Tag: The Twilight Zone

Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Found and Lost)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Vern Gillum

We’re back with another episode of The Knockoff Zone which is apropos considering this is another episode of the show that JUST SO HAPPENED to be a heck of a lot like a movie that came around the same time!  So what are we “paying homage” to today?  Well it’s not QUITE an exact fit, but there’s a lot of The Family Man in this episode which if you don’t recall is the Nicolas Cage movie where he’s an obscenely rich dude who is confronted with the life he didn’t choose to live.  You may also remember it as the movie where he goes TA-DAAAA for no reason, but sadly I doubt we’ll get to see something like that in this episode.  OR WILL WE!?  I guess there’s only way to find out!  Let’s get started!!

The episode begins with some dude name Sean (Brian Austin Green) driving to work and he barely has time to lock his car and straighten his tie before Forest Whitaker is on hand to tell us what this episode is about!  I mean I’m not about to go check, but twenty seconds into an episode sounds like a record for ANY Twilight Zone series to start its monologue, right?   Anyway, what’s ACTUALLY important is that Sean is a rich business guy who has more than anyone else could DREAM of, but seems to be deeply unhappy for some reason and is about to be interviewed by a journalist (Moira Kelly).  No, before you ask, I didn’t accidentally pop in a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.  Although…

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“My name is Bianca Titanium, and you must be Shaun White.”     “Uh… nope.  My first name’s not even spelled that way.  Are you sure you’re in the right building?”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (The Pool Guy)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Paul Shapiro and Brad Turner

We’re back with another episode of The Twilight Zone, and not the one you were searching for on Google!  While the last episode seemed to have been ripping off or was heavily inspired by a recently released movie, this one has a bit of an older influence to it at first glance; bringing to mind the cyber punk oddities of the early to mid-nineties more than anything else.  Sure, it doesn’t have the budget of Johnny Mnemonic or The Lawnmower Man (the latter almost certainly being an influence down to the title of the episode), but can they still capture the essence of that weird and stretch of sci-fi film making into a solid twenty minute fable? Let’s find out!!

Ritchie (Lou Diamond Phillips; no seriously) is some dude who cleans pools for a living which is kind of sad considering said living has been going on for two decades now, but then again in a just economic system he’d be making a living wage instead of merely scraping by so I guess the sad part is once again a product of Capitalism.  Sadly that’s not the focus of the episode, but things do get off to a strange start as Some GuyTM straight out of a Hitchcock movie starts chatting him up about how awesome it is being a pool guy.  Getting out in the sun, visiting awesome houses, banging the lonely housewives!  Seems like an odd thing to start with when “hi” and “my name is so and so, what’s yours?” is right there on the table, but maybe he’s going somewhere with this!

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“These chicks are just WAITING for you to make a move!”     “Yeah… I’m trying to balance the Ph here…”     “Dude, you gotta start worrying about your Dh!!”     “Is that…?  You know what; I choose not to get it.”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Time Lapse)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by John T Kretchmer

We’re back with another episode of that Twilight Zone series that’ll become even MORE irrelevant once Jordan Peele’s series finally comes out!  Today’s episode asks the very important question of how closely a TV show can rip off a movie; a question I sadly won’t be able to answer because I haven’t SEEN Memento yet, but even then I can tell that this episode (which only came out a year after the movie) is trying to make the TV friendly version of it.  Still, does it manage to be a fun knock off instead of the boring and halfhearted kind?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Zack and Maria (Ethan Embry and Alexandra Barreto) who are playfully talking about the former’s forthcoming bachelor party and doing so while wheeling a guy who got shot in the head to his hospital room.  Hey, there’s no harm in having fun at your job, and it’s not like the guy’s family is there any way!  Just some dude in a suit that seems VERY keen to know when this guy wakes up but no matter!  BACHELOR PARTY, WHOO!!  Anyway, Zack’s shift is over which means he can finally go home and…

*WHAM*

He wakes up and finds himself in a hotel room hundreds of miles away (he’s in Portland but lives and works in Phoenix) and there’s a gun in his suitcase.  Well dang!  Just throw us right into the deep end, why don’t you!?

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“On top of that, he only has twelve hours to live.”     “WHAT!?”     “And he’s being haunted by a ghost.”     “STOP IT!!”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Evergreen)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Allen Kroeker

We’re back with another episode of Night Gallery.  Wait… that doesn’t sound right.  Oh well!  Now this episode we have right here, while being the sixth produced, was ACTUALLY the first one to air on television as opposed to the one hour pilot that got cut in half and pushed back.  Did this end up being the best episode for them to have started with, or was this just a mediocre filler episode that inexplicably got to be the first one out the door?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with the perfect middle class white family who are ironically called The Winslows (two parents and two daughters) as they drive up to the gates of the community they just moved into!  Right away it’s clear that something is up at Evergreen Estates considering how creepily friendly the gate man is, and the icy stare he gives to the older Winslow daughter (Amber Tamblyn) whose ambivalence towards everything is crystal clear.

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“I don’t play by society’s rules!  I shop at Hot Topic!”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Cradle of Darkness)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Jean de Segonzac

When I decided to start recapping this series, there were a few episodes that I knew were going to be VERY interesting to talk about as the show really did go into some strange territory and had some surprisingly big stars who were very taking these roles very early in their careers.  This episode right here?  This might just be the crown jewel of the series, at least from the episodes I can recall.  This has Katherine Heigl (yes, THAT Katherine Heigl) going back in time to kill Baby Hitler.  Yeah.  Can this episode manage to be even HALF as interesting as that premise promises?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins IN THE FUTURE where Special Agent Katherine Heigl is, for some reason, the ONLY person they can send back in time (something to do with genetics) and has just finished making peace with her family as we’re going by Terminator rules here which means she can only go BACK in time, but not forward… unless anyone besides me saw Terminator Genisys in which they mess with that rule, but I’m still willing to pretend that movie doesn’t exist if everyone else is.

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“It’s too bad this is one way travel.  Now we have to send someone ELSE to deal with Donald Trump.”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (One Night at Mercy)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Peter O’Fallon

We’re back with another episode of Story Time with Forest Whitaker!  Now the last episode we looked at was a pretty boring example of this show barely even trying and merely going through the motions, but I hear that a lot of people really like this episode so maybe the show has already figured out what it wants to do and is now heading in the right direction.  Are the people right and is this one of the better episodes of the series, or is this just another disappointment from a show that probably has no right to exist in the first place?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a whole bunch of SUPER SURGERY where there’s blood splatter, sawn open rib cages, and some bad ass doctor sticking his hand inside some dude’s chest cavity!  SWEET!  I don’t know what the fuck he’s trying to do (something to do with the aorta), but whatever it is it ends up saving the poor bastard on the table.  Oh I’m sorry, did I say table?  They aren’t actually in an operating theater; they’re in the fucking emergency room with the guy on a gurney!  Television execs being cheap or the hospital has budget cuts?  YOU DECIDE!!

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“Can you grab me a bottle of hand sanitizer?”     “WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING!  JUST GRAB IT YOURSELF!”     “The supplies are right behind you.  All you have to do is turn around and grab me a bottle.”     “WHY IS THERE HAND SANITIZER IN THE OPERATING ROOM!?”     “You can keep calling it that all you want, but that won’t make it any less false.”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Night Route)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Jean de Segonzac

We’re back with another episode of The Forest Whitaker Monologues!  Now that we’ve made it through the pilot, it’s time for this series to start in earnest!  Is this going to be one of the good episodes, or will this be one of the FUN episodes?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a woman named Melina Kroner (Ione Skye) walking her dog at night when she’s nearly hit by a car.  Presumably this event will NOT go unnoticed by THE TWILIGHT ZONE and sure enough she’s immediately sidled up to by a creepy ass bus whose driver (Art Kitching from Supernatural) is practically begging her to step aboard.  The dog seems to want to get on, but she just holds the leash firm and turns away from it.  When she looks back… the bus is GONE!  So she’s dead, right?  That’s the twist.  I’m putting my money down RIGHT NOW that that is gonna be the twist.

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“Night Bus to Mundo Fine!  Night Bus to the end!!”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (The Lineman)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 4 Comments

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Jonathan Frakes

Welcome back to our look at the 2002 Twilight Zone reboot!  Now the show’s air dates and production dates are completely different, but we’re gonna go with the latter which means this first episode (the pilot) didn’t actually air until six weeks into the series run; something that makes it even MORE confusing when you find out that this is the ONLY episode of the series that is one hour long story instead of two episodes put together.  As confusing as that must have been to whoever was watching this series as it aired (someone SURELY had to have been doing so, right?), this can sometimes happen.  You needn’t look any further than The Menagerie from the original Star Trek series which was the original pilot but then later retrofitted into a two parter in the series proper.  So what do we have to look forward to from the first episode of this series?  Well it has Jeremy Piven in it from before he was on Entourage but since that’s a show I’ve never seen, my reference pool for the guy is basically Smokin’ Aces and The Good: Live Hard Sell hard.  Not only is he in this episode, but he’s the STAR and it’s all about him developing the power to read minds!  Neato!  So does this episode prove that the series was worth bring back a second time, or is it all too clear right from the beginning that we’re on a ship that’s sinking fast?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with our hero Tyler (Jeremy Piven) and his two work buddies, Buddy and Shannon (seriously, his best friend is named Buddy, I guess so we don’t get confused), who are at the site of a recently downed telephone line.  Tyler has a crush on Shannon but he doesn’t have any confidence in himself and uses being poor as an excuse to not ask her out.  I guess telecom repair people don’t get paid a lot, but then again this is the guy who buys scratcher tickets hoping to win it big, so maybe his idea of success is a bit on the unrealistic side.  Not only that, but the person he’s pining over seems like an irresponsible jerk considering she goads the guy into going to the top of the line to fix it mere moments after the storm ended.  Gee… I wonder if anything is gonna go wrong…

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“I hate Mondays!!”     “It’s actually Tuesday.”     “WHY ARE YOU CORRECTING HIM!?  CALL AN AMBULANCE!!”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (PROLOGUE)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

You are about to enter another recap series.  A series not of anime or ponies, but of network television at the start of the twenty-first century.  A journey into the early roles of well-known actors today.  Next stop, something super cheesy and firmly a product of its time!  You are about to enter…

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Don’t know what this is?  Well it’s something I haven’t seen in a REALLY long time and yet has still left an impression on me.  I figure it was time to share the joy (or pain depending on how it holds up) that this show has brought me!  But first, we could use a little history lesson.

Portrait of a man who’s amazing hair and clipped speaking pattern somehow changed the world

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Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone ran from 1959 to 1964 and is still one of the most important and ingeniously clever television shows of all time.  Before Serling got his big break on that series, he was already a legendary writer in television; having been nominated for four Emmys and winning three within a four year period.  Still, the idea of a television network investing in a science fiction series was neigh unheard of, and even with Serling’s massive clout it still took some doing before the series made it to television.  The show found its audience but was never a huge hit for the network and was cancelled after five seasons.  The impact of that show is STILL felt to this very day, and has influenced everyone from Gene Roddenberry, Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick; hell, ANYONE who makes science fiction television and movies owes something to this show and the legacy it left behind.  That’s not the show I’m going to recap though.

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