My day job requires me to work on the 4th of July, but it's okay since I get paid double-time on holidays. After a long day at work I came home and started my usual unwinding ritual of channel surfing. To my surprise, I found a Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci Fi Channel. I got to see some of my favorite episodes including A Stop At Willoughby, Mr. Bevis, A Hundred Yards Over The Rim, It's A Good Life, The Odyssey Of Flight 33 and Once Upon A Time. I loved tuning into an episode and seeing a character or characters out in the middle of nowhere, be it the desert or a distant planet. A puff of smoke appears behind them, yet the characters do not acknowledge the smoke, then the camera pans over to the side to reveal that the smoke came from Rod Serling's cigarette. The Twilight Zone is or was great television that can be boiled down to good stories, good writing and good acting.
I find it funny that many people today see television as pure escapism. Not healthy entertainment, but escapism. They want to get lost in the lives of others whether they are real or fictional. These people do not care to use television to be informed, enriched or educated. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Playhouse 90 and other anthology series told great stories yet, sadly, they are no longer marketable since most of the television viewing public would rather see formulaic programming with re-occurring characters. Don’t even get me started on reality TV.
Is it that people are too lazy to escape reality or is it a narrow-minded escapism? You can’t unlock the door with the key of imagination when you have misplaced the keys and refuse to go look for them. To quote Rod Serling, "You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead— your next stop, the Twilight Zone!" It’s not like this type of travel requires airfare, a passport or a security check. So why are you placing boundaries on it?
Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa
Article comments
1 - Gregg Guetschow
One of the great benefits of my Netflix membership has been the ability to obtain DVDs of old Twilight Zone episodes. This was not just great storytelling; it was great filmmaking as well. It is because today's television is so far from realizing the potential demonstrated by the shows you mentioned that I watch it only rarely.