Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-17 (Sunday)

On 3/18/2024 6:07 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

 What did you watch?
 

The Twilight Zone S4E06 'Death Ship' - DVR
Three astronauts discover the wreckage of a ship identical to their own on an unexplored planet.  With Jack Klugman.  (Comcast)
An interplanetary expedition from Earth finds an exact duplicate of their ship and themselves crashed on the planet they were surveying. Should they stay or risk taking off and crashing?
Trivia: The spaceship E-89, is the same miniature prop that was originally created as the saucer-shaped United Planets Cruiser C-57D for the 1956 MGM science fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956). The external set of the ship and its staircase, and the crew uniforms, are also from the same film. "The Twilight Zone" was able to make extensive use of props and costumes created for "Forbidden Planet" (including Robby The Robot) thanks to the fact that it was regularly filmed at MGM Studios, which kept all these items in storage in its prop department for many years.
This episode takes place in 1997.
Of the three main actors, Jack Klugman (Captain Ross) was the only one who lived to see the actual 1997.
The emblem the flight crew wears on their chest pockets is the same emblem the flight crew in the later episode, On Thursday We Leave for a Home, wears on their caps.
Some of the score was taken from Jerry Goldsmith's music used in Back There (1961).
According to "Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Vol. 1", the author of both the source story and its television adaptation claimed that it "was my first attempt to write a 'standard' science fiction story, because at the time I was simply trying to sell as many stories as I could. I just got the idea that what if these guys went down to investigate a crash ship and went in and saw themselves dead. I had to extend the idea by having the captain present all sorts of possibilities as to why it was happening. I thought the last line was very good - 'The Flying Dutchman takes to the universe.' I don't know when the last line occurred to me, but that's what the whole concept was, basically. And they made a pretty nice Twilight Zone out of it, too. Again, writing this story in the early fifties, 1997 was, to me, the distant future."
The only equipment each of them carries to check the crashed ship is a flashlight. If humans evolved to undergo interplanetary exploration it would make sense to have specialized equipment.
The Twilight Zone S4E07 'Jess-Belle' - DVR
A girl (Anne Francis) strikes a bargain with a witch to win a young man's heart.  With James Best, Jeanette Nolan.
Appalachian beauty Jess-Belle can't bear to lose the object of her passion to the local rich girl, so she turns to the local witch for aid. The results bring unexpected and tragic consequences.
Trivia: This haunting love story originally aired on Valentine's Day in 1963.
This is the only TZ episode not to feature a closing narration. It instead featured a poem.
What Did You Watch?
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I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky dirty old man.