Twilight Zone 2021 4th of July Marathon Concludes

Rod Serling introduces us to "Two"

 Shedyoule.

1. The Rip Van Winkle Caper (S2)
2. The Jungle (S3)
3. Mr. Garrity and the Graves (S5)
4. I Am the Night - Color Me Black (S5)
5. The Thirty-Fathom Grave (S4)
6. Back There (S2)
7. Two (S3)
8. The Odyssey of Flight 33 (S2)
9. Elegy (S1)
10. Judgement Night (S1)

Notes

• Why would DeCruz stupidly crash a car off a cliff when he didn't need to in The Rip Van Winkle Caper? They are in Death Valley and miles away from civilization. I get that this was needed to tell the story of greed and desperation later produced during the long walk of DeCruz and chemistry/psychics professor Farwell, but DeCruz just abandoning a crucial transport device with bars of gold, one canteen of water, and a rather unhealthy partner in crime seems very ill-advised.
• With The Jungle, I always remain curious about the city Alan Richards lives. It is so abandoned, so absent of the typically busy life of a robust city. Once again, much like Nick of Time, superstition is at the heart of the story. Richards fails to realize his error in taking the curse on him seriously. His wife did, but throwing away the protections sure was a mistake! The sets used are the star and Dehner, a TZ regular, gets starring treatment. 
• I decided to watch another Dehner-led episode, this one set in Happiness, AZ, where the town has plenty of secrets buried on Boothill. This is all about a great cast with comic faces and personalities. This treasure is found way towards the end of a season where TZ clearly was in the midst of its near demise.
• I recall a few years ago, Syfy showed The Thirty-Fathom Grave around 6 PM on a January 1st evening. It was a great evening of Twilight Zone marathoning. The ghosts of the past beckoning tormented soul, Kellin. That classic TZ music. Creepy as all hell. I couldn't help it. I wanted to recreate that experience.
• I watched Back There with my daughter, who rarely watches TZ with me. I have noticed this is an episode that many feel doesn't quite live up to its potential. Lincoln's assassination and an engineer's discussion about time travel leads to a trip to April 1865. With all the possibilities, this episode doesn't pursue that what if and the ramifications of saving Lincoln. The music and Russell Johnson's efforts to really emphasize a failed rescue plan help make this an always watch for me.
• There are bleak apocalyptic stories like The Old Man in the Cave where the end results are depressing and wholly bleak where Anderson looks among the dead, scattered bodies with mournful eyes, and then there is an episode like Two where, out of wreckage, two sides of a stupid war find each other after putting aside any remaining conflict. They can walk together hopefully to some sort of possible future.
• I've always thought The Odyssey of Flight 33 was a knockout, a real bonafide treat thanks to realistic cockpit dialogue among actors as pilots who generate plenty of authenticity, even as their time travel predicament is so extraordinary. That dinosaur sighting and trips through the sound barrier, complete with explosive turbulence, really build suspense and wonder. This is typically a setup pre-holiday episode I love watching during the afternoon or morning on New Years Eve. But with no other episodes on the agenda, this seemed to stick out. And I am really glad I watched it tonight. I think it could have been easy for Serling to end this on a positive note, but he decides to leave the jet airliner's completed journey unknown to us. That kind of ambiguity is admired by me.
• Elegy is an episode I actually rarely watch marathon season. It's one of those early morning Syfy episodes I might catch during a bout of insomnia. I thought about pairing this with Still Valley as both episodes feature extras frozen in place while main casts walk among them bewildered. This episode isn't about "the devil's work", though. This episode has an android caretaker informing astronauts they've landed on a cemetery astroid!
• I admit I morbidly check to see if Nehemiah Persoff is still with us each and every marathon year. He's 101 and still alive, while Shatner is 90. His tormented Carl Lanser in Judgment Night is appropriately tortured on a doomed voyage whose ship, for which he doesn't belong, will be the target of a German U-boat he's the commander of. That's a kind of deserved hell he will continue to experience for all eternity. Identifying with those he kills, talking to them, seeing their ghosts over and over, Twilight Zone could indeed mete out proper punishment to evil-doers.