And so we arrive at last to the fifth and final season of The Twilight Zone. As a refresher: I started these season reviews because, familiar as I’ve been with this landmark series, I’ve never owned it or experienced all the episodes in order in their entirety.
Now I have, and it’s clear from this last batch of 36 episodes that the premise had started to run out of steam. Time travelers, dystopian futures, machines replacing humans, ill-fated voyages to outer space – viewers have seen them all before, and in most cases better than these variations.
While I still enjoyed more than half of these episodes, it’s never been easier to select a top three because there were not as many close runners-up.
The Three Best
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
One of two no-brainer contenders for the best episode of season five, and one that would likely rank in the top five from the entire series. William Shatner plays a man still recovering from a nervous breakdown, who boards an airplane and is terrified when he sees a creature perched on the wing, about to destroy an engine.
In his introduction Rod Serling warns that this story will take us into the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone, and that was not hyperbole. Every element – Shatner’s frenzied performance, Richard Donner’s direction, and the perfect final scene – all exemplify the series at its very best. And if that’s not enough, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” contains what is indisputably the best jump scare of any TZ episode.
Living Doll
There have been eight films in the Child’s Play series about a killer doll named Chucky, but none of them were as exciting as this TZ installment in which a malevolent doll called Talky Tina plots against a little girl’s brutish stepfather, played by Telly Savales.
June Foray, who voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel among many other beloved characters, indulges her dark side, uttering chilling lines in the sweetest tones. Can a small plastic doll murder a full-grown American male? You’d be surprised.
Number 12 Looks Just Like You
Whether this is the best episode of the season or merely the most prescient is a matter of conjecture. But it’s amazing how a 60-year-old TV show could so accurately foresee challenges now being confronted by the US in 2026.
The original inspiration for its story was not a glimpse into the future but remembrance of the past, specifically Germany under Hitler, the demand for conformity within a totalitarian state, and the Nazi's pursuit of a so-called superior Aryan race.
In the futuristic society depicted in this episode, a young woman named Marilyn has reached the age of ‘transformation,’ where she may choose a new face and body from a catalog of attractive options. It’s presented as a voluntary procedure, but Marilyn soon discovers it is mandatory after she objects to it.
There’s so much to unpack in this one – our culture’s worship of youth, how some pursue physical perfection through plastic surgery – but it also speaks to one party’s current flirtation with socialism, with its promise of classless equality. It’s good for you, we are told, no matter how many who lived under such societies protest. Trust us, they say – we know what’s best, and that freedom of choice you’ll have to sacrifice for the good of the state – you won’t even miss it after a while. Scary stuff – and it’s inching its way into the mainstream.
If I had a fourth ‘best’ pick it would be “I am the Night – Color Me Black,” in which the sun fails to rise over a small town on the morning of a public execution. It shares many of the over-written, heavy-handed qualities found in Rod Serling’s least memorable scripts but this time it still works, thanks to strong performances from Michael Constantine, Ivan Dixon, and George Lindsay.
Some fans rank “The Masks” among the series’ classics – for me it was just okay, as was “Spur of the Moment,” though it opens with one of the season’s most unsettling scenes. There were also mediocre episodes elevated by a strong lead performance – Mickey Rooney in “The Last Night of a Jockey,” Sir Cedric Hardwicke in “Uncle Simon,” John Dehner in “Mr. Gerrity and the Graves.”
Finally, “Black Leather Jackets” is silly but it has Shelley Fabares, so it automatically gets a pass.
The Three Worst
Sounds and Silences
It hurts my heart to single out anything starring John McGiver, one of my favorite character actors, on a “worst” list. But there’s no defending this headache-inducing episode about a CEO obsessed with noise, which grates on the nerves of his employees, not to mention those of us watching from home.
From Agnes with Love
Computers taking on human qualities and doing more harm than good? Maybe that wasn’t the cliché in 1964 than it is now, but here once again we get proof that The Twilight Zone was not a series that excelled at comedy. Wally Cox stars as a programmer hoping Agnes, a super-computer, can help him win his dream girl, unaware that Agnes has already fallen for him.
The Encounter
Simply one of the most repugnant half-hours of television I’ve ever watched, and one that some sources claim was banned from syndication for more than 50 years. If anyone wondered what they were missing all that time, the answer is nothing.
Number 12 Looks Just Like You
Whether this is the best episode of the season or merely the most prescient is a matter of conjecture. But it’s amazing how a 60-year-old TV show could so accurately foresee challenges now being confronted by the US in 2026.
The original inspiration for its story was not a glimpse into the future but remembrance of the past, specifically Germany under Hitler, the demand for conformity within a totalitarian state, and the Nazi's pursuit of a so-called superior Aryan race.
In the futuristic society depicted in this episode, a young woman named Marilyn has reached the age of ‘transformation,’ where she may choose a new face and body from a catalog of attractive options. It’s presented as a voluntary procedure, but Marilyn soon discovers it is mandatory after she objects to it.
There’s so much to unpack in this one – our culture’s worship of youth, how some pursue physical perfection through plastic surgery – but it also speaks to one party’s current flirtation with socialism, with its promise of classless equality. It’s good for you, we are told, no matter how many who lived under such societies protest. Trust us, they say – we know what’s best, and that freedom of choice you’ll have to sacrifice for the good of the state – you won’t even miss it after a while. Scary stuff – and it’s inching its way into the mainstream.
If I had a fourth ‘best’ pick it would be “I am the Night – Color Me Black,” in which the sun fails to rise over a small town on the morning of a public execution. It shares many of the over-written, heavy-handed qualities found in Rod Serling’s least memorable scripts but this time it still works, thanks to strong performances from Michael Constantine, Ivan Dixon, and George Lindsay.
Some fans rank “The Masks” among the series’ classics – for me it was just okay, as was “Spur of the Moment,” though it opens with one of the season’s most unsettling scenes. There were also mediocre episodes elevated by a strong lead performance – Mickey Rooney in “The Last Night of a Jockey,” Sir Cedric Hardwicke in “Uncle Simon,” John Dehner in “Mr. Gerrity and the Graves.”
Finally, “Black Leather Jackets” is silly but it has Shelley Fabares, so it automatically gets a pass.
The Three Worst
Sounds and Silences
It hurts my heart to single out anything starring John McGiver, one of my favorite character actors, on a “worst” list. But there’s no defending this headache-inducing episode about a CEO obsessed with noise, which grates on the nerves of his employees, not to mention those of us watching from home.
From Agnes with Love
Computers taking on human qualities and doing more harm than good? Maybe that wasn’t the cliché in 1964 than it is now, but here once again we get proof that The Twilight Zone was not a series that excelled at comedy. Wally Cox stars as a programmer hoping Agnes, a super-computer, can help him win his dream girl, unaware that Agnes has already fallen for him.
The Encounter
Simply one of the most repugnant half-hours of television I’ve ever watched, and one that some sources claim was banned from syndication for more than 50 years. If anyone wondered what they were missing all that time, the answer is nothing.
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