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 Obsolete Man” and “A Game of Pool”

“The Obsolete Man”

Burgess Meredith stars as a librarian deemed obsolete by the totalitarian state and sentenced to death, though he gets to choose his manner of execution. 

A sure-bet episode featuring two stellar performances by Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters, playing it straight and cool as the late “Fats” Brown, a champion pool player who takes Klugman’s Randolph Street pool jockey at his word when he says he would do anything for just one game against the dead legend. This episode boasts some great dialogue (“Nothing’s impossible; some things are less likely than others”), and sage observations about the risks needed to become a champion and the responsibilities of carrying on a legacy.

Host: Nic Hoffmann

Panel: Matthew, Jeremy and Daniel