Top 40 Favorite Episodes

I've been a Twilight Zone fan since the early 80's... over 25 years now. I've seen every episode many times (except maybe "Ring-A-Ding Girl," which I barely remember) and, naturally, I have my favorites. A few months back, I compiled a list of my top 40 all-time favorites. This list is not set in stone; in fact, as I endeavor to re-watch the entire series over the next five years (viewing each episode on its 50th anniversary), my preferences will almost certainly change. But as of this writing, today, right now... the list is accurate. The episodes are arranged chronologically and separated by season; they are NOT listed in order of preference. My top ten favorites are in all caps.

Season 1

Walking Distance
The Lonely
PERCHANCE TO DREAM
AND WHEN THE SKY WAS OPENED
The Four of Us Are Dying
Third From the Sun
THE HITCH-HIKER
Mirror Image
A World of Difference
LONG LIVE WALTER JAMESON
A Passage for Trumpet

Season 2

King Nine Will Not Return
Nervous Man in a Four-Dollar Room
The Howling Man
The Eye of the Beholder
The Night of the Meek
The Rip Van Winkle Caper
SHADOW PLAY
The Obsolete Man

Season 3

Nothing in the Dark
A GAME OF POOL
The Grave
It's a Good Life
Death's Head Revisited
THE MIDNIGHT SUN
Five Characters in Search of an Exit
To Serve Man
The Dummy

Season 4

IN HIS IMAGE
DEATH SHIP
Printer's Devil
The Incredible World of Horace Ford
On Thursday We Leave for Home

Season 5

IN PRAISE OF PIP
Steel
Living Doll
Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
Night Call
The Masks
The Jeopardy Room


A few observations:

All four episodes featuring Jack Klugman ("A Passage for Trumpet," "A Game of Pool," "Death Ship," and "In Praise of Pip") made the list, and three of them made the top ten. It's not just because I'm a big Klugman fan either: the fact is, all four are excellent episodes.

I've love to say every Burgess Meredith episode is great too, but the wretched "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" makes it impossible (not even Don Rickles could save it). And speaking of Burgess Meredith: Yes, I'm aware that "Time Enough At Last" isn't on the list. Yes, I'm aware that it's an iconic Zone episode, beloved by millions. And yes, it's quite good on a technical level, but... well.... hey, it's coming up in a few weeks (11/20/09), so I'll address my issues with it then.

Wow, none of my top ten favorites have happy endings. Wait, I guess "In His Image" ends well. But that's only one out of ten. Hmmm....

TZ Spotlight: Oregon Lottery Scratch-It Tickets

You thought the Twilight Zone teddy bear was odd? Well, check this out. In 2000 the Oregon Lottery Commission unveiled a new scratch-it ticket that immediately caught my eye and quickened my pulse:


Twilight Zone lottery tickets!

I really wish I'd had the foresight to stash away a complete unscratched set. I can't even find an image of these things online (even Google Images, my go-to source, has failed me in this regard). As it stands, all I have are three scratched tickets. The astute observer will notice that all three tickets are (well, were) winners: had I cashed them in, I'd have been $4.00 richer (technically, I would've been $1.00 richer, since I paid $3.00 for them!). Instead, I apparently opted to keep the tickets as a memento. Funny, I'd probably pay more than $3.00 for them now, so I guess I made the right choice! I'd completely forgotten about them until today, when I stumbled upon them in a box in my garage (along with a complete base set of the first Rittenhouse TZ trading card series from 1999, which I have no memory of ever buying).

As I recall, there were five different TZ scratch-it tickets, each depicting a different object from the 4th/5th season opening sequence: the mannequin (seen above), Einstein's Theory of Relativity (seen above, twice), the clock, the eyeball, and the shattering window. I will also note that my memory is notoriously faulty, so I could be totally wrong here. The fact that I have two distinctly different tickets suggests that there were probably more. Anyone out there with a better memory (or better yet, a set of unmolested tickets), please feel free to chime in here. I'd love to see a complete, unscratched set.