Entering the Fifth Dimension: A Twilight Zone Podcast

Joined by one of our listeners, Rick, this month we look at one of the most highly regarded Twilight Zone episodes of all time: "Eye of the Beholder."

Darrell has a lot of books and DVD’s about the show. Robert reads everything he can find on the Net that is related to the show. Rick, my friends has Rick—which means an encyclopedic mind that can rattle off a list of episodes that didn‘t originally air plus he knows nearly everything else there is to know about the cast member’s previous and latter work. IMDB, Rick is calling and needs you to cite him for everything you know.

Seriously though, what a pleasure it was talking to Rick! Please listen in and send us your feedback or join us down the road for a podcast episode. Just be ready because Rick will already know everything you‘ve ever said on the subject and that’s fine by us.

All three of us agreed this is one of the best episodes there is. As the show points out it isn’t right to separate others for being different, but you can‘t help place this one high on the shelf of meaningful stories. Enjoy!

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These 3 pairs of boots were made for walking the walk and the distance to a weird stroll down your hometown’s memory lane. Feedback caller extraordinaire, Bradley, sits in on his favorite classic episode. Robert Mr. Magoo‘d his observations again as he missed details, and Darrell and Bradley easily noticed every small intricately placed mirror angle and shading. Bradley dazzled us with theories about alternate realities and Robert just plain got dizzy keeping pace and settled for the view the episode is just a simple fun tale. Listen in and let us know how you felt about it. We‘d love to hear/read your thoughts.

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We really picked two amazing Jack Klugman Twilight Zone episodes in which each had its own version of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. One episode was darker than the other, but Klugman's phenomenal acting was a bright, dichotomous dark star. In "A Passage For Trumpet" we explore the dark side of creativity and have a meta discussion of what is real when you perform inebriated versus when you perform sober. Clearly, Robert wished he would have had buckets of disinfecting alcohol to clean off double licked mouthpieces. And People, Please, Do Not Thump, or Tap a trumpet mouthpiece! But in "In Praise of Pip," Klugman's character gets his wish to die instead of his son. Problem is he is already dying, but Klugman's performance doesn't risk dying and so does that brilliant performance once again of child actor Billy Mummy. Simply put, Klugman is right up there with Shatner, Meredith, Hoffman, Brando, and Hackman as an actor's actor. Just a fantastically intense actor. As always, we invite you to contact us with your thoughts. Thanks, and Enjoy!

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Yes, we finally got to a couple classic episodes we aren’t crazy about. That’s ok, IMDB ratings seemed to like them more than us, but for us wasn’t clear to why the TZ that is so famous for pointing out socio-historical injustice missed the mark in the time travel episode back to the battle of Little BigHorn. Only one line in the entire script that was positive about Native Americans. Nothing about their inhumane treatment up to either of the story’s timelines. And in the other episode, it seemed too full of an incredibly accurate portrayal of a calm flight crew in a TZ sound barrier time loop, but no mention of “what if” the plane landed in the wrong time line—what then?

It was good SyFy science but without the conscience normally found embedded in a thought provoking tale. But once again, even when the TZ may not deliver everything we want, it starts the conversation and we fill in the blanks and that took us into a fun conversation about our own “what if’s” and Robert revealing something he learned about his childhood that may have stunned Darrell for life. There you go. A ho-hum TZ Episode talk that alters your life. Just another night with ENTERING THE FIFTH DIMENSION.

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Are perceptions that toys (specifically human-looking dolls) are scary and sometimes evil a right of passage for childish thoughts? Are all of us born with those perceptions ingrained in our DNA? Do we perceive a toy to be threatening purely by the way it just sits on a shelf and looks at us with a blank, inanimate stare? Or, are toys merely a lifeless mirror we animate with our imaginative thoughts and amplify how we see the bad and evil around us and imbue them into a benign talisman in which we are to blame for it now being scary? Does a mean human deserve to be killed by an evil doll if he deserves to die?

The TWILIGHT ZONE surely addresses these concepts with two of its most recognizable episodes. Come listen in and check out how Darrell’s insights move Robert from “ho-hum” to “I can’t wait to watch these again” attitude.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback, but just don’t ask us to accept signing your Poltergeist clown memorabilia. That clown was nuts!

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In two classic, albeit thematically loosely connected episodes by a Salvation Army collector’s Christmas bell, we see a story of one man’s salvation is found because he yearns so painfully for his existence to impact those meek people who desperately need help, and we see another story of a group of “people” who question their very odd, trapped existence and we see there is no hope for them anywhere.

Darrell and Robert have a spirited discussion, no pun intended, in this our 30th podcast episode of Entering The Fifth Dimension. The amazing Art Carney makes us want Santa to be real and the purity of Christmas to be protected, while at the same time we despair for the inequalities of the human condition and are embarrassed at the commercialization of Christmas. And then the other episode with a Clown, a Soldier, a Ballerina, a Hobo and a Scottish piper has forced those characters to question why they are trapped and may very well be that way for the rest of their bizarre lives that needs nothing to stay alive other than an answer to what they really are.

What we end up seeing is the juxtaposition of an episode that delivers Christmas and all of its gifts and toys and then another episode that makes us feel like we may be cruel to those very toys and gifts when they are abandoned. Is Rod telling us (unintentionally because these stories were filmed nearly one year apart) we are all toys and we have no power in our lives, or is he telling us as adults we ignore our childish wonderment and it is therefore a type of cruelty?

We are going to leave that “thought present” (a new phrase by Robert) for you to ponder as you watch these episodes and listen to our comments. As always we’d love it if you would write or call in your thoughts. Happy holidays everyone...Merry Christmas!!

Check out the SyFy New Years Day Twilight Zone Marathon Schedule.

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Martians, three-eyed short order cooks from Venus, and a little sci-fi nerd named Tommy wreak havoc in this month’s classic look back edition of the podcast. These episodes contain the one thing all great stories must contain to make them great—universal themes. These two episodes highlight the lowlight of the human condition that is the tendency to forgo reason in favor of attacking what we think we immediately see is the cause of a problem rather than seeking further the answers to that which scares us because we don’t understand it. Human imagination can be a wonderful thing, but left untempered by grounded cause and effect reasoning our imaginations can run wild and dream up grave thoughts with mob-like reactions to those thoughts. Robert and Darrell examine the universal theme that mankind is flawed, but share their own stories of how mankind does, in fact excel beyond those universal limitations.

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Here we are. Two tales of one actor as two different bookworms. Darrell and Robert take on the great, classic Burgess Meredith episodes and answer once and for all if Robert is or isn’t related to Lynn Venable, the original story writer of TIME ENOUGH AT LAST. That episode, adapted for the show by Rod Serling, is easily identified as one of the most recognizable stories not just for THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but it is arguably one of the most recognizable television episodes of any show of all time. The amazing thing though about this podcast episode is our guys just might have liked THE OBSOLETE MAN even more than TIME ENOUGH AT LAST. Listen in and share your thoughts if you’d like to join the conversation.

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Before we loved them as Spock, Scotty, and Sulu, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and George Takei all found their way into The Twilight Zone. Leonard Nimoy appeared in the season 3 episode, "A Quality of Mercy," James Doohan appeared in the season 4 episode, "Valley of the Shadow," and George Takei appeared in the season 5 episode, "The Encounter." While Nimoy and Doohan played smaller roles in their respective episodes, Takei took one of two lead roles in his feature and brought astandout performance that still brings apowerfulmoral lesson fortoday. Two of these three episodes deal with the impact of WWII, a burden understood deeply by Rod Serling. We hope you enjoy this month's episode as we return to the classic series.

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"You Might Also Like" brings us to the end of the second season. 20 episodes total for two seasons for this modern version of the Twilight Twilight Zone to establish itself. So, we guess the question is then, “did it, in fact, establish itself?” The best answer we can give is we really hope there is a third season.

Let’s take the 10th episode of season two. For Robert, this episode unintentionally mirrors season one’s 10th episode. Season one’s last episode went for broke and it was awesome. Season two went for broke in the first half of the episode but then went “meh” the rest of the way...at least that's the way we saw it. Let’s still hope for a season three. The show is overall worth keeping establishing itself.

Thanks for joining us!! And keep checking in monthly as we cover the classic episodes. Oh, My!! Take care everyone!

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