Concluding TZ Marathon Post SYFY 2021. 3 of 3

Rod presents The Fear

 Okay, this is it. It is about over. I thought, how fitting to finish my marathon with the first two episodes of the SYFY marathon and the final two episodes. While I hate the idea of the final episode being "The Bewitchin' Pool", it was the last episode of the marathon. So c'est la vie. Sadly, no "Walking Distance". I will make sure it is the first episode of my 4th of July marathon if I'm still alive to reach that holiday. 

6:00am – Where Is Everybody? Interestingly, this is the first time I believe I've watched the first two episodes and last two episodes during my entire life as a Twilight Zone fan and avid viewer. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? It is hard to believe. But the marathons never seemed to feature these even in the same day. I could be wrong, though. SYFY kicking off the two day marathon with "Where Is Everybody?" was kind of disappointing to me because I always found it that perfect New Year's Eve kickoff to their first primetime linuep. SYFY's Primetime seemed to be 5PM or 5:30, with the heavy hitters on about 7PM. I have brought this up multiple times I'm sure, but a warm memory of watching this with my grandmother (who died in 1995) and uncle (who died in 2011) on New Year's Day evening remains a treasured viewing of "Where Is Everybody?". I can't remember if we had a family get-together that day--it seems we did--but this was right after a meal. We settled in and watched this episode. Twilight Zone has produced treasured memories. I have very little left to say about the episode itself. Holliman was only in this one TZ episode. I wish he would have been in one more. It's too bad, but what better than to be a potential astronaut trying to find someone, anyone, in a seemingly abandoned town? You see a lot of the tropes started here in The Twilight Zone featured a lot during the five season run of the great science fiction classic series. I can't possibly tell you how many times I've watched this one episode. Holliman has a lot to do with that. As does the eerie loneliness of this town, a town that seemed to very similar to those haunting tales of finding a ship without its crew or a sleepy little village seemingly left empty, as if the people just vanished.

6:30am – One For the Angels - I have to admit that while Ed Wynn is a treasure to me as pitchman, Bookman, trying to halt Death's (Murray Hamilton, Mr. Mayor of Amity in "Jaws") "taking him away" by the end of a hot summer day the episode doesn't necessarily rate as high as many other episodes in the big count of the Twilight Zone. Whenever I get my ass in gear and finally commit to an official ranking of all 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone, I'm curious to see where "One For the Angels" resides. I'm guessing somewhere in the middle. That's not a knock against it. It says more about the value of the show as a whole. It had plenty of good episodes like "One For the Angels". That one good pitch has eluded Bookman and trying to outsmart Death causes an injury that might take a little girl in his place. The story is perhaps not very grandiose, but Death is a figure that Twilight Zone gives plenty of real estate to. Bookman luring Death with his sales pitches is wonderfully ridiculous...just gotta keep Death busy long enough to forget about the girl. That one big pitch...forget that, Bookman lands a bunch and Death is completely absorbed.

5:00am – The Fear - I have noticed that Twilight Zone fans really like this episode though they feel as I do that the final five or so minutes really don't quite do the preceding twenty justice. The leads--Richman and Court--aren't to blame. I think the strength of the episode give "The Fear" a ton of help...Richman, a mountain state trooper, arrives at the call of NY fashion editor, Court, about something strange and scary seen in her area, location of a cabin thirty miles from town. I think the location, set in '63, apart from any nearby people, allows for that isolation to set up in our minds. You could see why Court, even if she is a paranoiac and socially ambivalent "city elitist snob", might get a bit nervous being that she's maybe a bit too far from anyone. And Richman, proving that he isn't some country bumpkin Gilbert and Sullivan doofus cop, is at her intellectual level. So he begins to curry favor with Court as they start honestly talking to each other as cooperative adults instead of trading insults and increasing tensions. I like the leads a lot. And I like the night scenes where Richman must venture out into the area to look for dangers that might be present. The car "fingerprints" and giant footprint and casted shadow (with noise on the roof of the cabin) really add to that isolation, along with the light from some craft of some sort that shined into their eyes while Court and Richman look out the window. And this was Court and Richman's only TZ episode, so even if it was at the very end of the final season, I like that they appeared together in "The Fear". Again, I think they make the name of the episode work. And I think Ted Post really gets that point across that there is potentially something worth being scared about perhaps just outside that door, maybe bearing down on them. But that giant inflatable Cyclops in astronaut suit and the little visitors in the returning Forbidden Planet spaceship--using giant sized tricks to help keep their own fears away--don't quite leave us with much of an impact. Instead, it is more of a thud. But I have cultivated a whole relationship between these two in my mind after the episode. Once they let their barriers down, and having been through such an extraordinary experience together, these two do have good chemistry together. This episode has grown on me. This used to be way down the TZ favorites list. I often considered it quite mediocre. But the leads really win me over. I find I watch this more than I probably would  because of Richman and Court.

5:30am – The Bewitchin’ Pool - Woof. This dead dog doesn't bark. It welps. The absolute dregs is this final episode of Twilight Zone, always a sad reminder of how even the best series can end on not just a bad note but a discordant, insufferable noise that repels. The use of Foray for the voice of Badham, the horrible marriage of Hartford and Andrews (even by the end of TZ, another rotten marriage makes the cut) with plenty of bickering and hollering, and some ridiculous plot involving a swimming pool that leads to childland with creepy Aunt T where lots of free children play and play all they like without a hint of parental supervision...and lots of cake. When the kids see nothing but Hartford bossy and nagging, how could they not want to get away from this insufferable shrew? Ugh, what a chore. Why would the kids speak as if they were from Southeastern US while their parents seem as if they are Californians?! And why would the parents not immediately dive in after their kids? Especially when the kids didn't come back up?!

The Fear

The Bewitchin' Pool

*A slight addendum to the entire four days dedicated to Twilight Zone, is two major advertisements were for Mr. Mayor for NBC and Resident Alien for SYFY. Anyone who would watch SYFY over two days had certain commercials and advertisements burned into their brains.