Come Wander with Me

Someone should definitely remake this into a movie or something with more explanation and a better ending. Like the person before me said, the beginning was really good and I was expecting the end to be just as creepy but it didn't really deliver. I've been watching the Twilight Zone a long time and that part in the beginning with the girl dressed in black standing in the distance was almost as scary as the first time I saw the Hitch Hiker episode when I was like 10.

Some aspects of the story that could use more detail would be a more in depth look at how the main character got to the woods, how/why the time loop occurs and more info about the mysterious girl and why she claimed she always loved the guy. How did she get stuck in the time loop?

Gary Crosby stars as Floyd Burney, the "Rock-A-Billy Kid", a traveling singer-songwriter who also likes to buy unknown songs for his profit. This takes him to some rural backwoods, where he hears a haunting ballad sung by Mary Rachel(played by Bonnie Beecher) who falls in love with him, but is powerless to change his preordained fate, as it seems Floyd is destined to live the song he wants to buy... Last produced episode of the series(though two more would air after it) is a misfire; though it does have a spooky aura about it, it also has little point or interest. Crosby's performance is sincere but coarse.

Still should have been aired last however...

To start off with a couple of positive "notes"; I really like the idea about the lyrics of a tear-jerking torch song coming true while they're being sung! That was a nice and original touch for one of the last episodes in the overall derivative and disappoint final season of "The Twilight Zone". Secondly, debuting actress Bonnie Beecher is ideally cast as the cherubic, innocent, and naïve Mary-Rachel. And if that's her real singing, she also sounds like an angel! That's it for the good aspects, I'm afraid, as sadly "Come wander with me" is another typically structured and predictable episode with an unconvincing protagonist and an inconclusive ending.

Come Wander with Me definitely feels like Twilight Zone material. A lot of Rod Serling's favorite plot devices are put to use here, in a story he did not pen. Ultimately it's all a lot of gibberish about time loops, and the hero not understanding something vital to somebody else, which is his tragic flaw that ultimately destroys him, yaddah yaddah yaddah. There are a few creepy moments, however, such as when the lyrics on the tape recorder spontaneously change to reflect the situation, and the song keeps playing after the recorder is broken. The music is appropriately haunting, as the previous users mentioned, and the atmosphere works out decently enough. Still, a worthy episode.

When I first saw this episode during a Thanksgiving marathon on KTLA, I could not stand it. It made zero sense to me and I thought it was so far off being a Twilight Zone episode that I totally disregarded it. Now, 42 years later, I am watching it for probably the 8th time and with each viewing, it has grown on me to the point that it is actually an excellent episode. There is a particularly creepy essence when Floyd is wandering through the woods trying to find the voice of "Come Wander With Me" when you see in the back ground the woman in black in a pose that is truly disturbing. Just like any other episode, there are many layers that you may not see on it's first viewing but you catch them on other viewings. What a dark, disturbing and wonderful episode.