Close to Home ·
Season 1 ·
Episode 21 ·
Aired May 12, 2006
When a famous baseball player is accused of murdering his mistress by throwing her off an eleventh-floor balcony and a high-priced lawyer comes to town from California, and the only witness is the alcoholic sister of the deceased, the team knows they have their hands full.
But things are looking up when they find out that the dead sister was pregnant with the ball player’s baby and this isn’t his first affair. The problem is getting one of the former girls to talk, since they’ve all been bought off in one way or another. Slowly the case is built, but in the end the jury lets the fame do the talking and while he doesn’t walk away unscathed, the athlete doesn’t go to jail either.
The Twilight Zone ·
Season 3 ·
Episode 19 ·
Aired January 26, 1962
Old Man Simpson decides to take his dog out for some hunting after dinner, against the advice of Old Lady Simpson. They’re just shy of fifty years together, so he can do that (Old Man and Old Lady Simpson, not Old Man Simpson and his dog). But when the dog jumps into the river after the raccoon, and Old Man Simpson goes in after him, it’s the last hunt either of them will take.
Apparently being dead isn’t quite as traumatic as you would think, though, as both Old Man Simpson and his dog wake up the next morning on the bank of the river and think that they just slept it off. But no one seems to recognize them. Until they get to the gate of heaven, that is, when St. Peter gets ready to let them in – but Old Man Simpson won’t go unless he can bring in his dog. Since he can’t take his dog, he decides to keep walking a spell (an emotion I can understand).
As it turns out, that first gate wasn’t exactly heaven – that’s on down the road a ways, and when he gets there, dogs are most certainly welcome. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The Twilight Zone ·
Season 3 ·
Episode 18 ·
Aired January 19, 1962
If you’re going to be drinking, you should probably do so at home. And if you wake up next to a dead guy, don’t take his shoes. Because they just might end up taking you over. At least, that’s what happened on this episode. Dane had been living the good life, but his partner decided he wanted it all for himself, so Dane had to go.
When he did, the drunk took his shoes, but the shoes took the drunk. All the way back to Dane’s partner’s office, where he almost got the best of him. But in the end, the drunk ended up right back where Dane was, and another drunk got a pair of shoes, where the circle started all over again. Maybe this time it will end a little differently.
Dirty Jobs ·
Season 1 ·
Episode 2 ·
Aired August 2, 2005
Sewer Inspector. By its very title, you know this episode won’t be pretty, and it isn’t. While Micro-Algae Man is perhaps the dirtiest episode of the series, this is easily the nastiest. It starts in the sewer. The sewer of San Francisco, with a few million cockroaches and some rats as well. If these hundred year old sewers aren’t inspected regularly and the mortar not applied to repair them, they will collapse, taking the streets along with them, and that wouldn’t be pretty.
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The Twilight Zone ·
Season 3 ·
Episode 15 ·
Aired December 29, 1961
Albert Salmi (Execution from Season 1) plays Causarano, a war-weary sergeant who just found out he has a new officer to replace the last one. This new one is a young buck, too, eager to head into battle and kill some of the enemy, only he doesn’t seem to realize that those are men over there, too, and that they are wounded and tired, just like the men under his command. That’s all about to change.
When the new officer bends to pick up his binoculars, he stands back up and all of a sudden he’s transported back in time and he’s switched sides. Now he’s looking at the same cave, but now it’s full of wounded American soldiers and he’s trying to convince his officer not to go in and kill them, and that’s all it takes. When he finally does pick up those binoculars, he is jerked back to the present and that momentary lapse is what is required for the call to come in that the bomb has been dropped and he’s not supposed to charge the cave after all.
Keep an eye out for Leonard Nimoy in a small role as one of the soliders.
The Twilight Zone ·
Season 3 ·
Episode 14 ·
Aired December 22, 1961
An army major, a ballerina, a hobo, a bagpipe player and a clown find themselves at the bottom of a cylinder. They don’t know how they got there, they don’t know one another and they don’t really even know who they are. They just know they need to work together to get out. It sounds like Cube with another shape.
So the major slowly brings the others around and they start to climb. A bell rings and they fall back down. So they climb again. This time the major wraps his sword around a handmade rope and he makes it to the top, only to fall outside, and the others are left inside. Then we see that he’s in the snow.
Finally a hand reaches to pick him up… and it turns out that the cylinder is a collection point for dolls. The bell is a person ringing the bell to attract attention. And the major is just one of the dolls that has been collected, and now he’s being put back into the bin. Not quite Cube after all. A little slow, but a bit morbid, really. I enjoyed it.