The Twilight Zone Top 40 Countdown: New Year's 2011-2012 Marathon Postmortem

As I mentioned in my last post, this marathon was a “viewer’s choice” marathon. The marathon lasted forty-five hours and aired eighty-nine different half-hour episodes with “The Midnight Sun” airing twice. Of those eighty-nine, forty were part of a viewer’s choice countdown resulting from a poll which opened in late November on Syfy’s website and which closed before the marathon schedule was announced. The site instructed voters to pick five to ten of their favorite episodes. The forty episodes with the most votes became Syfy’s top forty. I expected some of the winners, but others surprised me. I don’t know how scientific the poll was or how it would compare to historic norms. I do know that ever since I was a little kid, I’ve heard people talking about some of the winning episodes.

I’m often skeptical of popular opinion when it comes to books, comics, movies, TV shows, and music. I’m skeptical about “expert” opinions on these things too. So, I tend to take popularity polls like this one with a grain of salt. Yet, I’m sometimes curious to see how they turned out and what people thought. I’ve often found that the books, comics, movies, TV shows, and music I like aren’t the most popular. For instance, I can look back now and see that The X-Men was a terrific comic in the 1980s, and I can now understand its popularity. Heck, I was buying it back then and thus contributing to its popularity in a small way. (One sale per month among a few hundred thousand.) Yet, it wasn’t my favorite, and back then I couldn’t see why it was the best selling comic. I liked Walt Simonson’s Thor issues and John Byrne’s Fantastic Four issues better. Marvel vs. DC provides another example. There have been eras when I thought Marvel published better stuff than DC and other eras where I thought DC was better. In the times when I thought DC was producing better stuff like the mid through late 1980s, I couldn’t understand why Marvel continued to dominate in market share. DC was publishing The Watchmen, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight and handling the post-Crisis reboot extremely well, getting rid continuity problems while also mining their long history to great effect as they reintroduced characters and history in a streamlined and updated form. Now I can see why a mini-series like The Watchmen had inherent limitations in audience building, but the entire DC line including unlimited series had an upsurge in quality. (Too bad DC eventually dropped the ball and has only exacerbated their problems with further rebooting.) When I was younger, I tended to get angry and argumentative when I found myself on the opposite side of public opinion. Of course, people often tend to confuse popularity with quality. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they don’t. Seeing people confuse the two fueled my combativeness. I’ve come to realize and accept that different people have different tastes. Now I find these disagreements thought provoking, prompting me to consider why something appeals to me and not others and vice versa.

All that said, I agreed with some of the viewer’s choice results and disagreed with others. It shocked me to see some of the episodes that got left out versus what got included. For instance, “Probe 7 Over and Out” and “Little Girl Lost” made it while “Walking Distance” didn’t. As much asI love Ray Bradbury (definitely one of my favorite five writers), and as much as he influenced and helped the series, I don’t think I’d even put “I Sing the Body Electric” in my top hundred episodes. Too bad TZ didn’t adapt Bradbury’s “And the Moon Be Still as Bright” and “The Settlers” combo or “Zero Hour.” According to Bradbury, Serling, already an award winning writer, wasn’t sure how to handle an SF/fantasy series and came to Bradbury to learn how to write that kind of material. Bradbury then showed Serling the works of classic SF and weird fiction writers and introduced Serling to writers like Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont who became important writers for The Twilight Zone. Several episodes bear some striking similarities to Bradbury’s stories. Bradbury has claimed that “Walking Distance” plagiarizes his story “The Black Ferris.” I don’t think the stories are as similar as Bradbury thinks. I think there are much larger similarities between “Where is Everybody?” and Bradbury’s “The Silent Towns.” “Third from the Sun” (adapted from Richard Matheson’s story) has much in common with Bradbury’s “The Million-Year Picnic.” To a lesser degree, “Elegy” and “People Are Alike All Over” have some similarity to “Mars is Heaven.” Despite the similarities, none of these amount to plagiarism although “Where is Everybody?” comes the closest to one of Bradbury’s stories especially with the ringing telephone scene. Anyway, to come back off that tangent, Bradbury was tremendously important to The Twilight Zone and most fans of the series would probably enjoy reading Bradbury’s science fiction and weird fiction. Many of them might enjoy some of the better episodes of Ray Bradbury Theater. So it’s a shame that the one episode that Bradbury wrote (adapted from one of his short stories) disappoints me. Serling loved Bradbury’s stories, but thought his writing didn’t work for TV scripts because Bradbury’s wonderfully poetic language didn’t work as dialogue when spoken. I think Serling is mistaken here because Bradbury did enjoy some success as a screenwriter and several of his stories were successfully adapted elsewhere.

On a positive note, I was pleasantly surprised to see that other voters unexpectedly shared a few of my preferences. I’d knew episodes like “The Hitchhiker” and “Living Doll” would do well, but I have other favorites which I didn’t expect to place high. When casual viewers and even many fans discuss Twilight Zone episodes, they often don’t mention titles. They mention situations. “The one where the creepy hitchhiker follows that girl across the country.” “The one with the talking doll.” I don’t remember many people mentioning “The one where the homeless guy wears a dead gangster’s shoes and gets possessed by the gangster.” And yet, there was one of my favorites, “Dead Man’s Shoes” in the top twenty. I was especially surprised with how high another favorite, “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” finished. “Dead Man’s Shoes” and “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” are two I try to watch every marathon. Yeah, I have them on DVD and can watch them any time in uncut form, but I still feel compelled to watch those two during the marathon. Go figure.

Despite being able to watch better versions of all the episodes on DVD or Netflix, the reason I watch the marathons is partially nostalgia and partially a communal feeling - the feeling that I’m watching the marathon along with thousands of other fans and people who stumble across the marathon, love the stories, and become a fellow Twilight Zone fan. So even while I’ve often dismissed mere popularity, one reason I enjoyed this particular marathon was the viewer’s poll which increased the communal feeling.

Before each of the top forty episodes, Syfy displayed a screen showing a side view of white steps against a white wall leading up to a white door which unlike the steps, faced out in a frontal view. The screen gave a Syfy logo and a Twilight Zone Marathon logo. The screen also gave the upcoming episode’s viewer’s choice ranking and story title.

During the marathons, Syfy clutters the bottom of the screen with text and pictures promoting shows airing on the network. Plus, the Syfy logo is usually there too. Rod Serling once complained, “How can you put out a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper?” Now Syfy has the advertisements intruding on the drama itself, running silently even as the episodes play. I guess these “banners” or “logo bugs” might serve as an incentive for people to pay to see the episodes on Blu-Ray, DVD, or Netflix where you can see them not only uncut, but also uncluttered. While logo bugs tell people about other shows on the network, I wonder how many potential viewers get annoyed by rather than interested in the advertised shows. Still, Syfy did do something neat with the banners this time. Once per top forty episode, Syfy ran the episode’s viewer’s choice rank and a fact for that episode. For instance, during “The After Hours” we saw “Episode #35 Fact” with a message saying that “The After Hours” was one of three episodes with a human eye in the opening sequence. The fact for “The Masks” (a top twenty pick and one of my wife’s favorites) mentioned that it was directed by Ida Lupino and was the only episode directed by a woman. One flaw with the episode fact banners was that Syfy used white lettering over a black and white show. If the bottom of the screen consisted of something dark, the fact showed up all right. If the bottom of the screen had lighter colors, then the fact was tough to read.

There’s another type of advertising that annoys me as much as the banners although it probably doesn’t bother most people. I’m sure most people don’t care about the credits, but sometimes I’ll watch credits. With The Twilight Zone, I love sitting through the credits. Each episode’s credits run over a haunting shot from the episode which along with the regular ending music evokes a mood reflecting the series overall and that episode in particular. For instance, “Nick of Time” shows a close-up of the devil’s head of the fortune-telling machine. Watching these credits episode after episode enhanced the mood back when Channel 11 Alive from New York ran the marathons. (When we first got cable, 11 Alive was one of the channels we got. When I was growing up, 11 Alive combined things done today by Syfy, TCM, TV Land, and various sports networks.) During the marathons, Syfy runs a split screen during the closing credits. On the right you see the closing credits, and on the left you see ads which you also hear over The Twilight Zone music. Still, this marathon wasn’t as bad about this as the the 2011 July 4 marathon. (And I’m still grateful that Syfy actually ran a July 4 marathon following 2010’s Greatest American Hero debacle.) During the July 4 marathon, Syfy’s Alphas promos were particularly egregious during the closing credits, and actually during the episodes themselves. The show is a about a group of super humans. Hitler and the Nazis thought they were a race of genetic supermen, and the holocaust was their attempt to make sure their gene pool didn’t get contaminated and they didn’t get dragged down by “racial inferiors.” Rod Serling was Jewish. (Yes, I know that he became a Unitarian, but his heritage was Jewish.) Serling hated Nazism. He even wrote anti-Nazi stories including “He’s Alive,” “Death’s-Head Revisited,” and Night Gallery’s “Escape Route.” “Death’s-Head Revisited” is about one of the former Nazi “supermen” returning to Auschwitz where he killed and tortured “inferiors.” So it was disgusting to see Syfy run a promo where one of the Alpha supermen crumpled the screen and cut off Serling’s anti-Nazi monologue at the end. Syfy did something similar at the end of “Kick the Can,” an episode about the dignity, the hopes, and the dreams of the old and infirm. This was either pretty creepy or pretty stupid on Syfy’s part. Fortunately, this wasn’t repeated during the New Year’s marathon.

Syfy’s promos both during the shows and the traditional commercial breaks focused on Lost Girl, Being Human, and Face-Off. There were few promos for any of Syfy’s cheapie B (or let’s make that C)-movies. A week later and all I remember is Lake Placid II and Lake Placid III promoted along with a non-Syfy movie, the original Lake Placid. For the most part the promos were less gory than years past on Syfy.

Once again, Syfy didn’t run any of the hour long episodes. (Just as the half hour episodes don’t run exactly half an hour, the hour episodes also don’t actually run an hour. They’re meant to occupy an hour time slot along with commercials.) Although maligned by critics, several of the hour episodes are among my favorites, including “Printer’s Devil,” “Miniature,” “He’s Alive,” “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville,” and “On Thursday We Leave for Home.” It’s hard to believe that none of those made the top forty. A number recent marathons have skipped showing any of the hour shows. This is an entire season (yes a shortened season) of The Twilight Zone that’s regularly ignored. I could understand if a network only had a half hour time slot regularly scheduled for the show with a different series immediately following. However, when you’re running the same show forty-five hours straight, there’s no reason to skip the hour shows.

On the other hand, another good thing about this marathon is that it was a true marathon, uninterrupted by wrestling, infomercials, or any other programing. What the heck is wrestling doing on Syfy anyway? It’s got nothing to do with what the network was founded for. (I mean it’s like playing new movies and TV shows on AMC ... Oh, wait!) Besides, doesn’t wrestling contradict the network’s stated goal of being more female friendly? I mean along with not being able to trademark Sci Fi, being more female friendly was one of the reasons cited for the daffy new spelling of the network’s name. Thinking a cutesy spelling will make women flock to the network seems insulting. How about simply putting on good, character driven shows instead of making a silly spelling change? I mean what women is the cutesy spelling supposed to appeal to? The kind of women who stick their kids with daffily misspelled names like Jaxon instead of Jackson or Cyndee instead of Cindy? Or maybe women who use daffy misspellings and who have beer guzzling boyfriends who love wrestling?

Syfy’s in marathon promos for the marathon itself consisted of interactions between the counter help and customers of a strange dry-cleaner's. In the first one, a customer asks about the gloves that go with what appears to be a space suit or a silvery jump suit. A person who seems to be a counterman calls to a female co-worker about the gloves. Then the counterperson turns around and turns out to be Janus-faced (maybe Janus-bodied for that matter) with one face being that of a man and the other being the woman he was speaking to. Another promo in the same dry-cleaning place features a customer who has more than two arms, evoking the episode “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” I liked the comics panels of scenes form various episodes which Syfy introduced a few marathons ago. They continued using the “Third From the Sun” panel during subsequent marathons, but it’s now been retired. Unfortunately for those who hadn’t seen the ending of that episode, the panel gave it away. Still, those pop art promos captured some of The Twilight Zone’s sense of wonder, weirdness, and hope.

Uncut episodes seem to have gone the way of the Definitive Edition DVD commercials. Those commercials included snippets from interviews of actors who appeared in various episodes and gave peaks at other extras. The Definitive Edition commercials enhanced the marathon experience. It’s too bad those commercials couldn’t have been refitted as ads for the new Blu-Ray editions. The Definitive Edition era coincided in part with Syfy’s airing of uncut episodes during the marathons. Early on, Syfy hyped the airing of these uncut episodes during prime time. The Definitive Edition commercials went away. The hyping of the uncut episodes went away even though the playing of uncut episodes continued. Then, a few marathons ago, Syfy quietly stopped running uncut episodes. When I first saw the episodes uncut, it felt a little strange. For years, I’d watched the cut versions over and over in syndication. I’d developed a feeling for the rhythms of the stories, and that changed when long missing pieces were added back in. However, it’s tough watching an episode like “Walking Distance” in hacked up form after you’ve seen it the way it was meant to be. I wish Syfy still gave us some blocks of uncut episodes.

As I mentioned before, it didn’t seem like Syfy intended “The Man in the Bottle” to be part of the marathon. I went to sleep during “Mr. Bevis” and woke up in time to catch “The Man in the Bottle.” I noticed that no promo banners were running during the episodes. There was no split screen during the end credits. The credits got full screen treatment. Plus, the Cable in the Classroom logo came up after them. Syfy uses The Twilight Zone for cable in the classroom. Of course, Syfy ran an erectile disfunction remedy ad in the break following this episode. This seemed as clueless as the Alpha promos during the July 4 marathon. In this case, I don’t really care, but I’m sure there’d be some unhappy parents if a teacher’s DVR ran a little too long.

After the marathon, I switched to Dennis & Callahan on NESN and heard a caller compare the New England Patriots‘ recent slow starts and fast finishes to The Twilight Zone. As a side note, between roughly 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM on January 1, I had the marathon on one TV and the Patriots vs Buffalo Bills game on the other. Earlier in the season, the Patriots took a 21-0 lead over the Bills, but Buffalo came back and won. This time, Buffalo jumped to a 21-0 lead, and New England came back with 49 unanswered points to win 49-21.

During the marathon, I thought of some of the actors who passed away recently such as Cliff Robertson (“A Hundred Yards Over the Rim” and “The Dummy”) and Patricia Breslin (“Nick of Time” and No Time Like the Past”). Susan Gordon who portrayed Jenny in “The Fugitive” also died recently, but here episode didn’t air this marathon.

While this marathon repeated the flaws of other recent marathons - no hour episodes and no uncut episodes - the top forty countdown, the top forty episode facts, and having a true, uninterrupted marathon made this one of the most enjoyable marathons of recent years.

The Twilight Zone Viewer’s Choice Top Forty

Rank	Episode
40	Probe 7: Over and Out
39	Mr. Dingle, the Strong
38	A Kind of Stopwatch
37	The Little People
36	A Hundred Yards Over the Rim
35	The After Hours
34	Little Girl Lost
33	A Game of Pool
32	Long Distance Call
31	A Most Unusual Camera
30	Stopover in a Quiet Town
29	Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
28	A Penny for Your Thoughts
27	I Sing the Body Electric
26	Night Call
25	Five Characters in Search of an Exit
24	Nick of Time
23	Night of the Meek
22	Kick the Can
21	Where is Everybody?
20	It’s a Good Life
19	Dead Man’s Shoes
18	The Hitchhiker
17	The Dummy
16	Third From the Sun
15	The Invaders
14	The Bewitchin’ Pool
13	The Midnight Sun
12	The Masks
11	The Howling Man
10	The Odyssey of Flight 33
9	Living Doll
8	The Obsolete Man
7	The Eye of the Beholder
6	Time Enough at Last
5	A Stop at Willoughby
4	The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
3	To Serve Man
2	Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
1	Nightmare at 20,000 Feet