Late Night Twilight Zone

 For my "Twilight Zone Set up Blog Post", here is the Link.

So for my Twilight Zone triple feature, I wanted to make sure this time I watched "The Midnight Sun" at midnight. I have been wanting to do that during a marathon season for some time. SYFY almost never airs it in the night around midnight, but I wanted to make sure I did. I have mentioned in time's past that SYFY made the egregious decision to cut this big emotional wallop where building super Mrs. Bronson is collapsed on a couch after a desperate intruder, wanting water, bursts into the apartment of Norma, taking some (while wasting water by pouring it on his head and smashing the glass), grabbing a gun from Norma's hands. Mrs. Bronson is sure the intruder is going to kill them, but he explains that he wouldn't harm them. This intruder lost his child, then his wife (inferred, not explicitly detailed) committed suicide, and has been wandering around in a broken state of mind. Now that isn't what is cut out. What is cut out is Mrs. Bronson being shown by Norma a particular painting she did for her of an Ithaca, NY, waterfall. There is this big emotionally charged breakdown by Mrs. Bronson involving Norma's terrifying (and potent) painting of the cityscape overwhelmed by a blistering hot sun. Mrs. Bronson wanted a painting that was uplifting, pleasant, and a reminder of the cool water. Norma did just that. So Norma shows Mrs. Bronson the painting, Mrs. Bronson remembers the waterfall (she envisions it in great detail, seemingly so lost in memory it becomes so real she can almost feel the water, see it before her...), and after pressing against a window while her tongue "tastes the imaginary waterfall", she collapses in a dead heap to the floor. Norma drops to her fallen friend, holds Mrs. Bronson's sweat-drenched head in her arms, and breaks down. That SYFY would cut such a pivotal scene astounds me...a commercial about some pharmaceutical company using Fleetwood Mac music as a substitute fucking sucks.

Prior to "The Midnight Sun" I watched "Mirror Image" and "The After Hours".

The Twilight Zone is littered with powerful images that really stick in the brain. Imagine this happens to you. Millicent actually seeing a "double" plotting to "take her place". No one believing her, a cantankerous ticket booth teller just wanting her out of his hair, a concerned sanitation employee worried something is mentally wrong, and a kind traveler who believes her talk of a doppelganger set to replace her is enough to warrant a call to the police so she can receive psychiatric evaluation. That is until he also experiences what she does! I continue to champion the great Vera Miles, always busy in film and television. While noted for "Psycho" (1960), her work in "The Wrong Man" (1956) is a precursor to her haunting performance(s) here. I think you definitely feel for this woman. And the rainy, derelict bus depot, with only a few folks, and those touches with the suitcase...great stuff.

I was looking back at some user comments from January of 2011, when I watched "The After Hours" late at night, reminding me of how effective this episode is during the "witching hour". When Marsha awakens to a closed store, the lights out, and those eerie mannequins frozen in pose, it is the very definition of nightmare fuel...if anything, I could see many a viewer trying to escape, floor to floor of this nightmare store as the mannequins speak in whispering tones. "Brian...Brian...Step off it." Yep, I've had that nightmare before. Thankfully, I wasn't having to return from a month away with the "outsiders" so some other mannequin could get their turn.

When TZ fans talk about how bleak "Time Enough At Last" is, Serling said, "You think so? I'll do one better." While there are plenty of classic, iconic TZ episodes you can choose from, few really go this dark. Serling really not only delivers a lot of body blows, the reverse twist ending is a TKO. The episode really won't release these poor characters from the vice.

I missed "The After Hours" during the last SYFY marathon due to work, but the episode was shown in early afternoon. To me, much like "Mirror Image", the dead of night just feels right.