Customer Rating:  
Summary: Paling Shadows
Comment: With its third season, The Twilight Zone was beginning to get restless. Rod Serling had so much input and influence on the first two seasons that his fatigue was beginning to show. Still, Season Three does feature some excellent episodes.
'A Game of Pool', in which a pool shark (the excellent Jack Klugman) has to defeat a game legend or lose his life, is tightly constructed drama; 'It's A Good Life' is one of the all-time classics, featuring Billy Mumy as a little boy in control of a whole town; 'Deaths-Head Revisited' is an extremely powerful tale of retribution, starring Oscar Beregi and Joseph Schildkraut; 'The Midnight Sun' is a beautifully produced episode in every way with an outstanding musical score.
Other episodes such as 'Five Characters In Search of An Exit', 'Nothing in the Dark', 'To Serve Man' (with one of the most memorable endings in TV history), 'Little Girl Lost', 'Person or Persons Unknown', 'The Trade-Ins', 'The Dummy', and 'The Changing of the Guard' are also high-ranking episodes.
The problem with this season is that the bad episodes really rancour. In the first two seasons, these had been rare and quite forgettable, but in this season the bad episodes stick in your mind. 'The Arrival' is a complete cop-out, 'The Shelter' is pompously written, 'The Passersby' is predictable, 'Showdown with Rance McGrew' is boring. It's sad to think that many of the shows could have been much better. 'The Hunt', 'A Quality of Mercy', 'Dead Man's Shoes', Kick the Can', 'A Piano in the House' all showed much potential, but unfortunately a lot of this is not met.
And unless you're a collector, don't bother with what is surely one of the worst Twilight Zone's ever, 'The Gift'. It's difficult to find a good word to say about it.
In retrospect, Season Three contains some of the shows finest episodes scattered thinly, and it's nowhere near as bad as Season Five. This represented the end of an era. After this season, producer Buck Houghton left to pursue other projects, and Serling's involvement in the show dramatically reduced. With Season Four, Twilight Zone started short-lived hour-long stories.
Despite the misses, Season Three is an essential part of any Twilight Zone fans collection.
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