Syfy Twilight Zone Marathoning Part 5

The Fear

 I do admit that I did a little cheating on this particular batch of episodes. I woke up to the end of A World of Own on New Year's Day, 2023, so I needed to finish it at 2:20 in the morning on the 2nd, Monday. I was able to soldier through From Agnes With Love, slept through Queen of the Nile and Come Wander With Me, and woke up to the end of The Fear, watching Death Ship and The Little People before I started up New Year's Eve episodes posted earlier on the blog.

11:30am – A World of His Own

Gregory West keeps bringing back Mary while dealing with Victoria, ready to send her husband off to the mental hospital so she can get the money and property. All Victoria wants to do is get the key out of his study so she can send him away. Gregory kept trying to deal with Victoria, but with Mary conjured time and again, and his attempts to persuade her to stay (and stop threatening to have him committed) failing, the playwright "finds no other alternative" than "erase" her. I can just imagine, still, a particular audience hear Gregory opine that he made Victoria too strong, too independent, without "human frailty", eventually preferring Mary who will serve him Martinis and be devoted to him raging with a drink ready to be tossed at the screen. The Rod Serling joke is what I woke up to so I needed to watch the rest of this one...it is just a clever joke perfect for breaking that 4th wall since this is The Twilight Zone.

12:00pm – From Agnes With Love

Wally Cox has to deal with a computer in love with him that eventually wreaks havoc on his life after becoming jealous that he desires a relationship with an officer worker, Millie, who is more interested in another scientist working at the company. Some find this fun, while I admit to finding it rather obnoxious. Wally and the supercomputer sabotaging his personal and professional life, even if it would seem both were doomed already, might hit a homerun with some Zoners. I'm always meh with this one. I just think Cox really doesn't help himself and the writers making the computer act like a type of woman found mainly in soap operas of the time probably doesn't age all that well.

12:30pm – Queen of the Nile

Just doesn't work for me. They make Jordan Merrick so stupid. Even when Lovsky's Viola tells Merrick she's Pamela's daughter, not her mother, begging him never to come back if he favors his life, the journalist fails to listen. But, still, you'd think there would be enough trails behind all these men she takes the youth from, eventually questions would follow their absence. Mr. Merrick worked for people, they know he went to Pamela Morris' mansion. And he just up and disappears. There were men before him and obviously some after, so what gives? Viola just watches the body count pile up for years.

1:00pm – Come Wander With Me

This had to be a nice break from the norm for Richard Donner, really granted the chance to have The Twilight Zone as a playground, with Bing's son as a rockabilly boy looking for that big folk song he could exploit for big profits, not anticipating becoming a legend...through his death. Bonnie Beecher has this haunting presence about her and I can see why Donner thought she was incredible during her casting process. How Donner shoots her in black and as a local seemingly walking about the woods, from behind Crosby's Burney who is looking for the voice behind the song he hopes to buy, I find quite eerie. And how the episode feels so disorienting and out of synch with reality, once again seeming to follow that limbo cycle of characters caught in a neverending sequence of events; Donner really seems to have one of those rare credits in his career that is otherworldly. I'm so glad to know Donner was cutting his teeth in television with the likes of Twilight Zone, even if some of his episodes aren't perfect. I can see this kind of episode really being a cult classic even further into the future when I'm long gone.

1:30pm – The Fear

I woke up to Twitter on the Twilight Zone Marathon page seeming to like the episode but making fun of the inflatable alien balloon. I think the first half or so of the episode, when at night after Trooper Franklin arrives to the cabin of fashion editor (recovering from nervous breakdown in NYC), Charlotte, is maybe why I have warmed up to the episode besides the casting of the recently departed Peter Mark Richman (he passed just two weeks after the 2021 TZ marathon) and Hazel Court. I was never morbid, but I do admit that I would investigate talents still alive every Twilight Zone marathon, including the status of Richman and Nehemiah Persoff, both now deceased. I would always be rather admittedly excited that they were still with us as they entered their 90s. Watching this late is preferred viewing to me than 12:30 or 1:30 in the afternoon...there is just something eerie about Franklin with his flashlight having a look for the intruder outside the cabin, seeing the big fingerprints on the car. The next morning giant footprint is also effective. But maybe the little aliens in the little spaceship saucer and inflatable giant took a bit of the shine off. Still, I have noticed the episode gets favorable coverage so maybe this might fall under the underrated category of episodes. Perhaps an underseen gem?

2:00pm – Death Ship

When Martin and Beir just want to welcome the after life and accept death to be with their loved ones, Klugman arriving to break up their happiness, Jack's never been as disliked in The Twilight Zone as he is in this episode. He refuses to accept what is clear: their ship crashed on the planet and it has nothing to do with aliens using manipulation or mind control to make them think so. What is frustrating to us is we know Klugman will continue to keep his astronauts in a futile cyclical loop of limbo, repeating over and over on and off that planet the same trips with no different conclusion. Just eternal torture, unnecessary and cruel, really.

3:00pm – The Little People

This was one of those key episodes in the 90s that made me the Twilight Zone fan I would become for life. Lessons about those with inferiority complexes taking advantage of those incapable of defending themselves, believing they can be gods under such power. Maross, the astronaut under Akins' command, has always been ordered around, under the thumb of someone else, never the leader, always the underling. Well, a small ancient civilization he can trample underfoot on some far distant world while Akins seems alone to work on their ship, Maross seizes upon his chance to wield supreme power...until some bigger come along! Maross had to be one of the most detestable villains of the series.