00am – The Whole Truth

7:30am – A Penny For Your Thoughts

8:00am – Twenty-Two

8:30am – The Odyssey of Flight 33

The Twilight Zone often featured characters of great cruelty, those much like Barry Morse's Fitzgerald Fortune in "A Piano in the House" who took advantage of a supernatural device to further sting folks he secretly envied, like his wife (Hackett, who I don't think was ever more beautiful) or a musician (Durant). That Hackett and Durant fell in love and had a romance behind Morse's back is no shocker...he drove them together because of the "little naughty boy who only wanted to hurt people". Even a cute heavier friend among Morse's class of elites (Landers), who pokes fun at her weight as a form of helping herself cope with insecurity. We even see a lousy misanthropic pawnshop proprietor (Coolidge) and a miserable butler (Delevanti) awaken this romantic and happy side concealed from the public thanks to a magical piano that plays music. Depending on the music selected, someone nearby might reveal what they often keep to themselves. For Hackett it is her hatred for Morse and admittance of tolerating him to the point where she just wants to leave while Durant speaks of Hackett in loving terms. The piano reveals Landers as someone who wants to be pretty and thin, a snowflake, and Morse, before his own comeuppance, laughs at all of them. Morse is often such a beloved actor but in this episode he's particularly detestable.

Macross as a maniacal navigator just flat tired of being bossed around by Akins--the two having to land in a canyon on a seemingly inhabited planet, to make repairs thanks to holes in the outer metal layer of the ship by meteorites--has a field day. I always remember "The Little People", about a race of ant-size species on the planet Macross torments so he can feed his ego as a god to them, because of the tense relationship between Macross and Akins. When Akins sizes him up and cuts him down to size, it seems Macross just worsens into what ultimately become a tyrant using his size to terrorize the community, even committing violence against them. Akins tries to get him to return to the ship and off the planet but Macross insists on staying because he now feels important, omnipotent. "Delusions of grandeur" Akins says to himself, simply unable to coerce Macross into returning with him. Macross pulling a laser pistol on Akins is the final touch to his madness. The episode really lets Macross lay it on thick...he's a real piece of work, that guy. His fate, thanks to BIGGER astronauts who land, is fitting and the perfect TZ irony.

So basically in "A Type of Stopwatch" Erdman's McNulty works at a company that sells ladies undergarments, tries to come up with ideas that are so patently absurd his boss fires him, gets on everyone's nerves, including folks at a poor bar owner's pub he keeps driving away, and happens to find someone at a table who likes him (probably because he's loaded) enough to give him a stopwatch that actually freezes time. McNulty tries to get his former boss and secretary and guys (including the bartender who just wants him anywhere but his bar) at the bar to believe him about the watch but nobody does. So here is this guy who talks constantly, offers his opinions and insights with everyone rejecting him and the very sight of him, and all McNulty just can't get the hint...he's not wanted around. Kind of sad, really. He's so obnoxious, people will call the cops or go to his sister's hot apartment (with five loud kids) to watch a game just to get away from him! And sure enough the stopwatch he finds entertaining (he performs tricks and gags on people when they are frozen in action) and eventually looks to gain profit by robbing a bank, only to drop the damn thing to the floor, cracking it. Now no one has to worry about McNulty anymore considering they are frozen in place for eternity!

Four people take a flight out a window in "A Most Unusual Camera". How the screenplay gets three thieves (using a camera taken from a novelties shop that projects the future to win lots of money from horseracing) and an intrusive member of the hotel staff from France out that window is ridiculous. Nonetheless, these folks are a lot of fun to spend time with thanks to the personalities of Fred Clark, Jean Carson, and Adam Williams (the sailor picked up by Inger Stevens in "The Hitch-Hiker") as wanted criminals eventually at odds thanks to the camera and its value. Hillaire just taking the money as Carson watches cracks me up...he flat does it with a smile and mocks her. Almost the entire episode takes place in a hotel room. The Twilight Zone didn't just love their diners, the show also loved hotel rooms.

I think "The Whole Truth" is a clever bit of fun but nothing more. I often avoid the soap opera video quality of those episodes of Twilight Zone handcuffed by the horrible format thanks to CBS' desire to shave some budget. Carson as the effortless liar who sells lemons from his car lot by working his manipulative sale pitches, giving a hand shoulder hug and charming folks by talking so much they can't get much word in edgewise, buying a haunted car that forces the owner to tell the truth. SYFY cut the scene where Arte Johnson quits after Carson tells his young protege that he's been shafting him raises and proper employee treatment. Selling the car to Nikita Khrushchev and calling up Jack Kennedy is a neat timewarp moment that dates The Twilight Zone.

Seeing Dick York in "Penny for Your Thoughts" considering when I was a kid I watched "Bewitched" reruns on TBS all the time is always such a trip. The coin landing straight up, with such an unusual circumstance (he was getting a paper) granting York the ability to hear everyone's thoughts, I always smile because I used to think back in the 90s up until today how this show could do just about anything. What made Twilight Zone such a blast is the options available to Serling using science fiction and fantasy as the means to concoct any kind of off-the-wall idea. York in a bank, listening to his boss conducting an affair, the co-worker who fancies him (and he fancies her), the male chauvinist pig with his thoughts about the women at the bank, the long-term employee who always wants to steal from the vault and take a vacation to Bermuda; the plot gives us a day in the life of York as he can hear what folks hide. Even folks on the street might say one thing but think right the opposite. It is that "behind the curtain" peek where any of us can put on a performance but who we are behind it--our thoughts--what if those thoughts could be heard? York even rescuing his bank from some businessman who plans to use a loan to play the horses and exploiting his knowledge of his boss' affair to get a better position at the bank...this ability is played to the hilt. Hell, York even gets the girl before the coin drops and he can hear no more thoughts!

If "Twenty Two" were shot on film instead of horrible video, I do wonder where it would place in my personal Favorites list. I used to feel that in this episode's case the video actually gives it a kind of dark, atmospheric quality, but this afternoon (I started watching after I woke up "The Whole Truth") some of it is badly effected. Johnathan Harris as the giggling doc, haha, is such a creep. Nichols as the Marilyn Monroe strip club dancer (her agent even missteps when trying to describe her career) dates the episode...wonderfully to me. I do love when Twilight Zone feels "timeless" but I also enjoy certain episodes that provide a type of historical timestamp. This was such an important show, to me. It's relevance only continues to build, in my opinion. I'll be long gone, and it's my hope this show just endures generations after me. "Room for one more, honey". Arline Sax is known for her "Amok Time" Classic Star Trek episode, but I think her character here is iconic. It is really because of her appearance and delivery (and how she's shot) that gives this episode its power.

One of my all time favorite SYFY NYE/NYD (and 4th of July) marathon episodes is "The Odyssey of Flight 33. The Flying Dutchman ghost story has so much staying power as a storytelling device, the time travel device never gets old to me, the fun cast of TZ favorites (the pilots, stewardesses, and passengers) you know from a ton of 50s and 60s (and probably 70s) television I enjoy each and every time, and open ending that leaves us knowing the plane needs to land because of losing fuel but what happens is not revealed all provide reasons I love this episode so much. I used to amuse myself by looking up into sky, anticipating the sight of Global Airlines Flight 33 just overhead.

*Bypassed this year.

**Return to SYFY Channel DVR episodes

And that's that. All good things and all that.