New Year's 2009/2010 Twilight Zone Marathon Episode Listings

This year's New Year's marathon starts at 8:00 AM on December 31st and ends at 6:00 AM on January 2nd.

I'll get to the listings in a minute, but first a few comments.

Syfy has some radically different promos for this marathon. Maybe I'll discuss them more in a future blog. For now, I'll say they have a color scheme that I recall as being very pink and white with comic strip/fumetti visuals and sound clips from certain iconic episodes. They seem kind of cool in a strange way.

If I remember correctly, I was disappointed with the most recent July 4th marathon due to the lack of "hour long" episodes and uncut episodes. Syfy made up for it this time. I noticed at least six of the hour long epsidoes this time, plus the irregular start and stop times from roughly Seven O'Clock to Midnight on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day makes me think Syfy is running uncut episodes during those time periods.

Here are the listings according to my channel guide.

Thursday December 31, 2009


8:00 AM "Valley of the Shadow"

9:00 AM "Changing of the Guard"

9:30 AM "Long Distance Call"

10:00 AM "Walking Distance"

10:31 AM "The Mighty Casey"

11:01 AM "The Last Flight"

11;31 AM "The Lonely"

12:01 PM "A Game of Pool"

12:31 PM "The Fear"

1:01 PM "Hocus Pocus and Frsiby"

1:31 PM "The Shelter"

2:01 PM "Queen of the Nile"

2:31 PM "Mr. Denton on Doomsday"

3:02 PM "A Kind of Stopwatch"

3:32 PM "One For the Angels"

4:02 PM "The Bewitchin' Pool"

4:32 PM "A Penny For Your Thoughts"

5:02 PM "The Obsolete Man"

5:32 PM "The Hitchhiker"

6:02 PM "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

6:32 PM "The Odyssey of Flight 33"

7:02 PM "The Silence"

7:35 PM "Kick the Can"

8:08 PM "The Howling Man"

8:42 PM "People Are Alike All Over

9:15 PM "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air"

9:48 PM "Where is Everybody?

10:19 PM "The Invaders"

10:52 PM "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"

11:25 PM "To Serve Man"

11:58 PM "The Midnight Sun"



January 1, 2010



12:32 AM "The Dummy"

1:02 AM "Probe 7: Over and Out"

1:32 AM "Number 12 Looks Just Like You:

2:02 AM "The Night of the Meek"

2:32 AM "The Grave"

3:02 AM "Two"

3:32 AM "Mirror Image"

4:02 AM "A Thing About Machines

4:32 AM "Nightmare as a Child"

5:02 AM "Passage on the Lady Anne"

6:00 AM "The Thirty-Fathom Grave"

7:00 AM "He's Alive"

8:00 AM "Death Ship"

9:00 AM "In Praise of Pip"

9:31 AM "Judgement Night"

10:01 AM "Mr. Dingle, the Strong"

10:31 AM "Black Leather Jackets"

11:01 AM "And When the Sky Was Opened"

11:31 AM "A World of His Own"

12:01 PM "What's in the Box?"

12:31 PM "The Arrival"

1:01 PM "Death's Head Revisted"

1:32 PM "The Hunt"

2:02 PM "The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms"

2:32 PM "Dead Man's Shoes"

3:02 PM "The Rip Van Winkle Caper"

3:31 PM "Mr. Bevis"

4:01 PM "A Most Unusual Camera"

4:31 PM "The Old Man in the Cave"

5:01 PM "Living Doll"

5:32 PM "I Sing the Body Electric"

6:02 PM "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"

6:32 PM "A Stop at Willoughby"

7:02 PM "Nothing in the Dark"

7:35 PM "It's a Good Life"

8:08 PM "The Little People"

8:41 PM "Third From the Sun"

9:14 PM "The Masks"

9:48 PM "The Eye of the Beholder"

10:21 PM "Time Enough at Last"

10:55 PM "The After Hours"

11:29 PM "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"



January 2, 2010



12:02 AM "Stopover in a Quiet Town"

12:35 AM "Little Girl Lost"

1:05 AM "Mr. Garrity and the Graves"

1:35 AM "Nick of Time"

2:05 AM "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim"

2:35 AM "Night Call"

3:05 AM "Escape Clause"

3:35 AM "A Nice Place to Visit"

4:05 AM "Execution"

4:35 AM "I am the Night, Color Me Black"

5:05 AM "The Bard"



Marathon ends at 6:00 AM

The Twilight Zone Excluded

Hey Everyone,

I just read this list of the top shows of the 1950s. The Twilight Zone wasn't even included even though at least one other show that started in 1959 was. Here's my comment:

This list is a travesty. Certainly I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners should be on the list and near the top. Yet, one of the best and most innovative shows in television history doesn't even make the top 40 while plenty of bland and mediocre shows did. The Untouchables was a good show and made the list even though it's only season in the 50s was 1959. If it only takes one season in the 50s to qualify then one of television's greatest shows, a show which debuted in 1959, should be here too. I'm talking about The Twilight Zone.

Please check out the link and complain about The Twilight Zone's exclusion.

http://insidetv.aol.com/2009/10/27/feature-page-10-1-best-50s-tv-shows/2

Celebrity Stage Reading of the Masks

From the New York Comic Con mailing list, I got the following:

"First up, our friends at NYC's Paley Center are hosting a celebrity stage reading of The Twilight Zone's "The Masks" on Wednesday, October 28 at 6:30PM. Presented in association with Food For Thought Productions, The Paley Center's live reading will feature Lucie Arnaz, Laurence Luckinbill, Katharine Luckinbill, Robert Walden, and Fritz Weaver in front of the audience and is directed by Antony Marsellis. Anne Serling, daughter of Rod Serling, will also speak at the event. Tickets are available at www.paleycenter.org and are $50 for the general public, but you can get tickets for half off -- only $25 -- by entering code "comiccon". the Paley Center is located at 25 West 52 Street in NYC."

I won't be there, but it sounds really cool. Fritz Weaver appeared in a few Twilight Zone episodes. He played Sturka in "Third from the Sun," and the Chancellor in "The Obsolete Man." Lucie Arnaz is the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz of I Love Lucy. Plus her parents' production company was responsible for The Desilu Westinghouse Playhouse which her father also hosted. Rod Serling's "The Time Element" appeared on that show nearly a year before The Twilight Zone began. Then, of course, there's Anne Serling-Sutton. She's one of Rod Serling's daughters. She has a new book out about her and her father.

So, if you have a chance to attend, this event sounds neat.

Happy 50th Anniversary, Twilight Zone!!

This is it! Today's the day. It's The Twilight Zone's 50th Anniversary. Syfy is showing episodes until 3:30 PM. If anyone wants to watch the pilot episode, "Where is Everybody?" you can find it online here: http://www.veoh.com/collection/CBS-The-Twilight-Zone/offset/20#watch%3Dv18438556kRCxZpdP It originally aired on Friday, October 2, 1959. If anyone is near Binghamton, New York, there will be screenings in the John Broome County Theatre between 6:00 and 9:00 PM. Plus there will be an art display on Gorgeous Washington St.

Well, It Sure Ain't Walking Distance For Me, But I'm Going

Wow!! It's been awhile since I posted. August 16th! I finished reading Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute quite some time ago. I should post the rest of my thoughts about it soon. Life intrudes though.

Here's something I've been meaning to post for over a month, but I'm finally getting around to it at the last minute. The Twilight Zone premiered on Friday October 2, 1959. (Yeah, that not counting the unofficial pilot "The Time Element" which paved the way for The Twilight Zone. That means this October 2nd (also a Friday!) is the 50th Anniversary! There are events planned in Binghamton, New York from October 1-4, and a conference at Serling's college, Antioch. I plan to attend some of the events in Binghamton on Thursday and Friday. I really wish I could attend those talks at Antioch. (It would be really cool if they collected them and published them. Hint, hint.)

Anyway, here's a link to the events in Binghamton for anyone interested:
http://www.rodserlingvideofest.com/tztimes.html

Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute Review Part II

Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute by Douglas Brode and Carol Serling (Reviewing pgs. 21-38)

Brode calls Chapter 2 "What Dreams May Come: Nightmares at Noon."

He starts with a biographical tidbit saying that while Serling was at Antioch, a bit from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew fascinated him. Two characters dress an unconscious drunk in finery, and when he wakes, they persuade him that he is really a nobleman, and that all he remembers of his previous life was just a nightmare.

Brode then examines the following Twilight Zone episodes: "Where is Everybody?," "King Nine Will Not Return," "Perchance to Dream," Nightmare as a Child," "Shadow Play," and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

Each of these episodes involve dreams/hallucinations, and some also involve confusion of identity.

Brode sees "King Nine Will Not Return" as an attempt to redo "Where is Everybody?" Brode says Serling added enough new elements to "King Nine" that the stories don't seem too similar to viewers. Brode claims Serling aimed to correct shortcomings in "Where is Everybody?"

"Where is Everybody?" is one of my favorite episodes. Sure, it was the pilot episode, and Serling hadn't quite struck on a signature style for the show. He ended the episode with everything rationally explained and without one final reality bending jolt. Serling later supplied that jolt when he turned "Where is Everybody? into a short story for the book Stories from the Twilight Zone.

In "King Nine," Serling accomplishes this with the unexplained presence of sand following a "rational" explanation of the protagonist's dream that he'd seen images of his old crew and been to the site where the bomber he flew in W.W. II crashed in the Sahara Desert.

Brode supplies interesting insights and biographical details on "Nightmare as a Child." Helen Foley, a teacher and the story's protagonist, was named after one of Serling's teachers.

Discussing episodes which Serling didn't write, including, "Perchance to Dream," Shadow Play," and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," Brode continues developing his argument that Serling was The Twilight Zone's auteur.

"Auteur" usually identifies directors whose work complies with "auteur theory," the idea that directors are the chief creators of films and give the films their distinctive style. Of course, Serling didn't direct Twilight Zone episodes. He did write more scripts than anyone else. He narrated. Plus, he had a lot of creative control. For instance, in The Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling Volume I (Gauntlet, 2004), Tony Albarella while discussing "Where is Everybody? quotes the producer as saying that he told Serling that Serling's original pilot script wouldn't work as a pilot. and that he wanted something else. The producer said Serling could have had him removed from the show. Serling didn't do this however, and instead came back with the script for "Where is Everybody?"

Brode believes that Serling - as a writer, a narrator, and with his influence over the show's creative direction - gave the show its distinct style, even on episodes he didn't script.

I find this persuasive on the Richard Matheson scripted "Perchance to Dream." Seeing Serling's "The Time Element" from Desilu Westinghouse Playhouse, and reading the script for it, I noticed it shared a lot of plot elements with The Twilight Zone episode "Perchance to Dream" broadcast about a year later.

In both stories, a man sees a psychiatrist about a reoccurring dream which he believes will go a little further one day. In both stories, the dream leads to the men's death. The difference is in what the men dream about. One dream is about traveling through time and space to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941. The other dream is about being stalked by a mysterious woman.

Brode relates elements of "Shadow Play" (script credited to Charles Beaumont) to other episodes.

Brode's argument sounds far-fetched when it comes to "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." It's actually a French short film adapting an Ambrose Bierce story. Serling had no involvement in its creation.

However, Brode contends that the work reflected many of Serling's interests and viewpoints. So Serling's choice to use it as an episode provides another example of him supplying The Twilight Zone with its distinctive style.

Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute Review Part I

Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute by Douglas Brode and Carol Serling. (Barricade Books, Fort Lee, N.J., 2009, 245 pages) Reviewing pages i-xxviii and 1-20.

I confess to being a little confused. I'm glad I bought this book, and I'm excited to read it, but there's something I don't understand.

The book carries the byline "Douglas Brode and Carol Serling." Yet in her Foreword, Mrs. Serling, Rod's widow, calls this "Douglas Brode's remarkable book." So far, I haven't seen Brode's explanation for the coauthor credit.

It's understandable that someone publishing a book about Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone wants Mrs. Serling's name on the cover. Rod and Carol Serling met as students at Antioch after he returned from World War II. This, of course, was long before he became famous. As young, married college students, they lived in a trailer without heat or running water.

Carol Serling encouraged her husband's writing. How many other wives would've insisted instead that their husbands get a "real" (please don't overlook the quotation marks) job? She served as a first reader, critiquing her husband's writing. She also gave him important career advice. Since Rod Serling's death, Carol Serling has been a caretaker of his legacy. So for this fan, at least, hers is a prestigious name on a Twilight Zone project.

Maybe Brode's being generous with the byline, or maybe it's Mrs. Serling who's generous in her Foreword. If I see an explanation elsewhere, I'll mention it in a future post. Anyway, it's easy to envision, Mrs. Serling providing valuable source material and insights. So far, Brode places great importance on how personal experiences influenced Serling's work. So source material and insight is key.

In her Foreword, Mrs. Serling promotes the work which follows. She also theorizes about why The Twilight Zone still appeals to so many people decades after its original run ended.

In his introduction, Brode explains the scope and purpose of the book. Brode says, "This volume will concentrate on those Zones which touch a common core, focusing on classics written by Serling himself. Key episodes by other contributors will be discussed in passing so Zone's full impact will be fully represented." (xxvii) Brode cautions that this book isn't intended to have encyclopedia like entries on every episode, and notes that Mark Scott Zicree's The Twilight Zone Companion already fulfills that purpose.

As you can see, Brode uses both italics and bold font when referring to The Twilight Zone, which he often abbreviates as Zone or, in his manner, Zone.

Brode includes a biographical sketch of Serling which could work as a chapter of its own. Brode didn't use footnotes, and I'll have to read further to see if he cited sources for the information. (Did Carol Serling contribute heavily in providing biographical info?)

Minor errors pop up in places. One I recall was dating Twilight Zone The Movie as 1978 instead of 1983

The introduction struck one sour note.

If Brode intends to prompt greater appreciation of Serling, then he made a counterproductive statement near the start. He said something which may close minds against Serling rather than open them. It won't bother fans who put Serling ahead of all other writers, or at least all other genre writers. (Me? I include my favorite genre writers among my favorite writers period.) Brode's statement may bother fans who recognize the wonderful creativity displayed by other writers besides Serling. It may garner hostility toward Serling from those devoted to other writers and who placed Serling in a lesser rank but who had been willing to reconsider his work.

In his second paragraph, Brode refers to "Serling's stellar reputation as the most imaginative of all American writers since Edgar Allan Poe." (xv) This is unnecessarily confrontational and prompts argument as well. Fans (fanatics) devoted to other writers will take this as an insult to their favorite writers. Sure, that's close minded. For instance, had someone argued that "Clifford Ball was the most imaginative writer since Poe," I'd like to think I could keep an open mind toward Ball's work even though I think other writers were more imaginative.

Unfortunately, that's not the way I see fans react when someone makes such "my writer is better than your writer" statements. They usually grow hostile and go ad hominem toward the rival writer to diminish him and make their favorite look better in comparison. So, if your goal is to show people what's great about Serling's work and why he deserves greater respect, then it's counterproductive to push them into closing their minds.

Brode's claim makes me wonder if he's even knowledgeable enough about science fiction, fantasy, and horror to make such an assessment. Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn't choose to focus on tales of time travel, space travel, aliens, androids, and the supernatural. Still is Serling really more imaginative than H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Robert Heinlein, Stanley Weinbaum, Edmond Hamilton, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Clark Ashton Smith, or Ray Bradbury to name just a few American writers whose careers began between Poe's time and Serling's?

For instance, consider Bradbury.

I know Bradbury harbors bad feelings toward Serling. Despite Bradbury's influence on the show, his own script submissions missed what Serling wanted. At the same time, many episodes contain similarities to a number of Bradbury's stories. Bradbury went overboard though when he accused Serling of plagiarism. His contention that Serling lifted "Walking Distance" from "The Black Ferris" is particularly off-base.

That said, is "Walking Distance"(a man steps into the past and meets his boyhood self) more imaginative than "The Black Ferris" (criminal carnies turn into children by riding a Ferris wheel backwards)? Is "Where is Everybody?" (a man finds himself in a strange, abandoned town) more imaginative than Bradbury's earlier "The Silent Towns" (a man wanders through abandoned towns on Mars)? Is Serling's adaptation of Matheson's "Third From the Sun" (2 families fleeing an impending nuclear holocaust head for another world) more imaginative than Bradbury's earlier "The Million-Year Picnic" (2 families fleeing an impending nuclear holocaust arrive on a new world)?

Brode at least shows familiarity with Bradbury though. He appears unaware of several other noted genre writers. On pages xvi-xvii, Brode discusses horror and how Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman had grown quaint, the stuff of jokes and comedy. He cites Serling, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and Ray Bradbury as writers of a new kind of horror. Brode demonstrates no familiarity with H.P. Lovecraft, who three decades before The Twilight Zone, had already created a new brand of horror, distinct from tales of vampires and werewolves as it was from Serling and co.'s stories.

I love Serling's work. I love The Twilight Zone. Serling is one of my favorite writers. Despite that, I see no evidence that Serling is more imaginative, than Bradbury, Lovecraft, Howard, the other writers I listed, and others whom I didn't. Yet he certainly had a great imagination.

Calling Serling "one of the most imaginative American writers since Poe" would be more accurate, fair, and productive than saying he is the most imaginative of all American writers since Poe" (emphasis added). The first statement is inclusive recognizing that other writers may equal or surpass Serling in terms of pure imagination. The second one dismisses the possibility that a Ray Bradbury or an H.P. Lovecraft was as imaginative as or possibly even more imaginative than Serling.

I think Serling was too humble when he said, "I don't have the imagination most writers have." While, I understand Brode's desire to balance Serling's statement, it would be a shame to let such hyperbole reflect badly on Serling, especially considering Serling's own humility when comparing himself to others.

As I mentioned earlier, Brode groups his analyses in chapters by theme. Chapter 1 examines nostalgia. He includes "Walking Distance," "A Stop at Willoughby," and "The Incredible World of Horace Ford." Other episodes such as "No Time Like the Past" deal with nostalgia, but also fit in the chapters where Brode placed them instead.

As he promised in the introduction, Brode goes in depth on Serling's better known stories while devoting less time to "The Incredible World of Horace Ford."

Brode's interpretations of a few of these episodes differ slightly from my own. Brode's views provoked thought.

For instance in "Walking Distance," Martin Sloan enters a drugstore without realizing he's stepped 35 years back into the past. He's surprised to learn 3 scoop ice cream sodas only cost a dime. He says that nobody sells sodas for a dime any more and says, "you're gonna lose your shirt."

To me, this hints that something is amiss. It foreshadows that Sloan has entered the past, and it evokes the nostalgia which infuses the episode. One of the common things people discuss when waxing nostalgic is to note how low prices were. Look at those birthday cards themed around remembering the year someone was born. They include pictures, list popular songs, movies, and the prices of a few things which cost much more now. One everyday thing people notice most when looking back at the modern past is prices. When I was a kid plunking down 35 cents for a comic book, I'd have gotten rich if I had a dime every time an adult said "Back when I was a kid, comics only cost 10 cents!"

So for me, this statement ties in with nostalgia and going back in time, but for Brode there's something else. It indicates that Sloan's "flight to freedom is doomed to failure; how can you run away from the contemporary money culture when you carry it around inside?" (3)

Brode earlier discussed how he saw Serling's work as criticizing, the post-war, upwardly mobile, suburban life style. It's a critique from the inside rather than the outside. Brode paints Serling as someone who enjoyed that lifestyle, but who had some misgivings.

In these episodes, The Twilight Zone explores nostalgia with varying outcomes. They range from accepting change and resolving to find the good things still around us to a total surrender and retreat into an idyllic dream world. "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" warns us that we often remember the good things and forget the bad. Kinda like how we remember those lower prices but forget the lower wages.

Twilight Zone: Third From the Sun

(Spoiler Alert: In a review or a teaser, it’s easy enough to hide the ending. However, it’s tough examining a story and its meaning without discussing the ending. If you want to read Richard Matheson’s story “Third From the Sun” or watch The Twilight Zone episode first, do it. You can watch it at: http://www.veoh.com/collection/CBS-The-Twilight-Zone#watch%3Dv18437885QaDeEpHM

It's on DVD too. Otherwise, if you don’t mind risking a spoiler, read on. I’ll try not to give away the ending, but there will be clues and things that come close.)

Rod Serling adapted this episode’s script from Richard Matheson’s short story of the same name. Matheson already had published short stories and books including I Am Legend and even a filmed screenplay to his credit. Along with others in the Bradbury/Beaumont circle, he was urged to contribute to the fledgling Twilight Zone. He, Beaumont, and Serling became the top three Twilight Zone writers. While Matheson later contributed original screenplays and adapted his own prose stories including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (“There’s a man on the wing!”), Serling adapted this story.

Often fans want adaptations which adhere faithfully to the original. However, Serling altered Matheson’s work, expanding it and adding his own thematic elements to Matheson’s among other changes. The story needed expansion because it was very short, and the episode had to fill a half-hour time slot. Serling didn’t pad the script though. He made the additions count. Matheson’s story provides most of the characters, their problem, their solution, and the twist ending. Serling fleshed things out and added thematic elements mirroring some he used in his own stories. Ranking TZ adaptations of his short stories in order of preference, Matheson placed Serling’s two adaptations last, but adds, “Pure ego at work on these last two, although I certainly appreciate the problem Rod faced in expanding what is essentially a short-short story (“Third from the Sun”) into a full half-hour program; and, as matter of fact, “Disappearing Act” was not really adapted at all, only the smallest aspect of its premise being used.” (Matheson “Introduction” 6)

Even though a member of his circle wrote the original story, this episode could have fueled Bradbury’s frustration with The Twilight Zone. Some of Matheson’s plot elements echo Bradbury’s “The Million-Year Picnic.” If the destinations weren’t different, and Matheson altered his characters a tad, his story could be a prequel to Bradbury’s. Yet, the stories are different giving contrary messages and views. “The Million-Year Picnic” first appeared in Planet Stories’ Summer 1946 issue and later in 1950’s The Martian Chronicles. “Third From the Sun” first appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction’s October 1950 issue.

Serling changed the viewpoint character from the unnamed pilot to the pilot’s neighbor whom Serling names William Sturka. Serling called the pilot Jerry Riden and created a villain, a government agent named Carling. He added a confrontation, some fights, and a chase. Matheson’s characters use a scheduled test flight to cover their escape. Serling’s protagonists try sneaking aboard and escaping with help from a bribed guard and others. Plus, where Matheson’s characters flee a nuclear holocaust which may occur within few years, Serling sets a forty-eight hour deadline. Sturka, after months of planning the escape, learns his government intends a preemptive strike within forty-eight hours. Along with Carling, the deadline increases suspense. Besides his contributions to Serling’s themes, Carling reinforces Matheson’s picture of a world committing suicide. During the Cold War, there really were people like Carling who saw nuclear war as winnable and who gambled on “acceptable” losses. For Carling it’s the possibility of losing “only” 35 million lives instead of 50 million. During the Cold War, leaders with that attitude made nuclear war seem more likely. In “Third from the Sun” they make it imminent. Carling represents authority in Serling’s oft explored theme of authority and conformity against individualism. Carling evokes both the KGB and McCarthyism. His views echo the recent Bush Administration which through its mouth pieces questioned the patriotism of dissenters. “You a defeatist, Sturka? That’s dangerous thinking. You better mind what you say.” (Serling 4) His name also suggests Quisling, the Nazi collaborator. Strangely, Carling voices Sturka’s hopes and dreams with unnerving accuracy. Consider the conclusion of Carling’s unexpected visit.

47. TRACK SHOT WITH THEM
As they leave the living room and go to the foyer. They pause at the front door. Sturka opens the screen door for him. Carling takes a step out and stands there looking up.

CARLING
Pretty night. Clear as a bell. Nothing but stars.
(Pause)
Ever think, Sturka, that those stars may have people on them too? Maybe people like us?

STURKA
(quietly)
That thought’s crossed my mind.

CARLING
(whirls around toward him)
Ever think. . . maybe you’d be happier on one of those than you are here?

STURKA
That thought’s crossed my mind, too.

CARLING
(with a smile)
I have no doubt.

He turns and walks out into the night. Sturka closes the screen door and then slams the regular door behind it. He leans against it, his eyes closed, for a moment in relief. (From Serling 22-23)

Has Carling learned Sturka’s hopes through spying, or is he good at “reading” people? Although, Carling seems cynical and hostile toward such dreams, there’s something that suggests Carling shares or once shared such thoughts himself. In trying to stop Sturka, it’s as if Carling is trying to crush a part of himself. On the other hand, maybe Carling’s a realist when it comes to human nature.

Considering his outburst to his daughter Jody, Sturka misses the contradiction in reaching for a world with “people like us.” Sturka said, “People are afraid because they make themselves afraid. They are afraid because they subvert every great thing that’s ever discovered – every fine idea ever thought, every marvelous invention ever conceived. They subvert it, Jody. They dirty it up. They make it crooked and devious and too late… far too late they ask the question –“Why?” Sitting in their own rubble… in their own tears… they ask the question – why?” (Serling 8) Yet Carling was right. At the conclusion, Sturka sounds hopeful asking Riden about the new world having “people like us.”

Unlike some individualists, Serling doesn’t reject society altogether. He resists the most overbearing, most crushing aspects of conformity. Here Serling shows us authority (personified by Carling) forcing people to do absurd things for the “good” of a society when those things will actually destroy the society. During the Cold War when all-out nuclear war loomed, “Third From the Sun” like The Watchmen carried greater emotional freight. Reading a story about a doomed world is one thing. Watching characters live out your hopes and fears when your world really faces destruction is another. However, with Serling’s additions, the Sturkas and Ridens flee more than a nuclear holocaust. They also flee authoritarianism.

Serling changed the story’s physical and emotional atmosphere. Matheson’s story starts in a cold, chilly bedroom in the early morning. It ends that same morning. Serling’s story is hot, summery, stifling. We meet Sturka at work and follow him home through the afternoon, evening and night. Serling’s script date is July 16, 1959 with revisions on August 4th and 6th. (The first date coincides with the first successful atomic bomb detonation. The last, with the bombing of Hiroshima. Coincidence?) Maybe the weather in Serling’s script just matched his surroundings. However, the physical atmosphere also reflects the different emotional atmospheres in the short story and the script. Matheson’s characters show jitters and sadness about leaving home forever. They pause and reflect, grab a handful of dirt from the home planet. They take a last look after blast off and wave good-bye. In Serling’s story, oppressive heat compliments the oppressive dangers posed by the government and imminent Armageddon closing in on the characters. The fight or flight response rolls full speed ahead. The characters fear capture and not escaping in time. That overwhelms any jitters relating to their “move.” In the end, the protagonists’ narrow escape gives them little time for sentiment.

The episode, broadcast in January 1960 uses some weird camera work. In his essay, “Earthbound,” Tony Albarella quotes director Richard Bare on the reasons for his approach. It created a sense of subtle oddness which prepared viewers for the ending which, although cliché now, surprised viewers in 1960. Fritz Weaver, Edward Andrews, Joe Maross, and the lovely Denise Alexander are memorable in their roles as Sturka, Carling, Jerry Riden, and Jody Sturka. Lori March as Sturka’s wife Eve and Jeanne Evans as Ann Riden also performed well.
The broadcast contains slight differences from the published script. In the broadcast’s opening, Sturka lacks patience for the guard’s questions. In the script, the guard loses patience with Sturka’s chattiness. In the garage sequence when Sturka runs machinery to frustrate eavesdroppers, Sturka doesn’t see Carling look in the window, unlike the script where he spots him. During the scuffle with Carling and then with the guards near the end, the broadcast involves both Sturka and Riden in the action. Plus, in the short story, the characters escape in a rocket. In the broadcast, they use a flying saucer. (The show got to use the ship from the movie Forbidden Planet.)

The broadcast gives another example of the number 22 turning up in The Twilight Zone. There’s the episode “Twenty-Two” where a hospital patient has a reoccurring dream about a hospital room numbered 22. It’s the address of the magician/alchemist in “The Chaser.” Here it’s the number of the gate through which Sturka enters and leaves work.

“Third from the Sun” and Bradbury’s “The Million-Year Picnic” both feature two families using a space ship to escape a nuclear holocaust. Bradbury’s story concerns their arrival on their new world (Mars) while “Third From the Sun” is about their departure from the old world. In “Third” their goal is a world similar to their own in another solar system. “Third From the Sun’s” ending stays mostly the same from short story to script, but it does differ subtly. In Bradbury and Matheson’s stories, the families want their children to marry and regenerate humanity. Serling’s version foreshadows that the new planet already contains, “people like us.” There is no need to restart humanity. Bradbury’s story doesn’t show what the future holds. What matters is that his characters are the Martians now, and they are safe from Earth’s nuclear war. “Third from the Sun” reminds us that “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Matheson shows us how things will be. Serling shows us how things are.

Works Cited

Albarella, Tony “Earthbound” As Timeless as Infinity: The Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling Volume I ed. Tony Albarella, Colorado Springs, Gauntlet Publications, 2004, Pgs. 209-213

Bradbury, Ray “The Million Year Picnic” The Martian Chronicles, New York, Bantam, 1979, Pgs. 172-182

Matheson, Richard “Introduction” The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories ed. Greenberg, Matheson, and Waugh, New York, MJF Books, 1985, Pgs. 3-8
_ _ “Third From the Sun” The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories ed. Greenberg, Matheson, and Waugh, New York, MJF Books, 1985, Pgs. 79-87

Serling, Rod “Third From the Sun” As Timeless as Infinity: The Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling Volume I ed. Tony Albarella, Colorado Springs, Gauntlet Publications, 2004, (The script runs from pgs. 175-208, but I refer to the script’s own page numbers rather than the book’s.)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?GALOCT1950

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?PLANETSUM1946

Realms of Fantasy (August 2009) The Review

Is it a good cover just because it looks good? I'm sure Dominic Harman's "Mermaid" took a lot of hard work and skill to paint. Maybe someone would love to have a copy hanging on their wall, but it's not what I look for in a cover.

A cover should be more than a pretty picture. It should seize your attention, and compel you to pick up the magazine. It should make you want to read and find out what's going on or what's going to happen. The cover is supposed to fight for attention because in a magazine rack it has to compete with dozens, maybe hundreds of other magazines to attract new readers or casual buyers who pick up an issue now and then.

Maybe artists and art directors get caught up in things which only people who really know art will notice. They lose sight of cover fundamentals.

1. Grab attention! Your cover has to compete with lots of other covers, lots of other choices.

2. Intrigue people. Tantalize them so much that they want to read the magazine. Stories need a hook to pull readers in. The cover is the hook for the whole magazine.

This cover doesn't do any of that. Other than having fantastical subject matter, it has nothing else to do with the contents.

It looks nice though.


For more of Harman's work see http://www.dominic-harman.com/ Maybe you can get a nice print of "Mermaid" without all the words and titles, right?

Shawna McCarthy, Douglas Cohen, and Warren Lapine know more about running a magazine than I do. So, I'm not writing this to tell them how they should do covers. As a customer though, I enjoy covers that achieve those traditional cover goals.

A lot of the advertisements are for books which are a hybrid of fantasy and romance. Hey! Let's make male readers feel unwelcome. It makes me wonder if I'm part of Realms' target audience. Then again, if these are the companies willing to buy ads . . . well, hey! Why should Tir Na Nog turn down revenue which can help the magazine stay afloat? Still . . . reading this in the break room at work, for instance, risks a deluge of derisive comments from co-workers.


Realms contains lots of nonfiction. It has a games column. I'm not a gamer. I don't care. That's six pages I could do with out. I'm sure a lot of fantasy fans are gamers, so it makes sense.

I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but I've enjoyed the movies, and maybe I'll try Rowling's books some day. I enjoyed Resa Nelson's piece about the new Harry Potter movie.

As for the "Folkroots" column, I like music, but this section didn't grab my attention. Another eight pages I could do with out.

Karen Haber's article about artist Michael Hague interested me more than the "Folkroots" column.

Of the non-fiction departments, I liked the book reviews most. I discussed Warren Lapine's note last time, and I'll discuss Shawna McCarthy's editorial later in this post.

Now, on to the fiction. Often when people think of fantasy, they think of stories set in an imaginary land, in a pre-gunpowder age where magic works. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Robert E. Howard's Conan stories serve as prime examples. Both can fit under the banner of heroic fantasy. However that's not the only type of fantasy. I just want to say that because this issue contains no heroic fantasy. That's disappointing because I'd love to read some newer sword & sorcery like Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber wrote.

This issue's closest stories to traditional heroic fantasy are Tanith Lee's "Our Lady of Scarlet" which has a medieval European setting and Bruce Holland Rogers's "Well and Truly Broken" which has a generic fairy tale (RE: medieval/ early Renaissance European) setting.

Andelm, the protagonist of "Our Lady of Scarlet", is a scholar. A plague ravages the city. Andelm privately rejects Christianity while maintaining a public pretense of respect. He trusts only in his own intelligence and learning. It disturbs Andelm when his landlady starts a cult to a false idol, The Red Virgin.

Lee creates a creepy atmosphere as Andelm realizes the newly spawned deity stalks him. Nor is The Red Virgin the only being who stakes a claim on Andelm.

Dennis Danvers's "Healing Benjamin" won't get confused with heroic fantasy. It's also an excellent story, following a man and a very long lived cat named Benjamin who can talk and successfully invest in stocks. (We could use more cats like him these days.)

The cat isn't the only member of the duo with peculiar abilities. See, the man and the cat grew up together, and the cat was normal until he died at the ripe old age of seventeen. - - Then the man brought him back to life.

The story follows the man and Benjamin through their lives which they mostly live while keeping some distance between themselves and others. They keep the cat's unnaturally long life a secret until the man starts dating a certain someone.

Complications follow . . . .

Ian Creasey's "Digging for Paradise" occurs in the distant future when the world has stopped turning. The characters come from a culture with advanced machinery powered by magic. Sorcerers are celebrities and seem like politicians or perhaps mob bosses.

A sorcerer named Ren Gessel hires Hadro, the story's narrator. Hadro is an archaeologist. Hadro is desperate because a sorcerous despot has imprisoned his wife and sent lackeys after him. Hadro plans to bribe the lackeys with his earnings. He didn't know that Ren Gessel intended to put him in stasis for eons, and that he'd wake up long after his wife and everyone he knew except Gessel and Gessel's servants had died.

In the story's world, sorcerers can draw power from power stones which they sow and which soak up magical power until the sorcerers collect them years later. Gessel decided that he and a few key helpers, including Hadro, should stay in stasis for thousands of years by which time the stones could have absorbed almost infinite power.

Gessel promises to share the power and entices Hadro by saying Hadro could restore his wife to life. Would she really want that though? Having suffered under a sorcerous tyrant, Hadro wonders if he should trust anyone with virtually unlimited power. There may be a way to stop Ren Gessel, but should Hadro do it?

There are times when this story threatens to devolve into a shrill political screed. Creasey succeeds in portraying the conflict and maintaining suspense. Blindly trusting others with power can have horrific consequences, but does too little trust pose problems too?

Bruce Holland Rogers's "Well and Truly Broken" reads like a fairy tale. Three sisters wander into a forbidden forest and gain something to aspire to . . . if they can ever truly reach it. I wondered if there was a classic con happening here, where the con artist uses a mark's greed and willingness to deceive others against the mark.

In her editorial, Shawna McCarthy makes a case for the importance of genre magazines like Realms and why genre readers should support them. She argues that they serve as training grounds for up and coming writers on one hand. On the other hand, they serve (along with book publishers) as gatekeepers who save readers from having to sort through all the drek to find the good stuff. She contrasts this to certain Internet and print on demand venues with no quality checks.


With my less than stellar proofreading skills, I really shouldn't complain about all the typos, but . . . Dang! They distracted, especially during Tanith Lee's story.

Douglas Cohen (who I gather served as kind of a first reader even though he is the nonfiction editor) and Shawna McCarthy did an excellent job selecting stories. I enjoyed them, but if I wasn't a subscriber, I probably wouldn't have bought this issue if I saw it on the newsstand. First, would I have browsing time left after looking at competitors with more intriguing covers? (Again, I don't have a problem with the artwork. It's just that nothing about it makes me say, "Whoa! I need to read that magazine to see what that's all about.)

If I had enough time, or no one else had a cover which screamed for more attention, I'd still have problems. The magazine is eighty-two pages long, but for me, fourteen of them, the gaming and "Folkroots" column, are a waste. Do people really buy this magazine because of the gaming column? It seems like gamers could spend their money better on the magazines devoted specifically to gaming. (Just like fans of fantastic fiction could get more bang for their buck by buying magazines which devote more space to stories. Get the picture?)


I will read stuff like the Harry Potter and Michael Hague articles if they're in magazines I got for other reasons. (On the other hand, if it was a Hal Foster article with lots of stuff I didn't know about Foster, I'd be more intrigued. Still, that's not my point.) I liked the book reviews, and they at least show fantasy readers where they can find more fantasy to read.


That brings me to my main problem. Cohen and McCarthy picked excellent stories, but I want more of them. Remember those eighty-two pages? They only contain twenty-four pages of fiction, plus four full page illustrations accompanying the stories. I didn't include full page ads when counting story pages. (There was at least one page divided half and half. I counted it as a story page.)


For a few dollars more, I could buy a standard paperback containing far more fiction. What's the better deal?


At the newsstand, instead of Realms, I'd spend my money on something with more story content. As a subscriber, I'd like to see Realms replace some of the departments with more fiction.


For Realms 's website, go to: http://www.realmsoffantasymag.com/

Realms of Fantasy (August 2009) OR The Return of Warren Lapine.

Something seemed strange.

Last Saturday I checked the mail and found the latest issue of Shawna McCarthy's Realms of Fantasy. Hmmm . . . That's weird.

No.1 - - I wasn't a subscriber.

No.2 - - I thought it got cancelled.

I explained those away. I figured I'd heard wrong about the cancellation, and maybe it was a promotional copy. You know, a sample to get me hooked. I didn't know I was in for an even bigger surprise.

I was just finishing The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 which reprinted stories from 1999. I decided, "Hey! Now I'll review something current!" So, I opened Realms and saw something that nearly floored me.

The publisher's name.

Warren Lapine.

According to his account in Chronicle #233 (February/March 2003), Lapine started publishing in 1993 with a small press science fiction magazine called Harsh Mistress. Lapine walked into a bookstore and saw it shelved next to Hustler. He decided he needed a new name, and he settled on Absolute Magnitude. Among the stories published there was the Hal Clement story "Exchange Rate" which I discussed in my Year's Best Science Fiction review.

He met and married Angela Kessler. Together they started Dreams of Decadence, a magazine of vampire fiction and poetry. Lapine had teamed with Edward McFadden, editor/publisher of Pirate Writings, and decided to buy out McFadden. Then Lapine went a step further and changed Pirate Writings' name to Fantastic Stories after the famous SF/fantasy digest.

Buying established magazines and using established names became a pattern with Lapine's DNA. (BTW, he gave credit to various partners through out his tenth anniversary account of DNA's history.) For instance, Owlswick, had been publishing a revival of the renowned pulp Weird Tales. The revival was on the brink of collapse and had even lost the rights to the title Weird Tales. Lapine bought the magazine and got the rights to the title back. He seemed like a monopoly player using all his cash early on to buy every property he landed on.

I bought copies of the DNA Weird Tales and the occasional Fantastic Stories at the Holyoke, Massachusetts Barnes and Noble.

I'd subscribed to Andrew Porter's genre news magazine, Science Fiction Chronicle since 1992. DNA bought it from Porter and took over with #207 (August/September 2000). Lapine announced big plans, and in the early days he carried them out. Here are only a few examples most noticeable to me as a reader. Starting in 2001, Lapine switched the magazine back to a monthly schedule and got it out on time. The switch to glossy paper wasn't a big deal for me, but yes, he switched it to glossy paper. He also shortened the name to Chronicle. I wasn't too keen on that last one.

Porter was supposed to stay on as editor for a short time, but then he appeared to abruptly depart earlier than expected.

However, the issues came out monthly and on time. Plus, I enjoyed reading them.

Then signs of trouble appeared. I still bought Weird Tales at Barnes & Noble. One issue, I saw an announcement that Weird Tales was going monthly. The issue carrying the announcement was the last I ever saw at Barnes & Noble. It could have been just a single store changing its buying policy, right?

In 2004, DNA launched a magazine devoted to the rock band Kiss. Was DNA overreaching? Was it losing focus? Lapine already had another non-genre magazine. He'd bought and remade the floundering Whole Cat Journal.

I often wondered how Weird Tales was doing after it disappeared from the local Barnes & Noble. I kept thinking I should subscribe. Errr . . . well . . . Then I got Chronicle #261 (July 2005). Lapine announced that he'd sold Weird Tales to Wildside Press.

What was going on? Wasn't Weird Tales a core title, a prestigious name for someone building a small press genre empire?

I kept receiving Chronicle for a few more months, but they started arriving late. The last couple seemed downright irregular. Then they stopped arriving at all.

I wondered, had there been some kind of snafu with my subscription? I tried contacting DNA. No luck there.

Well, I figured that's one of the hazards of subscribing to small press magazines. Publishers burn out and disappear from the scene, or they run out of money. After all, a lot of these things do well if they just break even. For most fan publishers, it's a hobby. If they can minimize the losses enough to keep putting stuff out with money earned at a "real job," they keep going until enthusiasm runs out.

I was surprised it happened to Science Fiction Chronicle, (sorry, but that's the title by which I'll always remember it) but I harbored no ill will toward Lapine. I know many people didn't share my opinion, and that writers, artists, editors, and business associates had bigger stakes than I did. I resigned myself to thinking I'd lost my subscription money.

So there I was looking at Warren Lapine listed as Realms' new publisher. He called his new company Tir Na Nog. I think that's Gaelic for "Land of Eternal Youth."

I flipped to the publisher's note to see what was going on. Lapine glossed over DNA's collapse. Turns out that there had been a Facebook campaign to save Realms just when Lapine was returning to magazine publishing. Rather than revive Fantastic Stories first as planned, he bought Realms.

Then I found out why I got an issue of Realms. Lapine said, "Some of you've received Realms unexpectedly. You received it because you had unfilled subscriptions to the magazines that I used to publish- Absolute Magnitude, Dreams of Decadence, Fantastic Stories, and SFC. You'll get one copy of Realms for each issue you were owed. We're also seriously considering reviving several of those titles. If we do you'll still get the full amount of those magazines that you were owed, so ultimately you may get two issues for each one you paid for."

Maybe some of us who subscribed to those other magazines won't like the substitution.

Me?

I wish Science Fiction Chronicle was still going, but Realms intrigues me. I like fantasy. Plus, I'm at least getting something for the money I paid.

I'm glad Warren Lapine returned to genre publishing. Maybe he's learned some painful lessons and gained some knowledge which will help him to do better this time.

Welcome back, Warren.

Part IV and Conclusion: The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 (Stories From 1999)

The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 (Stories from 1999) Reviewing pages 383-625

Charles Sheffield's "Phallicide" (Science Fiction Age September 1999) is set in southern Utah, an area I've visited. The setting includes St. George where my wife went to college and a fictional town called Bryceville.

The story walks a fine line as far as promoting negative stereotypes. Although The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) banned polygamy over 110 years ago, an alarming number of people still ignorantly believe that Mormons practice it. Mormons make up close to 70% of Utah's population and 90% of southern Utah's. There are polygamist groups in Utah and elsewhere who ARE NOT Mormons. Sheffield does establish that the polygamist group lives in and controls Bryceville and that it regards St. George as the outside world. Still, there are many readers who will see that the story is about polygamists in Utah and who will ignorantly assume it's about Mormons. It would have been better if Sheffield had clearly spelled out the difference.

"Phallicide" is narrated by Dr. Rachel Stafford, a brilliant scientist in her late 20s who also belongs to a polygamist sect, The Blessed Order. In her early teens she won a science contest in a fashion that showed so much genius, that a pharmaceutical company negotiated a deal with the Order for putting Stafford through school and then putting her in charge of a lab in St. George. She's supposed to be sharing everything with the company, but she secretly works on projects requested by the Order's leadership. While in her early teens, Stafford had a daughter, Naomi, and the Order's leadership uses Naomi for leverage over Stafford.

When Stafford learns that a man in his 60s, the son of the Sect's Prophet, intends to marry Naomi, now 13, she devises a plan to rescue Naomi and sabotage the Order.

At times it seems like Sheffield just saw a Dateline Special about modern polygamists, and is regurgitating the message, but in the end "Phallicide"'s message is ambiguous.

Walter Jon Williams's "Daddy's World" (Not of Woman Born, ed. Constance Ash) starts off in a surrealistic fashion, until we learn the true nature of Jamie, the main character, and the world he lives in. It's almost a Garden of Eden like story where a Golden Age is destroyed by forbidden knowledge.

I don't know Williams's intent, but I suspect we're supposed to see Jamie's father, who tries to preserve his son's innocence and keep his family together, as a bad guy. It's hard to see it that way though, since Jamie was happy and enjoying life until he learned the truth. Afterward, he was angry, miserable, and depressed.

You could read this story as a struggle between a child and a parent who doesn't want the child to grow up. Of course, we all need to grow up and achieve independence from our parents eventually.

Or maybe the story is attacking the traditional family, consisting of a mother, a father and their children. References to "normal family life" come across as patronizing, sarcastic, disparaging, or chilling depending on the character's viewpoint and the context. In modern culture we get this attitude, "Gee, some awful stuff happens in some families, and no relationship between spouses, siblings, parents, and children is 100% harmonious all the time. Therefore all families are dysfunctional." It's like, "Since no one is like the Cleavers from Leave it to Beaver, let's just be disillusioned about families and scrap the whole concept."

Throughout human history, there have been all kinds of family arrangements. There are situations where single parents raise kids, grandparents raise grandchildren, aunts and uncles raise nieces and nephews. There have been step parents, foster parents etc., etc. In recent centuries there have been orphanages. There have been couples who don't have children. Lately though, the media goes out of its way to attack the set-up where a mother and father raise their children. Sometimes the relentless crusade gets tiresome.

Kim Stanley Robinson's "A Martian Romance" (Asimov's October/November 1999) takes place on a Mars that's an alternate vision of the Mars from Robinson's series about terraforming Mars. In this story, terraforming appears to have failed. Is all hope really lost though? Robinson wrote this story is the present tense, and the prose is beautiful.

Tanith Lee's "The Sky-Green Blues" (Interzone April 1999) feels like it's set in colonial south-east Asia during Japan's World War II invasions. It actually takes place on an alien world at war. The main character travels there to interview a great writer only to learn the true extent of his talent.

Hal Clement's "Exchange Rate" (Absolute Magnitude Winter 1999) displays a few rough patches early on when Clement has characters tell each other things they already know in order to explain things to the reader. Clement's storytelling and characterization soon won me over though as he develops a mystery, resolves it, and then leads us through the reaction and final resolution. The story tells about the interaction between a group of humans stationed on a planet with an extremely inhospitable environment and their interaction with the intelligent alien life form they meet there. Given the miscommunication and misunderstanding between human and alien throughout the story, I was disappointed that the humans didn't emphasize the issue in the debate among themselves leading to the resolution.

Geoff Ryman's "Everywhere" (Interzone February 1999) shows a Utopian future through the spectrum of a grandson's relationship with his grandfather. We get an appreciation of the wonders and the progress made and simultaneously see those same wonders accepted as just a plain old part of everyday life.

Mike Resnick's "Hothouse Flowers" (Asimov's October/November 1999) shows a nursing home in the future when lifespans have expanded greatly, but quality of life hasn't kept pace. In someways, it presents an exaggerated version (the exaggeration being that someone is over 150 years old instead of 98, and there's a huge percentage of patients in vegetative states) of situations that arise today. Oh, and in this future euthanasia is banned. One patient attempts to bait an attendant into ignoring his training to preserve life at all costs.

Resnick sets up a situation that only shows the ill-effects of not allowing euthanasia. It doesn't allow for considering the danger that voluntary mercy killings might lead to some "voluntary" killings which aren't so voluntary after all. A look at the plight of the old and infirm today offers chilling possibilities. After all, how many of the elderly in a nursing home are really there voluntarily?

Sean Williams's "Evermore" (Altair #4) takes place on a space probe containing artificial intelligences which are the recreated consciousnesses (engrams) of various brilliant people. An accident has crippled the probe, sending it far off course. A thousand years have passed with no sign of rescue. The engrams confront the possibility of altering their own programing so they can change, adapt, and resolve their problem rather than remain stagnant, unable to drift too far from their originals.

Robert Grossbach's "Of Scorned Women and Casual Loops" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction January 1999) involves a detective questioning a scientist about not totally unforeseen side effects of time travel. Even though the title mentions loops, the actual side effect isn't a time loop, a paradox, or an alternate reality. It's a problem I don't remember ever seeing in a time travel story before. Just when I thought I'd seen it all, someone comes up with a new twist.

The book's final story also involves time travel. Kage Baker's "Son Observe the Time" (Asimov's May 1999) superficially reminds me of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore's "Vintage Season." (It appeared in 1946 under the pseudonym "Lawrence O'Donnell.") Where "Vintage Season" is about time tourists who visit a city and interact with people whom they are forbidden to warn just prior to a disaster, "Son Observe the Time" is about a cyborg sent with other cyborgs to San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake. The cyborgs are humans augmented by machinery and they still have emotions and morals. The company which turned them into cyborgs sends them to places just prior to disasters to recover artistic, scientific, and historical treasures which were lost in the disaster, so that the company will be able to display the items in future museums and exhibitions. Like Kuttner and Moore's tourists, Baker's cyborgs can't save the people with whom they interact - - well, they can't save most of them. They can save children who match the physical requirements for becoming cyborgs and working for the company. As cyborgs they become virtually immortal.

The main character, a cyborg named Victor, represses his true feelings and motives. He's dishonest with others and himself. Perhaps it's his way of dealing with people he knows are doomed and with situations he finds morally difficult.

Disguised as a day laborer, he pretends to befriend (at least he tells himself he's only pretending) a fellow day laborer named Francis O'Neil. While Victor is forbidden from helping O'Neil, his wife, and two of his three children, he discovers that O'Neil's son, Donal, meets the requirements for transformation.

Victor's attempt to rescue the boy leads him to confront some troubling aspects of the company he works for.

This is the first volume of Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction which I've read. In Part I of this review, I said the format reminded me the most of Datlow and Windling's volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Although, in retrospect it also reminds me of anthologies like The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. I noted that Dozois's year in review was shorter than Windling and Datlow's (I've yet to read the volumes published after Windling stepped down), but I found it more readable.

I also noticed that Dozois's stories selections came from less diverse sources. If someone had subscribed to about three of the better known science fiction magazines in 1999, they already would've had most of the stories here.

They're good SF stories though and all worthy of preservation in book form. I liked that Dozois favored classically structured stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. The occasional literary experiment is fine, but sometimes there's a few too many of those in Windling and Datlow's volumes along with too many vague and inconclusive endings. That sort of thing can be refreshing when it's a change of pace, but it gets annoying after awhile.

Combining the 625 Arabic numeral pages with the 53 Roman numeral pages of the year in review section, this book comes to 678 pages of material. I read it straight through. While I love Windling and Datlow's collections, I get bored part way through, and I usually put them aside for a few months a time or two before I get interested in finishing them. That wasn't a problem here. Even though I didn't agree with the messages of some stories, I found them thought provoking, and I enjoyed reading them all.

"Hey! Sci Fi Channel! Thanks for Making The Twilight Zone's 50th Anniversary So Special!" He Said Sarcastically.

This year, the Sci Fi Channel ran marathons of the 1980s Twilight Zone and the original Twilight Zone back to back. If they ever include the Forrest Whitaker version, I'll run from the TV screaming.

Sci Fi considered it all one marathon, but I consider it two different ones. I liked it, but I'm glad that all the 80s stuff ran in one block and the original stuff all in another.

I hadn't seen most of the 80s episodes in over 20 years. I know Chiller has been showing them, but I usually don't watch, or only catch part of an episode over there. I loved the 80s version when CBS broadcast it though, and I remember many episodes very well despite not seeing them for decades. I haven't noticed any of my favorites when I channel surf through Chiller.


The 1985 and 86 stuff held up well. I missed "A Message From Charity," the episode which made me a fan of the 80s show. I did see some long remembered favorites like "The Shadow Man," and enjoyed them just as much as the first time I saw them. Most of the 1987 episodes I saw were weak. The best I one I noticed from 87 was "Shelter Skelter." I've heard people rave about the ending, but I wasn't all that impressed. Besides, the guy wouldn't have survived the blast at all if he didn't have that bomb shelter. Man! Was he dumb or what? (Hint: The question was sarcastic.)


As far as the old shows, the strongest sustained stretch came between 6:00 PM and around 11:00 PM on the 4th itself. When any of the episodes which ran between those times comes on and I'm able to watch them, I watch them. I also love "Death's Head Revisited" which ran at 11:00 PM, but I don't rank it quite as high as the episodes which ran before it. The 11:30 episode, "The Hunt," is one which I like, but I can skip it if there are other things to do like putting out the trash and cleaning up around the house. I'd do stuff like that during an episode like "The Hunt" if they need to be done. With episodes like "The Howling Man," "Where is Everybody?" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," I'm glued to the screen.

A few things disappointed me. This year marks The Twilight Zone's 50th anniversary. Obviously, this excludes "The Time Element," regarded by many fans as an unofficial pilot. "The Time Element" (which I'd love to see in a marathon) aired in 1958. The official pilot, "Where is Everybody?" aired in 1959. And, of course, "The Time Element" was really an episode of another anthology show after all. Anyway, other than running a little banner on the bottom of the screen announcing that it was The Twilight Zone's 50th Anniversary, Sci Fi didn't do anything special to commemorate the milestone.


If anything, Sci Fi made this marathon less special than others. In recent years, Sci Fi has been running uncut versions of many episodes. At the moment, I don't remember why the episodes were cut, and a quick search didn't bring up the information. Was it because commercial breaks increased between the time the show originally aired and when it aired in syndication? I can't recall. Suffice it to say, the shows got cut. When Sci Fi started running uncut episodes, they hyped it a lot. They still ran plenty of cut episodes, but between certain times, they showed the uncut stuff. Between that and my DVDs, I got used to seeing the original versions of many episodes. Judging by the odd running times of some episodes during the most recent New Year's Marathon, they were still running some uncut episodes, but they didn't hype it in their promotional spots. I don't know what Sci Fi's schedule claimed, but, judging by the run times of this marathon's episodes, none of them appeared to be uncut.

With my DVDs now, and after a few years of even seeing uncut versions on TV, I've noticed how hacked up some of the best episodes were. I've been spoiled watching the uncut stuff. One that made my jaw drop was "Third From the Sun." There's some great stuff missing from that episode. Not spectacular action stuff. Just great character and storytelling bits. The kind of stuff that still makes The Twilight Zone shine even in this age of special effects spectacles.

It would have been nice if Sci Fi had aired some interviews and some sort of documentary material. In recent years when Sci Fi ran some episodes uncut, they also aired commercials for the "Complete Definitive Edition" Twilight Zone DVDs. These often had snippets of interviews and other extras on the DVDs so that the commercials actually enhanced the marathon. Unfortunately, none of those commercials ran either. So besides losing the uncut episodes, we fans also lost out on little bits of behind the scenes commentary.

But wait! Sci Fi didn't stop there. They excluded all the hour long episodes too. Originally, Serling wanted hour long episodes. CBS insisted on half hour episodes though. Serling soon realized that the half hour length was perfect for what he wanted to do. A few seasons later, CBS changed its mind and wanted hour long episodes. Serling fought the change. Despite that, some of the hour long episodes were terrific. I love "He's Alive!" Plus, no Twilight Zone marathon feels complete without "Miniature" and "Printer's Devil." Well, too bad. Those are all hour long episodes. (Note that the run times aren't an hour, but with commercials, they're meant to fill an hour on a TV schedule.)

Oh well, at least we can be thankful that The Sci Fi Channel still runs the marathons. With the way the channel operates sometimes, I wonder how much longer the marathons will last.

Speaking of the Sci Fi Channel, changes are afoot. Starting this Tuesday, July 7th, they're changing the spelling of their name. From now on it will be "Syfy." Now my first thought was that they're widening their appeal to include semiliterates who can't read anything more complex than a text message.

Well, it turns out that Sci Fi has lots of marketing gibberish to explain the change. For instance, they thought Sci Fi was too technical and that it prevented more women from watching the channel. Wow! That's why they pay those marketing whizzes the big bucks. Their strategy for getting female viewers flocking to the channel is insulting women. See, I would have never thought of that.

However, I think all that marketing gibberish is a bunch of BS. No, there's something else spokespeople have mentioned, and I think that's the real reason for the change. What is it? Well, they couldn't trademark the term Sci Fi. They wanted to trademark their name. Well, heck, we know the results are always awesome when lawyers and accounts jump into the creative process, right?

Oh, well. A lot of science fiction fans view the term Sci Fi as a slap in the face anyway. Harlan Ellison said it should be pronounced as "skiffy." Now we can pronounce Syfy like "siphy."

Well, whatever they call it, I'll keep watching as long as they do those marathons. Disappointed as I was in the lack of something special for the 50th anniversary, the lack of uncut episodes, and the lack of hour long episodes, it's still a whole bunch of episodes from one of my favorite shows running one after the other. I still enjoyed watching them, and I still enjoyed that communal sense that others out there were watching them along with me.

Okay, now that the marathon is over, I'll go back to the once a week blogging schedule I started in June. Plus, I'll finish (hopefully) my discussion of The Year's Best Science Fiction 17 with stories from 1999.

July 4, 2009 Twilight Zone Marathon: The Original Series

This year's July4th Marathon starts on Friday July 3rd at 5:00 PM. At least the marathon of the original series. Prior to then, Sci-Fi Channel has a marathon of the 1980s series going.

Today, I did watch a few of the 1980s Twilight Zones. I didn't get home in time for "A Message from Charity." I did see "The Shadow Man." I didn't quite get the quote right this morning. The episode still holds up though.

This morning I said that I don't remember the Sci-Fi Channel running 1980s TZ episodes before the original series previously. Today I saw commercials advertising the 80s episodes as part of the marathon. That seemed really familiar. Like I suddenly had a vague memory of them doing it before, but I didn't watch the newer ones at that time. Some of the 1980s episodes are really good, but it's the original series that I'm addicted to.

Okay. On to the original series. I noticed a few things about this marathon. They're not running any of the hour long episodes this time. So far the listings show everything starting and ending right on the hour and half hour marks. That seems to indicate that they're not using the "uncut" versions this time.

Now for the line up I got from the channel guide.

Friday July 3, 2009

5:00 PM "Probe 7: Over and Out"
5:30 PM "The Last Flight"
6:00 PM "A Kind of Stopwatch"
6:30 PM "The Little People"
7:00 PM "Nightmare as a Child"
7:30 PM "Night of the Meek"
8:00 PM "Walking Distance"
8:30 PM "Stopover in a Quiet Town"
9:00 PM "A Game of Pool"
9:30 PM "One for the Angels"
10:00 PM "The After Hours"
10:30 PM "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"
11:00 PM "Mirror Image"
11:30 PM "Mr. Dingle, the Strong"

Saturday July 4, 2009

12:00 AM "The Old Man in the Cave"
12:30 AM "Mr. Bevis"
1:00 AM "The Changing of the Guard"
1:30 AM " The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms"
2:00 AM "Dead Man's Shoes"
2:30 AM "Mr. Denton on Doomsday"
3:00 AM "Hocus Pocus and Frisby"
3:30 AM "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain
4:00 AM "Mr. Garrity and the Graves
4:30 AM "Escape Clause
5:00 AM "The Grave"
5:30 AM "Nothing in the Dark"

6:00-9:00 Infomercials

9:00 AM "A Hundred Yards over the Rim"
9:30 AM "Nick of Time"
10:00 AM "A Most Unusual Camera"
10:30 AM "The Bewitchin' Pool"
11:00 AM "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"
11:30 AM "The Dummy"
12:00 PM "Long Distance Call"
12:30 PM "I Sing the Body Electric"
1:00 PM "Little Girl Lost"
1:30 PM "Third From the Sun"
2:00 PM "It's a Good Life"
2:30 PM "A Piano in the House"
3:00 PM "The Midnight Sun"
3:30 PM "The Invaders"
4:00 PM "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
4:30 PM "The Hitchhiker"
5:00 PM "The Masks"
5:30 PM "The Obsolete Man"
6:00 PM "The Howling Man"
6:30 PM "Living Doll"
7:00 PM "Where is Everybody?"
7:30 PM "A Stop at Willoughby"
8:00 PM "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
8:30 PM "Time Enough at Last"
9:00 PM "The Eye of the Beholder"
9:30 PM "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"
10:00 PM "To Serve Man"
10:30 PM "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
11:00 PM "Death's Head Revisited"
11:30 PM "The Hunt"

Sunday July 5, 2009

12:00 AM "Two"
12:30 AM "People Are Alike All Over"
1:00 AM "A Penny for Your Thoughts"
1:30 AM "Night Call"
2:00 AM "A Nice Place to Visit"
2:30 AM "Twenty-Two"
3:00 AM "Queen of the Nile"
3:30 AM "The Rip Van Winkle Caper"
4:00 AM "The Lonely"
4:30 AM "In Praise of Pip"
5:00 AM "I Shot an Arrow into the Air"
5:30 AM "I am the Night, Color Me Black"

THE END

A New Twilight Zone Marathon: Episodes of the 1980s Revival

Maybe the Sci-Fi Channel has done it before, and I just didn't notice, but starting this morning and running until 5:00 PM tomorrow, they're having a marathon of the 1980s' version of The Twilight Zone. Back in the 1990s when 11 Alive from New York City ran the July4th and New Year's Twilight Zone marathons, there was a time or two when they threw in a block of episodes from the 80s revival. I can't quite recall if they ended with a bunch of the new ones late at night/ early in the morning, or if they ran a bunch in that time frame and then showed some more of the original shows.

There are a few remakes here like "The After Hours" and "The Night of the Meek." There were also episodes unique to this series. I haven't seen many of these in something like 23 years (Yes, I don't watch the revival over and over and over like I do with the original series), but I still remember them very well.

"The Shadow Man" is an example. "I'm somebody else's shadow man." "A Message From Charity" is another episode I remember. A 20th century boy exchanges messages with a girl from 17th century Salem. I did see part of a re-run of it sometime in the 90s, but I haven't really watched the entire two part episode since the mid-80s. At the time, I loved it, and it was one of my favorite episodes. It's what hooked me on watching the 80s series. I don't know how well it holds up today. If I get a chance, I'll watch it again, and see if I still like it. It depends on if I get out of work on time.

Also, while the concept seems really old now, and it's been done to death (or living death as the case may be), episodes like "Monsters!" introduced me to the idea of good vampires. "That's when the real monsters come out." I still like that story even if the current flood of "good" vampire stories makes me want to gag. (I'm not saying "Monsters!" is the first story about good vampires, it's just the first one I ever saw, and it seemed really new at the time.) "Red Snow" about vampires in Siberia was memorable too. Hmm . . . an arctic setting with long periods of dark . . Wonder if anyone will ever use that concept again? LOL.

Listings on the channel guide aren't always 100% accurate, but here's what the guide lists. I notice that sometimes there are two stories in one half hour episode. The Night Gallery did that a lot, but the original Twilight Zone didn't.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

8:00 AM "Night Crawlers"
8:30 AM "Wordplay" / "Personal Demons"
9:00 AM "Little Boy Lost"
9:30 AM "Teacher's Aide" / "Children's Zoo"
10:00 AM "A Little Peace and Quiet"
10:30 AM "Misfortune Cookie" / "A Small Talent for War"
11:00 AM "Shatterday"
11:30 AM "Act and Break" / "Lost and Found"
12:00 PM "Chameleon"
12:30 PM "Healer"
1:00 PM "The Burning Man" / "The Elevator"
1:30 PM "Gramma"
2:00 PM "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium"
2:30 PM "Her Pilgrim Soul" (2 part episode?)
3:00 PM "Her Pilgrim Soul" (2nd part?)
3:30 PM "Dealer's Choice"
4:00 PM "The Leprechaun Artist"
4:30 PM "A Message From Charity" (Part 1?)
5:00 PM "A Message From Charity" (Part 2?)
5:30 PM "Ye Gods"
6:00 PM "If She Dies"
6:30 PM "Dead Woman's Shoes"
7:00 PM "Opening Day"
7:30 PM "Paladin of the Lost Hour"
8:00 PM "The Shadow Man"
8:30 PM "Night of the Meek"
9:00 PM "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty"
9:30 PM "The Beacon"
10:00 PM "Monsters!"
10:30 PM "The Little People" / "A Matter of Minutes"
11:00 PM "Quarantine"
11:30 PM "Tooth and Consequences" / "The Wish Bank"

Friday, July 3, 2009

12:00 AM "But Can She Type?" / "The Star"
12:30 AM "To See the Invisible Man"
1:00 AM "Welcome to Winfield"
1:30 AM "Cold Reading" / "Uncle Devil Show"
2:00 AM "Button, Button"
2:30 AM "Profile in Silver"
3:00 AM "Dead Run"
3:30 AM "Red Snow"
4:00 AM "Grace Note"
4:30 AM "Need to Know" / "The After Hours"
5:00 AM "Shadow Play"
5:30 AM "Take My Life, Please" / "I of Newton"

6:00-8:00 Infomercials

8:00 AM "The Last Defender of Camelot"
8:30 AM "The Once and Future King"
9:00 AM "Saucer of Loneliness"
9:30 AM "The World Next Door"
10:00 AM "Voices in the Earth"
10:30 AM "What Are Friends For?"
11:00 AM "The Storyteller"
11:30 AM "Aqua Vita"
12:00 PM "Time and Teresa Golowitz"
12:30 PM "Private Channel" / "Dreams for Sale"
1:00 PM "Song of the Younger World"
1:30 PM "Nightsong"
2:00 PM "The Convict's Piano"
2:30 PM "The Card"
3:00 PM "The Road Less Traveled"
3:30 PM "The Girl I Married"
4:00 PM "Shelter Skelter"
4:30 PM "Toys of Caliban"

THE END (The marathon of the original series begins at 5:00 right after "Toys of Caliban.")