Anthology – 002 – Mr. Denton on Doomsday/The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine (The Twilight Zone Season 1)

~ Matt Hurt

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This week, Matt reviews and analyzes episodes 3 and 4 from The Twilight Zone’s first season: Mr. Denton on Doomsday & The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine.

Tweet me your thoughts on the podcast and The Twilight Zone itself @ObsessiveViewer. You can also reach me on Anthology’s Facebook Page, email me at Matt(at)ObsessiveViewer(dot)com, or call and leave a voicemail for the show: (317) 762-6099.

Runtime: 49:18

Direct Download Link: http://traffic.libsyn.com/anthologypod/AP2.mp3

Stream it here: http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/3716787

Timestamps

  • Introduction – 0:34
  • Mr. Denton on Doomsday – 2:08
  • Obsessive Viewer Promo – 26:27
  • The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine – 27:30
  • Outro – 47:03

Show Notes

4 thoughts on “Anthology – 002 – Mr. Denton on Doomsday/The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine (The Twilight Zone Season 1)”

  1. I enjoyed Mr. Denton on Doomsday, I enjoyed it more than the second episode that’s for sure. Anyway my first thought when watching this was that Blazing Saddles must have parodied this character in the form of The Waco Kid. I just watched Blazing Saddles last weekend, and their stories are pretty much identical: A gunman used to be the best in the west, has a run-in with a young kid (in Blazing Saddles, the kid is significantly younger and played for comedy rather than tragedy), becomes a drunk. However I couldn’t find any reference to the Twilight Zone when looking up Blazing Saddles. Weird!

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    1. Hey Steve! Thanks for commenting.

      Its funny, I didn’t make the connection between Denton’s back story and Blazing Saddles at all and then a few days ago I listened to another Twilight Zone podcast (The Twilight Pwn) and they mentioned it. It actually kind of blew my mind and makes me want to revisit Blazing Saddles.

      I wonder if it’s a direct reference on Mel Brooks’ part or maybe this type of back story was a cliche of the Western genre back then. They are remarkably similar.

      Unrelated, but I just found out Gig Young (Martin Sloan in TZ’s Walking Distance) was originally cast as The Waco Kid but was fired for being drunk to the point of nearly collapsing on the first day of shooting. Kinda sad, given his drinking problem and everything.

      By the way, the more I read/hear of people’s reactions to One for the Angels the more I’m convinced I’m the only one who liked it. Haha.

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      1. Really? I thought One For the Angels was OK. Not my favourite so far (I’ve watched 4 episodes…It’s a toss-up between Where Is Everyone and Denton), but I liked it. I think I just really enjoyed the way Death was portrayed. I figured the whole “pitch to save the girl’s life” was coming as soon as I read the episode description. Actually so far I’ve pretty much got the direction each episode has gone in, and I think that speaks to how much influence The Twilight Zone has had on popular culture to this day.

        One thing I was going to say about Mr. Denton and forgot; it really wasn’t a subtle episode, what with the close-ups on Fate at the beginning of the episode when Denton gets a gun. But I feel like that’s one of the constraints of the half-hour format. I wonder if it would have been a more subtle episode had it been an hour long.

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      2. I definitely about The Twilight Zone’s influence on popular culture. Off the top of my head, I know the endings a handful of iconic TZ episodes I’ll get to later in this podcast project. I know these solely because of references in pop culture.

        I see what you mean about One for the Angels. I really enjoyed the interplay between Lew Bookman and Death in that episode. You can definitely tell where it’s heading, but I think the two actors pulled it off well.

        It’s funny, a few episodes after One for the Angels is Escape Clause. Which has something of a similar story but I didn’t connect to it as much because I didn’t like the central character the way I liked Lew Bookman.

        I agree with you on the lack of subtlety. This is still fairly early in the show’s run, so I’m curious if Serling just needed to find his groove.

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