The Twilight Zone: Season One (wrap-up)

The Twilight Zone: Season One, 1959-1960. A collection of modern-day fairy tales.

[see individual episode posts for details]

Concept: Great idea for a show, although the episodes only occasionally have good ideas. A [episode-by-episode average: 2.89/4]
Story: I was surprised by how weak the stories are. I mean, they're mostly good, but I expected greatness. C [average: 2.39/4]
Characters: C [average: 2.14/4]
Dialog: B [average: 2.5/4]
Pacing: B [average: 2.67/4]
Cinematography: Great for early television. B [average: 2.69/4]
Special effects/design: B [average: 2.53/4]
Acting: B [average: 2.83/4]
Music: B [average: 2.89/4]
Enjoyment: I had extremely high expectations for this show - reinforced by the exceptional first episode - so maybe I'm not judging it fairly. But The Twilight Zone is not everything I'd hoped it would be. The few great episodes make up for a lot, though. And even when it doesn't work, they're at least constantly trying to do something different. B [average: 2.72/4]

GPA: 2.9/4 [episode-by-episode average: 2.63/4]

The Twilight Zone: "A World of His Own"

The Twilight Zone: "A World of His Own" (episode 36 of 36 from season one), 1960. A writer can create real people with his dictaphone.

Created by Rod Serling. Directed by Ralph Nelson. Written by Richard Matheson. Starring Keenan Wynn, with Phyllis Kirk & Mary LaRoche.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: A mediocre episode for the most part, but it has some fun with itself - especially in the coda. B

GPA: 2.3/4

The Twilight Zone: "The Mighty Casey"

The Twilight Zone: "The Mighty Casey" (episode 35 of 36 from season one), 1960. A robot plays professional baseball.

Written & created by Rod Serling. Directed by Alvin Ganzer & Robert Parrish. Starring Jack Warden, with Abraham Sofaer & Robert Sorrells.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: Maybe this would seem cute if you were a baseball fan? I can't imagine there are many people who aren't Rod Serling who love baseball and also like comedic fairy tales. C

GPA: 2.2/4

The Twilight Zone: "The After Hours"

The Twilight Zone: "The After Hours" (episode 34 of 36 from season one), 1960. A woman is taken to a non-existent floor of a department store.

Written & created by Rod Serling. Directed by Douglas Heyes. Starring Anne Francis.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: The basic idea here seems to be, as far as I can tell, that Rod Serling couldn't think up a story for this episode. But mannequins are creepy, right? C

GPA: 2.2/4

The Twilight Zone: "Mr. Bevis"

The Twilight Zone: "Mr. Bevis" (episode 33 of 36 from season one), 1960. An eccentric man has a bad day and meets his guardian angel.

Written & created by Rod Serling. Directed by William Asher. Starring Orson Bean & Henry Jones.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C
Enjoyment: Pleasantly sweet, but not paticularly interesting or half as fun as the premise should have made it. C

GPA: 2.3/4

The Twilight Zone: "A Passage for Trumpet"

The Twilight Zone: "A Passage for Trumpet" (episode 32 of 36 from season one), 1960. An alcoholic trumpet player commits suicide.

Written & created by Rod Serling. Directed by Don Medford. Starring Jack Klugman, with John Anderson & Frank Wolff.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Kind of cute. It's not a noteworthy episode, but it's executed well. B

GPA: 2.9/4

The Twilight Zone: "The Chaser"

The Twilight Zone: "The Chaser" (episode 31 of 36 from season one), 1960. A man buys a potion to make a woman love him.

Created by Rod Serling. Directed by Douglas Heyes. Written by Robert Presnell Jr., based on a story by John Collier. Starring John McIntire, Patricia Barry, & George Grizzard.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Pure fairy tale. B

GPA: 2.7/4

The Twilight Zone: "A Stop at Willoughby"

The Twilight Zone: "A Stop at Willoughby" (episode 30 of 36 from season one), 1960. An ad executive dreams that his train stops at a peaceful town.

Written & created by Rod Serling. Directed by Robert Parrish. Starring James Daly.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: A dumb idea, and a boring episode. D

GPA: 1.9/4

The Twilight Zone: "Nightmare as a Child"

The Twilight Zone: "Nightmare as a Child" (episode 29 of 36 from season one), 1960. A woman with repressed memories meets an unusual child.

Written & created by Rod Serling. Directed by Alvin Ganzer. Starring Janice Rule, Shepperd Strudwick, & Terry Burnham.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: No real shortcomings, and well executed. And there's some suspense in wondering how dark they'll get in a 1960 TV show. B

GPA: 2.7/4

The Twilight Zone: "A Nice Place to Visit"

The Twilight Zone: "A Nice Place to Visit" (episode 28 of 36 from season one), 1960. A petty criminal is introduced to the afterlife.

Created by Rod Serling. Directed by John Brahm. Written by Charles Beaumont. Starring Larry Blyden & Sebastian Cabot.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Predictable but fun. B

GPA: 3.0/4

The Twilight Zone: "The Big Tall Wish"

The Twilight Zone: "The Big Tall Wish" (episode 27 of 36 from season one), 1960. A boy makes a wish on behalf of his boxer friend.

Created & written by Rod Serling. Directed by Ron Winston. Starring Ivan Dixon, with Stephen Perry.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: D
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Not my favorite, but if I had to pick one episode of The Twilight Zone that demonstrates what it can be at it's best, I'd likely pick this one. A

GPA: 2.9/4

The Twilight Zone: "Execution"

The Twilight Zone: "Execution" (episode 26 of 36 from season one), 1960. An old west outlaw is transported to present day New York.

Created & written by Rod Serling, based on a story by George Clayton Johnson. Directed by David Orrick McDearmon. Starring Albert Salmi, with Russell Johnson & Than Wyenn.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: A fun idea, and the story never becomes predictable. There's so much more that could have been done with it, though, if they weren't limited to 25 minutes. B

GPA: 3.1/4

The Twilight Zone: "People Are Alike All Over"

The Twilight Zone: "People Are Alike All Over" (episode 25 of 36 from season one), 1960. A frightened astronaut meets the people of Mars.

Created & written by Rod Serling, based on a story by Paul W. Fairman. Directed by Mitchell Leisen. Starring Roddy McDowall.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: Pretty good episode. It's not until near the end that it becomes clear where the story is going, so there's some suspense. B

GPA: 2.8/4

The Twilight Zone: "Long Live Walter Jameson"

The Twilight Zone: "Long Live Walter Jameson" (episode 24 of 36 from season one), 1960. A history professor knows his subject a little too well.

Created by Rod Serling. Directed by Anton Leader. Written by Charles Beaumont. Starring Kevin McCarthy & Edgar Stehli.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: They clearly spent the entire budget on the makeup effect. B
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: It's a pretty good story, although the execution is rougher than I expect from this show. B

GPA: 2.6/4

The Twilight Zone: "A World of Difference"

The Twilight Zone: "A World of Difference" (episode 23 of 36 from season one), 1960. A man finds he's an actor, shooting a movie that he thought was reality.

Created by Rod Serling. Directed by Ted Post. Written by Richard Matheson. Starring Howard Duff.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: A neat idea that could have easily turned into a bad episode, but they handled it well. B

GPA: 2.8/4

The Twilight Zone: "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"

The Twilight Zone: "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" (episode 22 of 36 from season one), 1960. A meteor and power outage lead to paranoia.

Created & written by Rod Serling. Directed by Ron Winston. Starring Claude Akins, Barry Atwater, & Jack Weston.

Concept: A
Story: C
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: A great idea, not executed particularly well. The turns are too sudden and extreme to be believable, and it ends up more a political cartoon than the thriller or parable it's meant to be. C

GPA: 2.4/4

The Twilight Zone: "Mirror Image"

The Twilight Zone: "Mirror Image" (episode 21 of 36 from season one), 1960. A woman encounters evidence of her double.

Created & written by Rod Serling. Directed by John Brahm. Starring Vera Miles & Martin Milner.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: It doesn't really go anywhere with its idea, but it's a creepy enough idea to make a good episode on its own. B

GPA: 2.6/4

The Twilight Zone: "Elegy"

The Twilight Zone: "Elegy" (episode 20 of 36 from season one), 1960. Space explorers discover a world frozen in Earth's past.

Created by Rod Serling. Directed by Douglas Heyes. Written by Charles Beaumont. Starring Cecil Kellaway, Jeff Morrow, Don Dubbins, & Kevin Hagen.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: B
Enjoyment: I don't know why this episode didn't work for me. I like all the elements, and it's not badly put together. None-the-less, it didn't really work for me. C

GPA: 2.2/4

The Twilight Zone: "The Purple Testament"

The Twilight Zone: "The Purple Testament" (episode 19 of 36 from season one), 1960. A soldier can see when people are going to die.

Created & written by Rod Serling. Directed by Richard L. Bare. Starring Dick York & William Reynolds.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: They introduce the concept, and then everything just comes to a halt. I guess someone staring at people was supposed to be enough to carry the rest of the episode? C

GPA: 2.1/4

The Twilight Zone: "The Last Flight"

The Twilight Zone: "The Last Flight" (episode 18 of 36 from season one), 1960. A WWI fighter lands in 1959.

Created by Rod Serling. Directed by William F. Claxton. Written by Richard Matheson. Starring Kenneth Haigh, with Alexander Scourby & Simon Scott.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B
Enjoyment: There's an unfortunate failed attempt at character drama. Otherwise, it's pretty interesting. B

GPA: 2.6/4