Twilight Zone episodes that broke your heart
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smileyking1975 — 11 years ago(January 27, 2015 09:00 AM)
Time Enough at Last, Nothing in the dark, Back There, and Mute. I just wondered what made the woman and Ilsa (played by Ann Jillian) cry like that!
Burgess Meredith's voice can be heard in The Twilight Zone: The Movie, introducing each "episode". -
sage_rose2003 — 18 years ago(December 31, 2007 07:54 PM)
oh yeah that one! i don't know if break your heart is the words for most. intensely freak or creep you out, question the meaning of life, or become incredibly fearful of something like solitude or death might be the right terms for most episodes
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mjlwriter — 18 years ago(January 01, 2008 07:57 AM)
I think a lot of 'em really toy with your emotions. I saw part of the marathon yesterday, and "A Stop at Willoughby" (which did strike a chord when I saw it in my past) once again made me think I think we all can associate with the stresses of life he encounters and the fantasies we employ to relieve this stress. In this case, the fantasy went too far Not sure how to feel about the episode Should we feel good about it, in that the man now "lives" in Willougby or is it just a cautionary tale.
On another note, I think the Twilight Zone is to TV what the Beatles are to music. One winning episode after another! -
richardnixon38 — 18 years ago(January 01, 2008 02:52 PM)
I have been watching the twilight marathon since midnight
The one in particular that breaks my heart is "The Lonely" with Jack warden who plays James Corry whose is stranded on a asteroid as punishment for a crime he commited in self defence. Then he gets a female robot from captain allenby, named alicia who seems almost life like, then he falls in love, then she gets terminated because James gets a pardon, she is to heavy to take on the spaceship back to earth and gets blasted.
"She's not a robot! She's a woman!" -
Cooke_Fann — 18 years ago(January 01, 2008 10:56 PM)
What about I think it's called "Changing of the gaurd" Where a proffesor is going to kill himself because he feels he has not made a difference in the world and then all of his former students who have passed away tell him how much He meant in their lives . Absolute tear jerker
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xtrie_hugger08x — 18 years ago(January 08, 2008 11:09 PM)
One for me is I Shot an Arrow into the Air (or something like that) where the astronauts believe they have landed on an asteroid, and one of them kills off his comrades for food water - only to discover later on that they'd been on earth the whole time.
The Midnight Sun always stands out in my mind as well, where the earth is said to be moving closer and closer to the sun. I was so relieved when it was revealed the entire sequence was dreamed by the girl due to a fever, only to become even more distraught when the characters revealed it was just the opposite - the earth is moving farther from the sun.
Time Enough at Last always, always gets me. Burgess Meredith just gave a stellar performance.
And the episode To Serve Manjust a brilliant piece of work. Who saw that coming? And my heart ached for the poor de-coder, who thought he was going to paradise and ended up a prisoner.
Ah, they're all just so good! -
jimrobbins — 18 years ago(March 17, 2008 12:57 PM)
In my opinion, it was The Long Morrow, starring Robert Lansing and Mariette Hartley in one of her first major roles on TV. Lansing plays an astronaut about to embark on a 40 year mission to another planet in a distant galaxy,
in suspended animation ( hibernation).
Just before departure he falls in love with a beautiful space agency technician, played
with excellence by Ms. Hartley. Promising to wait for him, Hartley tells him she will be the little old lady in a shawl waiting for him at the gate when he lands. Lansing takes himself out of hibernation shortly after liftoff, and ages
so that he is about 70 years old when he lands. Upon de-briefing he finds that his love had placed herself in hibernation after the launch and is still very young and beautiful. If this episode doesn't break your heart, nothing will.
Coincidentally, both Robert Lansing and Mariette Hartley later guest-starred on
Star Trek ( the original series ). Lansing's episode "Assignment Earth" could have been made into a pilot movie for NBC ( it also starred a young Terri Garr ). Mariette Hartley guest-starred in "All Our Yesterdays", with Spock
( Leonard Nimoy ) and Dr. McCoy ( DeForrest Kelley ) fighting over her affection ( Ms Hartley played an exiled ice princess ).
jimrobbins -
francodelrosario — 17 years ago(April 15, 2008 11:23 AM)
I admit, I really haven't watched a lot of TZ episodes (around 30-40 episodes for different seasons, so far). But I'm really getting addicted to the series! Rod Serling is awesome!
Night of the Meek
Department Store Santa is my hero! His monologue early on in the film (about how, if he drank enough, he could imagine that he was really Santa and the children in the streets were really happy little elves) nearly moved me to tears! I'm glad it ended happily.
Elegy
When the astronauts realized they had been poisoned, it almost broke my heart. And then the old man said something like: "Where there are men, there is war". Really made me think. To see those astronauts frozen in their place inside the rocket like the rest of the people was really bittersweet
Nothing in the Dark
She was so terrifyingly afraid of death but her trust for a nice, handsome young man, (who, in a twist, had actually been Death) who was so willing to listen to her, overcame that fear. Both had been so caring, that it became so poignant to see her leave like that. Definitely a classic TZ tearjerker, if there ever was one!
Stopover at a Quiet Town
A couple wakes up one morning to discover that nobody exsists in this strange, realistic, new town (much like the plot of the very firt TZ episode,
Where is Everybody?
), and nothing was "real" (food was made of plastic, phone wasn't connected, trees weren't actually planted to the ground). At the end, we find out that they had become "pets" to a strange, giant human creature from another planet and this "town" was actually just a giant playset (think, dollhouse). Not meant to be tragic as it was to be though-provoking and supernatural. But I just realized after watching it, what a dull, meaningless exsistence this couple will live from now on. No other human friends. And how would they be fed? Like pets? Made me very sad.
Walking Distance
The dialogue between the father and the son from 18 years ago toward the end of the film was truly heart-breaking. Must-see episode in my opinion. Nuff said. -
Mermaid_Maiden — 17 years ago(January 01, 2009 07:08 PM)
Probably some spoilers coming up:::
"In Praise of Pip" is so sad! The guy finds out his son has died and realizes what a lousy father he was. Then Pip reappears as a little boy and they have a nice time together at the carnival, but then Pip has to leave and the father begs to have his soul traded for his son's! So sad!
"Night of the Meek" always gets me. It's very moving. I feel a tug on my heart when he says something like "some day I want to see the meek inherit the earth" (don't remember the exact line). He's a drunk but he just wants kids to be happy and have a nice Christmas. I always watch this one when its on TV.
"Time Enough at Last" I'm always yelling at the TV telling him not to bend down for that book at the end. I feel so bad when he breaks his glasses and he's sitting thereda0 alone with tears saying "It's not fair!"
These are just the ones I can think of at the moment. There are, obviously, other sad or moving episodes. -
sawyertom — 17 years ago(January 06, 2009 10:58 AM)
Changing of the Guard is the one for me. I hope a lot of people and not just teachers do not think that way come retirement, because somebody has touched someone in someway to change their lives. Life isn't a waste if you'r ehappy in what you do and have people who care about you.