Submitted For Your Approval

Typically when I'm flipping through teevee channels on a Sunday afternoon I don't expect any sort of exciting programs to grab my attention. However, I did get a little jolt of happiness this weekend when I noticed something in black-and-white being broadcast on Sci-Fi Network. Because that can only mean one thing, folks: The Twilight Zone. And not only that, but because of the 4th of July holiday it means it's time for the semi-annual TZ marathon. (The other being at New Year's. Seriously, I don' t remember a New Year's when I didn't pre-party by watching TZ until like 9:00 PM.)

ANYway, I get excited by this semi-annually because I? Loves me some Twilight Zone. I could watch them over and over again, and that includes the replayed-to-death episodes like Talking Tina and the one with Endora fighting off the little astronauts. And of course there's the best episode ever, namely the one with evil little psychic Will Robinson wishing his family into the cornfield. SO trippy. ("That was a good thing you did, wasn't it now.") And I totally have a dorky crush on Rod Serling, his Bert-inspiring unibrow notwithstanding.

Sure like half of the episodes are crap. I have a hard time watching a lot of the historical ones, especially if the Civil War is involved. Or any of the too preachy ones, or the ones that are too child-centric. And sometimes I wonder how they even dragged out the episode for a mere twenty-two minutes. "Stopover in a Quiet Town" comes to mind as combining don't-drink-and-drive preachiness with a concept that stretches for all of six minutes. ("Gee, I bet it's a dollhouse. Oh look, I'm right.")

But most of the time The Twilight Zone holds up, even after forty or fifty years. Yeah they're predictable most of the time, but this was the first time a lot of these stories were told. Plus, you have to give the show credit for being successful and culturally relevant despite no consistent cast of actors. The show serves its purpose of creating entertaining adaptations of short stories and screenplays. It's meant to be brief, suspenseful, and memorable. Hey, and if The Simpsons parodies something for no less than five episodes, it has to be something worthwhile.