Twilight Zone Zone Episode 11: “Deaths-Head Revisited” and "The Midnight Son"

Every week on The Twilight Zone Zone,we go down Donald Liebenson’s list The 26 Episodes We Talk About When We Talk About The Twilight Zone from Vanity Fair, chronologically by release date and compare two episodes and choose which one to recommend. This week we watched “Deaths-Head Revisited” and "The Midnight Son"

 

The Obsolete Man”/“Deaths-Head Revisited”

A tie: these are two Serling-penned episodes whose messages feel distressingly relevant. In the first, Burgess Meredith stars as a librarian deemed obsolete by the totalitarian state and sentenced to death, though he gets to choose his manner of execution. In the second, a former SS captain returns to Dachau, where he encounters a former prisoner. These episodes are Serling at his most impassioned. When it comes to ideologies that fail to recognize the rights and dignity of man, or a race determined to “turn the Earth into a graveyard,” metaphor alone won’t cut it.

“The Midnight Sun”

The Earth has changed its elliptical orbit and is headed toward the sun. In an abandoned New York apartment building, two women try to stave off their fate and retain their humanity. This is one of the most viscerally felt Twilight Zone episodes. You jump when a precious can of fruit juice is accidentally dropped; you sweat when the power operating the air conditioning is shut off; and you melt like paint on a canvas as a thermometer shatters. And then comes the episode’s switcheroo, which is so, so cold.

There are many paths in life, but which one will you travel down in the Twilight Zone, Zone…

Host: Nic Hoffmann

Panel: Matthew and Daniel