The Twilight Zone Zone – Episode 8: “The Long Distance Call” and “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”

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 “The Long Distance Call” and “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”

“Long Distance Call”

You can explore the vast reaches of The Twilight Zone and not find an episode as profoundly messed up as this one. On her deathbed, a five-year-old boy’s grandmother bemoans how lonely she will be “far away,” and wishes aloud that her beloved Billy could go with her. Worst. Grandma. Ever.

“Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”

Take mysterious footprints leading away from a pond where an unidentified flying object has crashed, a snowbound diner, and six (or was that seven?) stranded bus passengers, and you’ve got yourself a “regular Ray Bradbury.” Which one of them is the monster from outer space? This entertaining episode plays like a supernatural William Saroyan play (complete with a colorful coot portrayed by Jack Elam), with one of the series’s most famous reveals.

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

Host: Nic Hoffmann

Panel: Matt and Daniel