The Twilight Zone

I'm trying to be open minded here but I dont see the big flaws you guys are obsessing over.

I've heard people calling it predictable. I dont recall watching the original and being surprised by a "twist". It was never that kind of show. The formula was "change this one thing, and watch the consequences unfold". It wasnt I See Dead People style twists.

I heard people bitching about the 2A bad comedy. Again, I dont get it. That was in-universe, everyone thought his "thought provoking" comedy sucked.

Tell me why it sucked so I can be an unhappy with it as you all are instead of foolishly enjoying the fact that anthology sci fi TV is back on the air

(PS Amazing Stories was great, arguably as good as original TZ)

Twilight Zone ep: The Eye of the Beholder is a good example of the OG series doing twist endings. I mean predictable isn't necessarily bad, but stories are intrinsically less exciting if you know the outcome halfway through.

Aldarion said:

I'm trying to be open minded here but I dont see the big flaws you guys are obsessing over.

I've heard people calling it predictable. I dont recall watching the original and being surprised by a "twist". It was never that kind of show. The formula was "change this one thing, and watch the consequences unfold". It wasnt I See Dead People style twists.

I heard people bitching about the 2A bad comedy. Again, I dont get it. That was in-universe, everyone thought his "thought provoking" comedy sucked.

Tell me why it sucked so I can be an unhappy with it as you all are instead of foolishly enjoying the fact that anthology sci fi TV is back on the air

(PS Amazing Stories was great, arguably as good as original TZ)

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the most famous episodes are the twisty kind.

nerd hates people and is happy that he survives an apocalypse so he can spend all his time reading. oops broke his glasses, noooooooo!!!!!

guy bets loudmouth guy a million bucks he cant shut up for a year. guy somehow stays quiet for an entire year, other guy dumbfounded, admits to him he really doesnt have a pot to piss in. loudmouth guy is upset because he cut his tongue out in order to win the bet. nooooooo!!!

guy wishes he was immortal, gets wish and ends up killing his wife and gets life in prison. noooooo!!

midget race jockey wants to be big. gets his wish and becomes a giant asshole. now he cant race horses anymore. noooo!!

woman experiences end of the Earth due to the orbit getting too close to the Sun. she wakes up discovering it was all a dream, the Earth is really moving away from the Sun. Nooooo!

woman fights a battle with space aliens. only to find out those aliens were us humans and she was a giant on an alien planet. noooo!

bunch of seemingly crazy monks keep this one man locked in a dumgeon 24/7 telling this other guy not to let him out because he is actually the devil himself. dude doesnt listen and opens the door anyway. it really was the devil. noooo!

lonely old widow gets crank calls and being scared has the phone company look into it, turns out it was a downed line on her dead husband's grave and he was just calling her up to say hi. the phone company fixes it and now she's all alone. noooo!

guy gets a bunch of wishes, the last one being rich and powerful, turns out he got his wish, but he's literally Hitler about to kill himself. nooooo!

space ship comes to earth and giant alien brings us world peace and wants everyone to come visit his planet. we find out the mysterious book he has in his arms is titled To Serve Man, everyone relieved starts piling onto the space ships back to his planet. at the end the protagonist discovers To Serve Man is really a cookbook and the aliens are going to eat our planet's population!! NOOOOoooo!!!!

Chukzombi said:

the most famous episodes are the twisty kind.

guys hates people and is happy he survives an apocolypse so he can read. oops broke his glasses, noooooooo!!!!!

guy bets loudmouth guy a million bucks he cant shut up for a year. guy stays quiet quiet for a year and other guy tells him he doesnt have a pot to piss in. loudmouth guy cut his tongue out in order to win. nooooooo!!!

guy wishes he was immortal, gets wish and ends up killing his wife and gets life in prison. noooooo!!

midget race jockey wants to be big. gets his wish and becomes a giant asshole. now he cant race horses anymore. noooo!!

woman experiences end of the Earth due to the orbit getting too close to the Sun. she wakes up discovering it was a dream, the earth is really moving away from the sun. mooooo!

woman fights a battle with space aliens. only to find out those aliens were us humans and she was a giant on an alien planet. noooo!

bunch of crazy monks keep this one man locked in a room 24/7 telling this other guy not to let him out because he is actually the devil himself. dude doesnt listen and opens the door anyway. it really was the devil. noooo!

lonely old widow gets crank calls and has the phone company fix it, turns out it was a downed line on her dead husband's grave and he was just calling her up to say hi. now she's all alone. noooo!

guy gets a bunch of wishes, one of them he wishes to be rich and powerful, turns out he got his wish, but he's literally Hitler about to kill himself. nooooo!

space ship comes to earth and giant alien brings us world peace and wants everyone to come visit his planet. we find out the book he has in his arms is to serve man, at the end they discover, its really a cookbook and is going to eat the planet's population!! NOOOOoooo!!!!

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Are you always this god damn annoying?

Jasker said:

Are you always this god damn annoying?

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i try to be

One of my favorite episodes of the 80s Twilight Zone was A Small Talent for War. I thought that had a great twist ending.

pharmakos said:

You have to be the change you want to see in the world.

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Changing a fake world, seems fun, oh wait.. no, it doesn’t.

Eh, this seemed ok to me. The first two stories were pretty unoriginal though, does give me a lot of hope for something new from the rest of it.

Complaining aboutthe 2A jokes is ridiculous though, that the jokes were pathetic and not even slightly funny was the whole point.

Chukzombi said:

the most famous episodes are the twisty kind.

guys hates people and is happy he survives an apocolypse so he can read. oops broke his glasses, noooooooo!!!!!

guy bets loudmouth guy a million bucks he cant shut up for a year. guy stays quiet quiet for a year and other guy tells him he doesnt have a pot to piss in. loudmouth guy cut his tongue out in order to win. nooooooo!!!

guy wishes he was immortal, gets wish and ends up killing his wife and gets life in prison. noooooo!!

midget race jockey wants to be big. gets his wish and becomes a giant asshole. now he cant race horses anymore. noooo!!

woman experiences end of the Earth due to the orbit getting too close to the Sun. she wakes up discovering it was a dream, the earth is really moving away from the sun. mooooo!

woman fights a battle with space aliens. only to find out those aliens were us humans and she was a giant on an alien planet. noooo!

bunch of crazy monks keep this one man locked in a room 24/7 telling this other guy not to let him out because he is actually the devil himself. dude doesnt listen and opens the door anyway. it really was the devil. noooo!

lonely old widow gets crank calls and has the phone company fix it, turns out it was a downed line on her dead husband's grave and he was just calling her up to say hi. now she's all alone. noooo!

guy gets a bunch of wishes, one of them he wishes to be rich and powerful, turns out he got his wish, but he's literally Hitler about to kill himself. nooooo!

space ship comes to earth and giant alien brings us world peace and wants everyone to come visit his planet. we find out the book he has in his arms is to serve man, at the end they discover, its really a cookbook and is going to eat the planet's population!! NOOOOoooo!!!!

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... I gotta admit, it appears I have mis underestimated the amount of twist endings in classic TZ episodes.

Think I need to watch some of those again now, I'd forgotten about several of those.

Aldarion said:

... I gotta admit, it appears I have mis underestimated the amount of twist endings in classic TZ episodes.

Think I need to watch some of those again now, I'd forgotten about several of those.

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admittedly there are many more non twisty episodes than the twisty ones, but when people talk about the show, most of those twist endings often get mentioned. the regular stories are good too. some are just mellow stories and even though a lot of it is early 60s before my time i get nostalgic because i watched all those with my dad as a kid in the 70s and he explained a lot of old timey stuff i didnt understand.

The Original TZ was the master of twist endings. Other ones that come to mind:

-Woman wants to get plastic surgery because she is considered ugly. The surgeons were unable to fix her. We find out everyone looks like pig-people and she looks like a super model.

-Astronaut lands on Mars. Aliens who look like humans help him and put him in a room that looks like an apartment, but they won't let him leave. He later finds out he has been put in a zoo (Orville used this as a basis for an episode).

-Power goes out on a street and people in the neighborhood start blaming other people as being the cause/aliens behind it. They all start to murder/attack eachother. We find out the real aliens, watching from a distance, are using this as a proof of concept to conquer the Earth by exploiting human nature to make them destroy themselves.

There's also lots of famous non-twist episodes, like It's a Good Life (godlike kid who kills people who displease him) and Talking Tina (basically the inspiration for Child's Play movies)

Willoughby

Even the 2nd episode was lame. Cant even remake great episode right.

flashr66 said:

Even the 2nd episode was lame. Cant even remake great episode right.

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Maybe I'm dense, but I didn't even get the point of the episode. What did the guy do wrong to deserve getting lynched? Rather, if I was listening to a podcast that gave details exactly as they were playing out, I'd be convinced too that some supernatural force was trying to get me to prevent the impending catastrophe. So what the hell was the moral of the story?

The original versions didn’t have much of a moral either. In both instances, they save everyone, but they are punished as crazy...although in those instances, there was some physical evidence (destroyed engine).