I was watching some of the old Twilight Zone episodes the other day (the Sci-Fi Channel was having a Fourth of July Twilight Zone marathon), and once again a certain familiar feeling began to creep up on me. The Twilight Zone is without a doubt one of my favorite series, and I know just about every episode. And yet, when push comes to shove, I really don’t like most of them! Sure, there are the great classic episodes, like And When the Sky Was Opened, The After-Hours, The Hitchhiker, and Mirror Image, along with a few that I moderately liked. But I could easily do without the vast majority of them!
Looking at many of my favorite series, musical artists, and writers, I’ve come to the same conclusion: with very few exceptions, I can quite easily dispense with a large part of the body of work of many of them! I like reading Stephen King and count his Pet Sematary, The Mist, It, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, and Thinner among my all-time favorites. But much of what this great writer has produced simply doesn’t resonate with me (including Rose Madder, the book I’m currently plodding through). Some of the material put out by the late great sci-fi writers Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke is downright embarrassing to read. The original Star Trek series had some unforgettable episodes like The City On the Edge of Forever, The Corbomite Maneuver, The Immunity Syndrome, and The Doomsday Machine. But sometimes I’d tune in and they would be pathetic! The late New York-based humorist Jean Shepherd (author and narrator of A Christmas Story) used to have a nightly radio show on which he would do an hour-long monologue. Back in 1975, I was an avid listener. But looking back, most of his shows seemed a little lame, although from time to time he would come out with a “winner”. The musical artists that I extol the most, with the notable exception of the Beatles, have come out with a lot of mediocre (putting it mildly) material over the years. Of course, if you include the stuff put out by the individual members of the Fab Four after they broke up, even they fit this pattern (with a vengeance)!
I am currently struggling with confidence issues about writing fiction. And yet, when I look around me at the “cream of the crop” in the arts, I see some glaring unevenness in the quality of their output. And it gives me a sense of relief! I think I just need to get off my butt and produce my product, for better or for worse!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Of course, which episodes are best and which are fluff is in the eye of the beholder, as with anything else. My favourite Twilight Zone episodes are (some overlap with yours):
ReplyDeleteAnd When the Sky Was Opened
The Hitchhiker
Time Enough At Last
What You Need
A Stop at Willoughby
A Penny for Your Thoughts
Twenty Two
The Silence
Nothing in the Dark
The Hunt
To Serve Man
Living Doll
Ring-a-Ding Girl
and, of course, Eye of the Beholder
"Five Characters in Search of an Exit" is one of the most acclaimed, and it was OK by me, but not a favourite. Still, TZ is one of the best of all TV serieses (except for the season of hour-long episodes from early 1963; the full-hour format didn't really work). And it's fun to see all the actors we knew better later, who appeared in the TZ, including a couple of appearances by Jack Klugman, some by Ivan Dixon (who always seemed to be called when they needed a black man), Ron Howard, Billy Mumy, Sydney Pollack, Charles Bronson, Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Agnes Moorehead, Roddy McDowall, Donna Douglas, William Shatner, and a very young-looking and clean-cut Dennis Hopper.
Original Star Trek series favourites, for me:
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Conscience of the King
The Return of the Archons
The City on the Edge of Forever
Return to Tomorrow
Wink of an Eye
The Cloud Minders
All Our Yesterdays
In any case, yes: if you never try it, you certainly will never succeed. Go for it!
Ah yes, The Return of the Archons! I should have included that one with my favorites. It really exposed the phony stylized speech that different groups (commonly religious groups) employ among themselves ("Peace and tranquility to you"). And how those who violate the etiquette (i.e. speak normally) are shunned ("You are NOT of the body!").
ReplyDeleteTo me, the absolutely worst Star Trek episode ever made was the one (the title escapes me; I think I tried to forget it) about the Yangs and the Coms. I can't remember, when I first saw the Yangs bringing the American flag into the room (supposedly on a distant planet deep within the galaxy), whether I was groaning, laughing, or both!
"The Omega Glory", written by Roddenberry. Yes, that was a bad one. "E pleb nista," and all that. Shatner overacted worse on that than on most of them.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I disliked all of the ones where other worlds had taken on aspects of Earth — "A Piece of the Action", "Bread and Circuses", "Patterns of Force". I thought they all were weak stories, and it was sort of a cheap way out for the writers.