WWTBAM Bored

Coming up on the Twilight Zone marathon on the SyFy Channel in 10 minutes.

Ray

As the first scene was playing I walked by the T.V. and said, "oooh! It's To Serve Man". And my daughter replies, "You know the name of the episodes?". I said "The good ones I do."

I made them watch to the end.

BackInTex wrote:As the first scene was playing I walked by the T.V. and said, "oooh! It's To Serve Man". And my daughter replies, "You know the name of the episodes?". I said "The good ones I do."

I made them watch to the end.

And it's still going on! Is this the first time they ever showed every single episode -- including the hour-long ones -- in chronological order?

The WE House marathon has been airing since sometime yesterday. They wrap up this afternoon. I've gained a new favorite episode, "Death Row Guy." which is actually called "Acceptance." This doesn't replace my old favorite, the doc in Antarctica who diagnoses herself with House's help via Skype; now I have three favorites -- those two and the one where House diagnoses an inmate when he's in prison.

franktangredi wrote:

BackInTex wrote:As the first scene was playing I walked by the T.V. and said, "oooh! It's To Serve Man". And my daughter replies, "You know the name of the episodes?". I said "The good ones I do."

I made them watch to the end.

And it's still going on! Is this the first time they ever showed every single episode -- including the hour-long ones -- in chronological order?

I don't know. I did see where the hour long episodes started yesterday evening. Pretty cool if that is what they did.

BackInTex wrote:

franktangredi wrote:

BackInTex wrote:As the first scene was playing I walked by the T.V. and said, "oooh! It's To Serve Man". And my daughter replies, "You know the name of the episodes?". I said "The good ones I do."

I made them watch to the end.

And it's still going on! Is this the first time they ever showed every single episode -- including the hour-long ones -- in chronological order?

I don't know. I did see where the hour long episodes started yesterday evening. Pretty cool if that is what they did.

They definitely did it, they've been advertising it as such. They're even showing the two episodes that have been taken out of the regular circulation. (I wish they were showing them uncut, though.)

I wish most of the hour-longs hadn't been in the wee hours. But I did get to watch my favorite of them, On Thursday We Leave for Home. It's one of the few TZ episodes that approaches the status of classic tragedy, and James Whitmore may give the best single performance in the entire series.

Somehow, with the proliferation of outlets like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime on which you can see just about every TV series ever made, these "marathons" just don't have the same impact they used to.

Besides the syndication issues, I always thought that most of the hour episodes didn't work as well as the 30 minute ones. I know this was a CBS-driven thing (Gunsmoke had the same thing happen), but it just seemed like many of them were stories that just were padded to fit the time slot.

SpacemanSpiff wrote:Besides the syndication issues, I always thought that most of the hour episodes didn't work as well as the 30 minute ones. I know this was a CBS-driven thing (Gunsmoke had the same thing happen), but it just seemed like many of them were stories that just were padded to fit the time slot.

I watched one last night called In His Image. It didn't work particularly well for me. --Bob

Our own Rod_Serling had a take on it:

http://wwtbambored.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=39858

Bob78164 wrote:

SpacemanSpiff wrote:Besides the syndication issues, I always thought that most of the hour episodes didn't work as well as the 30 minute ones. I know this was a CBS-driven thing (Gunsmoke had the same thing happen), but it just seemed like many of them were stories that just were padded to fit the time slot.

I watched one last night called In His Image. It didn't work particularly well for me. --Bob

Most of them didn't work as well as the shorter ones, but a couple benefited from the extra time. On Thursday We Leave for Home and Death Ship in particular.

It's interesting that the show that bore perhaps the most similarity to Twilight Zone was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and it also expanded to an hour in 1962, after seven seasons at 30 minutes. But Hitchcock lasted three seasons at 60 minutes (admittedly to declining ratings), while Zone only lasted one shortened (18-episode) season before returning to 30 minutes for its last season. Htichcock's best shows were the sorter ones as well.

One of the things I felt was most interesting about Hitchock's show was the way it used his appearances to get around the production code then in effect. At that time, no television show could depict a criminal successfully getting away with committing a crime, and, of course, many of Hitchcock's best episodes did exactly that. He got around that by restriction by coming on after the last commercial and adding a brief comment to the effect that the villains were actually caught and sent to jail some time later, all the while practically winking at the camera to make sure everyone knew that was a load of bull.

silverscreenselect wrote:It's interesting that the show that bore perhaps the most similarity to Twilight Zone was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and it also expanded to an hour in 1962, after seven seasons at 30 minutes. But Hitchcock lasted three seasons at 60 minutes (admittedly to declining ratings), while Zone only lasted one shortened (18-episode) season before returning to 30 minutes for its last season. Htichcock's best shows were the sorter ones as well.

One of the things I felt was most interesting about Hitchock's show was the way it used his appearances to get around the production code then in effect. At that time, no television show could depict a criminal successfully getting away with committing a crime, and, of course, many of Hitchcock's best episodes did exactly that. He got around that by restriction by coming on after the last commercial and adding a brief comment to the effect that the villains were actually caught and sent to jail some time later, all the while practically winking at the camera to make sure everyone knew that was a load of bull.

I had always found that "explanation" by Hitchcock curious and did not know about that rule....

I seem to recall in reading up on a fan site I used to visit that TZ was actually briefly canceled following the third season, and only brought back for its hour-long fourth season to fill airtime other canceled shows created. I can't think of many hour long episodes I really care for, though I'd probably agree with Frank that "Thursday" is the best (Though "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" has my favorite moral of any TZ ep). Even the return to half hour shows in the fifth season was largely filler ("Owl Creek Bridge") and weak story ideas just thrown together to fill space.... though that unexpected fifth season did produce some of my favorites like "The Masks" and "Stopover in A Quiet Town" (The only TZ episode to feature a squirrel!)...

lb13

franktangredi wrote:I wish most of the hour-longs hadn't been in the wee hours. But I did get to watch my favorite of them, On Thursday We Leave for Home. It's one of the few TZ episodes that approaches the status of classic tragedy, and James Whitmore may give the best single performance in the entire series.

We DVRd that and the Robert Duvall dollhouse one.

We really enjoyed the TZ marathon. We haven't seen some of them in years and even some that I'd seen not that long ago (such as A Hundred Yards Over the Rim) were good to see again.