Twilight Zone

Another New Year's Eve, another New Year's Day, another Twilight Zone marathon.

For the first time ever this classic television show from the early sixties is looking dated and silly to me. And I was one who looked forward to Friday nights at 10:00 so I could watch each brand new episode on CBS-TV and get scared to death.

One of my favorites has always been the episode where the world is burning up. The main characters are an artist and her neighbor across the hall. A deranged man gets into the artist's apartment (even though the neighbor had clearly left her door wide open)looking for water. The man is wearing a jacket. A jacket!! He's dripping with sweat, but he never makes a move to take off the jacket. It's so hot the thermometer ruptures when it tries to register higher than 120 degrees, and the paint on the artist's pictures melts, but this guy keeps his jacket on.

Then there are the three astronauts who think they have crash landed on an asteroids. They're dressed as if they've just come from a Civil War Reenactment. One even wears a jaunty little cap. Of course they have actually crash landed back to earth.

The acting was really abominable on these shows. Were our standards a lot lower 45 years ago?

Well, the marathon isn't over yet. I have a lot more episodes to watch ... ... ...