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tomilleresq
Reviews
The Twilight Zone: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (1960)
Maybe this premise was too big for a 24 minute slot...
Wait... So it WAS aliens all along?
Not one of my favorites. I love Rod Serling, but the way he writes dialogue, it's almost like he never listened to people talk before.
My least favorite TV trope is the wise, all knowing child who somehow has all the answers, despite his precocity. And in this case it's worse than most, because this kid had no specialized knowledge and didn't even claim to have. He admitted he got his ideas from a sci-fi movie. And yet the neighbors almost immediately bought this theory. I've had lots of odd, scary things happen to me, and yet not once did I ever assume that my neighbors-being-aliens was the most logical explanation.
My other big problem with this episode is that the neighbors all immediately turned on each other, suspected each other and blamed each other as being the cause of all this seemingly supernatural stuff. Trust immediately all went out the window. So when the guy with the gun got all paranoid and shot and killed his neighbor, why did he and everyone else immediately conclude that the dead guy was totally innocent and rule out him and only him as being the guilty party? On what basis? Just because he appeared to be dead?
The Twilight Zone: Cavender Is Coming (1962)
No, this is not an "homage" to It's a Wonderful Life...
It's a shameless rip-off. Remember, in 1962, It's a Wonderful Life was a forgotten, largely unknown film. Not popular even when it was first released, it wasn't until years later when it fell into the public domain and was broadcast on TV on infinite loop, that it became popular. That's why Jesse White and Carol Burnett (and Serling) could feel so comfortable directly ripping off the original. (Carol Burnett is no Jimmy Stewart, but I like Jesse White). There was little likelihood that anyone would ever notice.
Comedy takes a deft touch. Clearly, it's not Serling's forte. Ham-fisted, with poor timing, this is beyond unfunny. I feel embarrassed in behalf of everyone involved, every time I watch this. The only saving grace is that they deleted the original laugh track. (I can't even imagine).
By far the worst Twilight Zone of all. Fortunately, Serling rarely tried his hand at comedy. It's shocking to me that anyone would actually find anything humorous about this episode.
The Twilight Zone: The Gift (1962)
Probably the Worst Twilight Zone Episode.
The acting is horrible and wooden - especially the poor child. The depiction of Mexicans is less nuanced than a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon. The twist ending is eye-rollingly bad. This is strictly a paint-by-numbers effort. It looks like at this point, Serling had already thrown in the towel. As it turns out, the mysterious stranger was, in fact an alien. And his "gift"? Turns out it was a cookbook. (Just kidding, it was much, much worse than that). .
The Twilight Zone: The Grave (1961)
Contrived, hokey ending.
Wind doesn't work like that. It swirls and changes directions. When the sister asks "What direction was the wind blowing from last night" and everyone instantly remembers that it was blowing from the South, that ruined it for me. Were these all amateur weathermen?