2x10 "Is That a Rocket in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me?"

This week, Craig watches helplessly as two different spaceship crews make emergency landings and get themselves into all sorts of crazy unpredictable jams. Strap yourselves in, kids, ‘cuz it’s gonna be one helluva bumpy ride when we launch the Twilight Zone episodes “Elegy” and “People are Alike All Over” into orbit simultaneously and see which one comes back unscathed... and which one burns up on reentry. Along the way, Craig marvels at the fashion choices of future astronauts and struggles with the pronunciation of Liebfraumilch.

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Marc Scott Zicree’s “Rod Serling and Ray Bradbury: The Untold Story”:

https://youtu.be/8bhvb8Tmi38

Marc Scott Zicree’s “Mr. Sci-Fi” YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKt7gHnZpcY0nreBdPhwmQ

Brandi Jackola reads ‘Brothers Beyond the Void’ (Tom Elliot’s The Twilight Zone Podcast):

http://thetwilightzonepodcast.com/the-twilight-zone-podcast-brandi-jackola-reads-brothers-beyond-the-void-2/

Jim Moon Reads ‘Elegy’ (Tom Elliot’s The Twilight Zone Podcast):

http://thetwilightzonepodcast.com/jim-moon-reads-elegy-2/

Theme Music: “Neither Here nor There (3.3)” by Twin Loops

“Phoenix.beacon10” performed by SETI (from the album Pharos, copyright 1995 by Instinct Ambient Records)

“Is It Wrong” performed by Golden Suits (from the album Kubla Khan, copyright 2016 by Hit City USA)

“Don’t Wanna Fight No More” performed by Alabama Shakes (from the album Sound & Color,  copyright 2015 by ATO / Fontana North / MapleMusic Recordings)

“Bullet with Butterfly Wings” performed by Smashing Pumpkins (from the album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,  copyright 1995 by Virgin Records)

“Lost-Found” performed by Space Monkey Death Sequence (from the album People Are Alike All Over,  copyright 2015 by Space Monkey Death Sequence)

Check out Space Monkey Death Sequence’s full catalogue at:

https://spacemonkeydeath.bandcamp.com

Elton John’s “Rocket Man” performed by William Shatner (The Science Fiction Film Awards, 1978)

The Twilight Zone is a trademark of CBS, Inc.

Between Light and a Shadow: A Twilight Zone Podcast is a nonprofit podcast. Music clips and dialogue excerpts used herein are the property of their respective copyright owners; we claim no ownership of these materials. Their use is strictly for illustrative purposes and should be considered Fair Use as stated in the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. section 107.

Repeat Report: Summer 1961, Part 2

The Twilight Zone's repeat schedule for summer 1961 (post-season 2) was 14 weeks in length, and was composed entirely of repeats from the show's first season. We covered the first half here, and we'll cover the second half here. It appears I missed two fairly obvious Forbidden Planet connections in my initial episode promos, so I'll spotlight 'em here. Oh, and make sure to click on the images to see the full-size HD beauty, thanks to Image Entertainment's stunning blu-ray release.

07/28/1961
"Elegy"
(originally broadcast 02/19/1960)

Forbidden Planet alert! Check out the mega-cool "Pac Man" lights, which were originally part of the film's ancient Krell laboratory... we also saw them previously in "People Are Alike All Over," and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they pop up again in the series' run.

08/04/1961

"Mirror Image"
(originally broadcast 02/26/1960)

Damn you, Vera Miles! I'm still waiting for my autographed 8x10...

08/11/1961

"One for the Angels"
(originally broadcast 10/09/1959)

Forbidden Planet alert! There's Robby the Robot, in wind-up toy form, making his first of three Twilight Zone appearances. Note the rather TZesque eyeball sticker on his dome.

08/18/1961

"The Big Tall Wish"
(originally broadcast 04/08/1960)


08/25/1961
"The Chaser"
(originally broadcast 05/13/1960)

09/01/1961

"Nightmare as a Child"
(originally broadcast 04/29/1960)

09/08/1961

"A World of His Own"
(originally broadcast 07/01/1960)

What can I say? I'm kind of a big deal.

Season 3 commences on 9/15 with a haunting tale of a chance encounter between mortal enemies. We'll witness firsthand that the line between love and hate is quite thin indeed. It's "Two" good to miss.

TZ Promo: "Elegy" (2/19/1960)

 

With their rocket quickly running out of fuel, three astronauts touch down on an asteroid... and are astonished to discover that they're back on earth.  Okay, they aren't really back on earth, but it sure as hell looks like it... barns, houses, people --- except that nothing moves.  Everyone and everything appears to be frozen in time.  It's a mystery, and our intrepid voyagers will find the answer... but the cost will prove rather high.

Charles Beaumont wrote the teleplay, based on his own short story, and as much as I love his work, I've never been particularly fond of this episode for three reasons.  First, the "frozen in time" people DO move, because director Douglas Heyes opted to use live actors instead of mannequins or still photography.  Consequently, the viewer will spot many instances of movement on the part of the various actors.  It's damned distracting, and essentially kills the suspension of disbelief.  Second, the script attempts to inject humor into the proceedings for no apparent reason (a recurring gag is an inability to pronounce a certain name correctly, ha ha).  And third we have the ending which, while sufficiently shocking, seems to come from nowhere (shock endings are part and parcel of the Twilight Zone experience, of course, but they should make sense within the context of the preceding story).  All in all, it's the first Twilight Zone episode that (for me) is a complete failure.  I've gone on at length about my dislike of "Time Enough at Last," but I at least respect that episode from a technical standpoint (the direction and cinematography are frankly amazing).  But "Elegy" is an episode that I hate on every level.  The actors are unappealing, the direction is lacking... even the original music score by Van Cleave (whose work on the series I usually love) is grating.

But hey, this is just one guy's opinion.  You might love it.  Who knows?

Addendum:  Okay, so after watching the episode (as you may or not have guessed, I write these promo entries BEFORE I sit down to watch the episode; oftentimes it's been several years since my last viewing), I don't hate it quite as much as I thought I did.... but I still don't like it much either.  It's not a stinker on the level of, say, "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" or "Mr. Bevis," but it's definitely lower-tier Zone.  As I watched it, I got a really strong Martian Chronicles vibe (specifically, "The Third Expedition," originally published in Planet Stories Magazine as "Mars Is Heaven" in 1948) which, given Beaumont's documented friendship with Ray Bradbury, makes some amount of sense.  Nothing direct in the way of plagiarism, you understand.... just a vague similarity.

Next week:  Things get back on track in a big way with a truly excellent TZ classic.  It's one of my Top 40 favorites, and it stars Vera Miles as a nervous woman in a bus station who is seeing double... quite literally, as it turns out.   Come in from the rain and have a look.