October 14, 2024: The Twilight Zone rewatch continues with season 5, episodes 1-4!

Season 5, Episode 1, “In Praise of Pip”

This episode first aired September 27, 1963.

Surprisingly, this episode is only one of three to feature the immortal line “Submitted for your approval”.

This episode was a favorite of Serling’s daughter, Anne, who recognized several of the conversations she had had with her father growing up echoed in the script. Rod’s nickname for his daughter was Pop (not quite Pip) but the episode’s final image is apparently a message to her.

“In Praise of Pip” was the first American t.v. show to mention the Vietnam War.

The carnival scenes were shot at Pacific Ocean Park, an amusement park in Santa Monica, California.

Serling ended up choosing this episode over “The Last Night of a Jockey” as the season opener. He made the right call.

Jack Klugman makes his fourth and final TZ appearance while Billy Mumy makes his third and final appearance.

Art Carney was the first choice to play the part of Max Phillips, but he was unavailable.

This was a great looking episode and a wonderfully rendered, heartfelt story. Terrific performances all around, especially Connie Gilchrist’s portrayal of the sympathetic Mrs. Feeny. A great start to the show’s fifth and final season.

Season 5, Episode 2, “Steel”

This episode first aired October 4, 1963.

Richard Matheson adapted this script from his own short story. He considered this episode one of his favorites. It was one of the few times he actually visited set during the production of one of his scripts.

The Tucson Daily Citizen felt “Steel” offered: “a provocatively novel plot that counters unbelievability with a a sensible alternative to bloodshed.”

“Steel” was apparently the inspiration for the 2011 robot-boxing film “Real Steel” starring Hugh Jackman.

Chuck Hicks, who played the boxing robot Maynard Flash, was a champion boxer for Loyola and Navy. Reflecting back on this episode, he recalled: “I knew Lee Marvin for a long time and he was a real man and great guy. During the fight scenes while filming, I had two pieces of plastic over my eyes and I was pretty new to the business, so instead of putting little holes in them so I could have some air in there. I sweated and was just looking at a blur most of the time, and I ended hitting Lee a couple of times, but the tough Marine that he was never complained. He would say “Don’t worry about it Chuck, I know your problem.” Yeah, he was a drinker, but a real great man underneath the plastic and skin.”

Former Mae West bodyguard and pro welterweight boxer Johnny Idrisano helped coach the actors for the boxing sequences that were miles better than season 1’s “The Big Tall Wish”.

Lee Marvin returns for his second and final Twilight Zone appearance while Joe Mantell, who played Pole, also returns following his turn in season 2’s “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room”.

I thought this one was very good and felt the look of the robots and execution of the boxing sequences were quite well done. Also really liked Marvin’s Steel Kelly, a washed up gambler who still managed to elicit sympathy. Back-to-back solid episodes to kick off the show’s final season.

Season 5, Episode 3, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”

This episode first aired October 11, 1963.

Writer Richard Matheson said he was most pleased with Twilight Zone’s version of his short story – except for the gremlin. He’d conceived it as a dark, creepy and nearly-invisible humanoid figure. “But this thing,” he complained, “looked more like a panda bear.” Not all that surprising given that the gremlin was actually a woolly bear suit found in the MGM wardrobe department.

Matheson originally wanted to cast Patricia Breslin, who had played Shatner’s wife in the episode “Nick of Time”, as his wife in this episode.

Matheson claims the inspiration for this story came to him while on a flight: “I looked out and the clouds looked like snow banks.. And I thought “What if somebody saw somebody skiing out there?” I thinking about it more intensely, it would not make for a very scary story. So I put this thing on the wing. They had all these stories about gremlins during the war – so I used that as the basis for my story.”

William Shatner and fellow actor Edd Byrnes played a practical joke on director Richard Donner during a break in the filming of this episode. Donner was off set when he heard shouting. He rushed back to witness Shatner and Byrnes “fighting” on a portion of the set suspended 30 feet from the studio floor. Suddenly, he saw a body fall and hit the ground. Byrnes, still standing atop the raised set, shouted in anguish. Donner rushed over to what he assumed was Shatner’s body – only to hear laughter. Turns out it was an articulated dummy Shatner had tossed from above. Donner was amused but, in that moment, had feared the worst: “”Honestly, my first reaction was, ‘Don’t tell me I have to shoot the whole show over again.’”

This was one of six episodes Richard Donner directed for the series and the most difficult by far, with production slated for a mere three days reduced to only two days after the studio demanded use of the plane set. Recalled Donner: “Midway through the second day, the producer said we had a problem. He said “We have to finish today.” He said the feature division at MGM wanted to use the airplane and we had to be off. So we shot all night, finishing at 8 am the next morning. It was an incredible experience.”

William Shatner had fond memories of working with Donner: “Donner was a young wunderkind; it was the beginning of his career, and he did a great job. When we see each other today, we still talk about it. I wish I could do those episodes again, but that applies to most everything.”

This episode was remade for Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). The segment was directed by George Miller and John Lithgow played the William Shatner role. Shatner and Lithgow would reunite for an episode of Third Rock from the Sun (1996) in which both of their characters make mention of the fact that they were on an airplane that a gremlin tried to crash.

Boy, this one keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Shatner is terrific here, struggling to keep his cool before eventually erupting into a frenzied panic. One of the show’s very best episodes.

Season 5, Episode 4, “A Kind of Stopwatch”

This episode first aired October 18, 1963.

An early draft of the script featured an alternate ending After McNulty runs past a “frozen” person, the person turns to camera, smiles and winks. We recognize Potts who gave him the stopwatch at the bar.

One of only three episodes to feature the line, “Submitted for your approval” during Rod Serling’s opening intro.

This story was inspired by a book by John D. MacDonald, published a year earlier, in 1962 – “The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything”. The book was made into a movie, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything (1980).

In earlier drafts, Potts simply gives McNulty the device unprompted, but a producer suggested that Pots be a bit of a drunk “and maybe because of McNulty’s generosity in buying him a drink, he gives him the watch.”

Actor Richard Erdman, who played McNulty, recalled: “It was so frantic and I had so many lines to remember that I recall we would shoot a scene, we would refer to the script and shoot a few more lines, and then go back to the script again.”

The Simpsons spoofed this episode in a Treehouse of Horror segment, “Stop the World, I want to Goof Off” in which Bart and Millhouse find a stopwatch and freeze time only to find themselves frozen in time after breaking the watch. It then takes them 15 years to repair it.”

The premise here is a lot of fun and, overall, the episode makes for a very entertaining ride as one’s mind invariably goes to the countless things on could do with that stopwatch. Solid performances all around and another season 5 winner.

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