Twilight Zone - Some Lower Tier Episodes

 

Serling introducing "The Fugitive"

I started with "The Gift" because I thought it was not too too bad even though Sterling lays in the Messianic Alien message a bit thick, as a visitor from another planet arrives with a gift and befriends a nine year old boy named Pedro but encounters terrified people who shoot at him without wondering whether or not he's a threat. This message comes complete with a conversation about Jesus being crucified and finishes with a cure for cancer in a book that's burned by an obtuse blabbermouth bartender, as the police are egged on by superstitious locals in an impoverished Mexican town bordering Texas to kill the alien (whose wounds are tended to by a local physician who considers the alien possibly harmless and a curiosity due to his recovery and response during the removal of bullets). I've seen a ton of Sokolov lately during some Twilight Zone revisits, including "The Mirror" and "Dust". Whether he's in an episode a few minutes or has a more sizable role, the guy leaves an impression. He's barely in "The Gift" five minutes as a blind guitar-playing bar patron who takes the bartender to task for being so mean, asking him why he's so mean to Pedro, referring to why the boy has a reason not to be happy any of the time considering he has no family and is lonely and poor.

"Cavender is Coming", I learned today, had a laugh track in it initial form. I do wonder if it would if the episode would land differently for sitcom comedy watchers of that era. For me, as much as I adore Carol Burnett, Serling's script for her really is a bit desperate for any laugh it can get. She's a gifted physical comedienne, a national treasure, and a legend. Even if this episode, which just doesn't even avoid it's blatant lift from "It's a Wonderful Life" (I do think PUSH PUSH PUSH Howard Smith as just as bossy a head angel in heaven as he was against Gart in the TZ episode, "A Stop at Willoughby" was an amusing casting choice), tries to squeeze laughs from the guardian angel comes to earth to get his wings and provide Carol with a more glamorous, prosperous life premise, a guy leaping out his bus window and Carol flying through a glass door to a theater boss' office just don't quite work for me personally. The episode is not well favored by many TZ fans, but just recently a few talked about "Cavender is Coming" in a positive light. So this just confirms that the show's appeal, no matter the episode, reaches folks differently. While many like me consider this episode near the bottom of the series in terms of quality, some TZ fans love it. Carol's talents have something to do with that. If anything, she made up for this episode's shortcomings with a whole career of comedy gold.

I do want to write an official review for the episode, "Showdown with Rance McGrew" at some point. It has been in a few recent marathons on SYFY (granted, the network pretty much has been running seasons in near order, for the exception of select popular episodes they slate for prime time) when I have caught it. Blyden is a lot of fun here while he was saddled with a wholly unpleasant no-good robber in "A Nice Place to Visit" with Sebastian Cabot as an angel-of-sorts. As Rance, he's a western actor inept on stage, quite a diva always calling for his stuntman, often unable to draw his gun from its holster without breaking a saloon window, causing plenty of headache to the director and crew trying to make a professional show despite all the setbacks caused by their star. Jesse James, though, won't have it any longer....the ghosts of all the wild west legends are fed up with Rance embarrassing them on television! So Rance loses the set and realizes he's in the west where the real James, much more menacing and realistic, has a bone to pick with him. Christian Nyby, editor to Howard Hawks and given the director's credit in "The Thing from Another World", got the chance to show us how a television production goes through issues with their prestige actor, how his demands and clutzy antics become a nuisance, and I thought Serling loves to poke fun at Hollywood through his show. Blyden's Rance just embarrasses himself often, especially in regards to breaking bottles and drawing his weapon...and his attempts to put a cigarillo together like Jesse does effortlessly doesn't go well.

"The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" is a personal guilty pleasure, but, honestly, it isn't really about much. I just enjoy Best so much as the resurrected Jeff (and this cast, which includes Dub Taylor, Ralph Moody, Sherry Jackson, and Jon Lormer, is a hoot) and the hick dialogue by Pittman (who directed) for the rural folk tickles my funny bone. "Git" (go away), "yip" (instead of yes), and "et" (for eat) are a few instances. Jeff having some abilities (lighting a match without a strike, closing a fence without a push, killing roses at the touch) and how he returns from the dead aren't elaborated with any great detail. This is about Jeff being scrutinized by his community for returning to life right before their eyes by leaving his own coffin because they fear something else took his body after death. The setting and its characters (how they talk and act, what they dress like, their particular customs) are what Pittman really cares about. I can watch it, enjoy it, and forget about it until the episode pops back up marathon-time. I don't really voluntarily watch it much unless I'm interested in the lesser talked about Twilight Zone episodes for a blog post, quite honest. Best has been in better--"The Grave" is one of my favorite episodes of the series, and "Jess-Belle" actually come right out and says witchcraft is used--than this, but "Jeff Myrtlebank" doesn't bore me.

I really enjoy "The Fugitive" until that twist. Most don't really feel that bothered by it. I guess if the entire episode didn't have sweet Old Pat O'Malley as a grandfatherly friend to a polio-stricken adorable little girl, it wouldn't have left me rather icky, but that Serling pops on at the end to point out that he's a twenty-something young man and king alien pursued by loyal subjects looking for him to return to his world to govern just didn't really land with me. A bond between O'Malley and the girl was sweet (and didn't feel at all creepy) wasn't as much the problem as that add-on twist. Kulp as the little girl's horrible aunt is a monster...adult women weren't exactly often portrayed in the best light.