A Journey into a Wondrous Land

I can't remember the first time I saw "The Twilight Zone," but I do know that I have been hooked since a very young age. I have always loved to be scared, I love horror films, and I love the strange and odd and supernatural. Watching the Twilight Zone when I was younger and seeing some of the really creepy ones, the ones that gave me goosebumps, staying up late at night in the dark, suspending my beliefs for a half an hour and taking that trip, man those were great times. I have four VHS tapes full of episodes, which is about 16 hours, I think. I haven't watched them in years. After seeing the same ones, and remembering the twist at the end, over and over, it does get a little old. But we recently got a satellite dish, and it comes with a DVR. So I set it to record every episode on the Sci-Fi channel. Almost every day I have one or two new episodes to watch, many of them ones that I have never seen before, or do not have on tape. Some of them are not so good. Some are downright cheesy. But I love it. Richard Matheson, Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont wrote some amazing stories. And there were some other writers as well. I have a book of short stories from the show. I also have a book called "The Twilight Zone Companion," a gift from my dear friend April many years ago. In it is a written account of every single episode, with tons of info about the writers and directors, etc. There are so many things to love about the show. The creepy music. Rod smoking his cigarette in every intro. It's comforting, the familiarity of it. I love the creative camera shots, the black and white, and remembering that these were made about 50 years ago, and are still so brilliant. There's always some really cheesy special effects, a lame flying saucer, aliens from outer space with horrible masks. In several episodes, astronauts land on what appears to be another planet, or an asteroid. Like "I Shot an Arrow into the Air," "Probe 7 Over and Out," "People are Alike All Over," "The Little People," just to name a few. Then there are the ones where people go back in time. And ones with people that turn out to be ghosts, or are dead but don't realize it. And the ones with inanimate objects that have magical properties. I mean, how creepy was it when Talking Tina turned her head and said "I'm going to kill you," to that little girl's dad? Or when the dummy came to life? Or the hitchhiker that followed Nan all the way across the country? Or when little Anthony said, "You've been a very bad man!" And nobody can forget William Shatner seeing the gremlin from the window of the airplane on "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Has he gone insane, or is it real? I love those kind of stories. To me, life always has those little ironic twists in it.Just being able to see some new episodes and keep them for whenever the mood strikes me is worth the price of having the satellite dish.