Your 20 Favorite Episodes?, ***Deadline for tabulation: 2/2/08!***

We've been able to do polls with 20 poll options for quite a while, so I think we are due (if not overdue) for another favorite episode tabulation. Here's a link to the old tabulation that was based on people's top 10 lists, and here's one to the poll that grew out of it.

Some time after the ground hog either sees or doesn't see his shadow on February 2, 2008, I'm going to count the number of times that each episode is one of the first 20 that appears on each of these lists. (I think that's enough time to get enough lists to make the tabulation interesting.) The top twenty in that category will then go into a poll in the "Polls" section, and the poll will run indefinitely.

If there are ties that are necessary to break, they'll be broken by the percentage of times each episode appears in the top 19, excepting cases where people say their lists aren't in any particular order. If there are still ties, then they'll be broken by the percentage of times each episode is in listed in the top 18, excepting cases where people say their lists aren't in any particular order. And so on, and so on, and so on. Let me know if you have any questions. It's conceivable that I might have to think about the answers, but I will answer them, at the very latest, two weeks before Groundhog Day 2008.

Feel free to list more than twenty episodes or less than twenty, as the spirit moves you. But for the purposes of my tabulation, any episode listed 21st or later will not count. If you want to do your own tabulation with these same lists, but with a different way of counting points, you are perfectly welcome to do so; in fact, that would probably be pretty interesting. So far I've been the only one nuts enough to want to do a tabulation like this on the board, though. (Matt Cregg did a few large-scale tabulations for all visitors to his old Fifth Dimension site, of which this message board is a spinoff. One of those tabulations eventually got over 3000 ballots. Of course he had the aid of software, I'm pretty sure.)

My Top 20:

1. Kick The Can
2. Walking Distance
3. Time Enough At Last
4. The Dummy
5. The Changing Of The Guard
6. The After Hours
7. A Stop At Willoughby
8. Nick Of Time
9. Five Characters In Search Of An Exit
10. One for The Angels

Not in order yet:

Long Distance Call
Living Doll
The Howling Man
The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
Eye Of The Beholder
The Night Of The Meek
Miniature
A Passage For Trumpet
Third From The Sun
What You Need

I will probably make some changes before the deadline...

This post has been edited by James B. W. Bevis on December 28, 2006 01:02 pm

I know we spoke of this the other night in the chatroom Bevis.
Hopefully my comments were enough to help persuade you to do this........although I think you had intended on doing this anyways.

I look forward to this, and now I need to get my top twenty together for this compilation.

I will have my list up here within the next few days.
FWIW-- I doubt I will have them in a specific order, especially the last 4-5.

Thanks in advance for your efforts.

Thank you and good night.
TZ DZ Fan

Yes, I had been, but your comment helped make sure I didn't put it off any more. Looking forward to your list!

1. The Silence
2. Eye Of The Beholder
3. A Stop At Willoughby
4. A Game Of Pool
5. Long Live Walter Jameson
6. Walking Distance
7. A Piano In The House
8. Dead Man's Shoes
9. The Four Of Us Are Dying
10. Dust
11. The Lonely
12. The Hitch-Hiker
13. Nervous Man In A Four Dollar Room
14. The Dummy
15. Perchance To Dream
16. Shadow Play
17. Time Enough At Last
18. Living Doll
19. The After Hours
20. An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

EDIT: After looking back at the old thread, my list hasn't changed as much as I thought it did.

1) "Eye of the Beholder"
2) "To Serve Man"
3) "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"
4) "Shadow Play"
5) "A Game of Pool"
6) "The Masks"
7) "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"
8) "Long Live Walter Jameson"
9) "A Hundred Yards over the Rim"
10) "The After Hours"
11) "On Thursday We Leave for Home"
12) "Perchance to Dream"
13) "The Invaders"
14) "It's a Good Life"
15) "The Silence"
16) "The Night of the Meek"
17) "The Changing of the Guard"
18) "Nick of Time"
19) "And When the Sky Was Opened"
20) "Deaths-Head Revisited"

Top 20 TZs:
1. To Serve Man
2. The Invaders
3. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
4. It's A Good Life
5. Time Enough At Last
6. Living Doll
7. Eye of the Beholder
8. Mirror Image
9. The Howling Man
10. Nightmare At 20,000 Feet
11. A Hundred Yards Over The Rim
12. The Little People
13. An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge
14. The Fear
15. Long Distance Call
16. You Drive
17. The Masks
18. The Obsolete Man
19. The Dummy
20. A Stop at Willoughby

Yes, I took the time to track all of this stuff when I watched all TZ episodes. I figured it would be fun to do and no series is more deserving. That, and the fact that I love stats.

My personal episode ranking system:
(1-2 Poor, 3-4 Fair, 5-6 Good, 7-8 Very Good, 9-10 Excellent)

My Season ranking by episode rating average:
1. Season Two - 6.14
2. Season Three - 5.73
3. Season Five - 5.5
4. Season One - 5.17
5. Season Four - 5.17

My Season ranking by episode rating median:
1. Season Two - 6
2. Season Three - 6
3. Season Five - 6
4. Season Four - 5.5
5. Season One - 5

My Season ranking by episode rating mode:
1. Season Three - 7
2. Season Four - 6.5
3. Season Two - 5
4. Season One - 4
5. Season Five - 4

This little exercise has got me stunned. What the numbers tell me is that I enjoyed Season One the least. Someday, I am going to watch them all again in reverse order and see how I rate the world of TZ then. After that I stop spendin so much time in front of a TV.

That's the first time I have ever heard that.

That's the first time I have ever heard that.

Well, maybe I was hard on some of the Season One episodes but I thought it had some real stinkers, namely "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine", "The Big Tall Wish", "Mr. Bevis", "The Mighty Casey", and "The Four Of Us Are Dying". In fact, five of my lowest rated 13 episodes of the entire TZ series (scoring a 1 or 2) came from Season One.

I'm not happy about it, being Season One is more often than not, cited as the best season. But I'm a slave to my own numbers...

It was hard enough picking a Top Ten

1. Eye of the Beholder
2. A Game of Pool
3.Number 12 Look Just Like You
4. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street
5. Showdown with Rance McGrew
6.The Encounter
7. Miniature
8. The Fever
9. The Fugitive
10. The Obsolete Man.
11. The Lonely
12. One for the Angels
13. The Invaders
14.Nervous Man in a $4 Room
15. The Howling Man
16. Five Characters in Search of an Exit
17. Mr. Denton on Doomsday
18. A Quality of Mercy
19.Kick the Can
20. The Last Night of a Jockey
I was sort of randomly guessing from 15-20

Same here!

They're in no particular order after #5.

1. The Passersby
2. King Nine Will Not Return
3. Eye Of The Beholder
4. The Midnight Sun
5. The Changing Of The Guard
6. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
7. Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?
8. I Shot An Arrow Into The Air
9. The Obsolete Man
10. The Rip Van Winkle Caper
11. The Odyssey Of Flight 33
12. Nothing In The Dark
13. Twenty-Two
14. Mr. Denton On Doomsday
15. Ring-A-Ding Girl
16. The Last Flight
17. The Purple Testament
18. Death's-Head Revisited
19. Back There
20. What You Need

I cannot do a Top 20 because that would take forever and theres no way I can group that 150+ and figure out whats my top 20....just to much time and effort, I could never rate them in a way I wanted to. I'd have to many favorite #2's or 3's or I don't know whats my Fifth favorite? Who cares?? All I know is what I like to watch and what I dont like, who cares what number it is.

Way to participate!

And since this thread is for posting a top 20, why did you bother to expend the "time and effort" to say you couldn't expend the time and effort and waste the bandwidth to tell us what you could not do, rather then responding with what you could do? There is a good reason for compiling these lists. Rather then saying, like a certain friend of ours, that he likes a certain episode, say, oh, Probe 7-Over and Out over and over again, this exercise allows an empirical analysis of what episodes are popular one to another. Ranking is far superior to rating an episode because there is an objective element: one episode must follow another, rather then someone saying they have 20 or more shows that are a "10" in their book, whereas someone else might have the same shows in the same order, but give a rating of 8 through 9.9. In fact, the ideal way to do this kind of survey is to have one rank all 156 episodes from one to 156. That would expend alot of time and effort, but it would give the truest indicia of a shows relative worth in the eyes of folks in the know.

Off of the soapbox and on with the list:

1) A Hundred Yards Over the Rim
2) Long Live Walter Jameson
3) A Stop At Willoughby
4) A Game of Pool
5) The Midnight Sun
6) The Odyssey of Flight 33
7) Eye of the Beholder
8) The Last Flight
9) The After Hours
10)Time Enough At Last
11)A World of Difference
12)The Hitch-Hiker
13)Walking Distance
14)Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
15)The Dummy
16)King Nine Will Not Return
17)The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms
18)Living Doll
19)Mr. Denton on Doomsday
20)The Jungle

Just missing the cut: The Trouble With Templeton, It's a Good Life, Night of the Meek, Shadow Play, And When the Sky Was Opened, Jesse-Belle, The Masks, Deaths-Head Revisted, In Praise of Pip, Two and Death Ship.

Ones a lot of folks like but I don't care for, or at least, not as much as other folks do: To Serve Man, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, The Invaders, In His Image, On Thursday We Leave For Home, Where Is Everybody? and Five Characters in Search of An Exit

One that folks love, but I can't stand: The Howling Man

And since this thread is for posting a top 20, why did you bother to expend the "time and effort" to say you couldn't expend the time and effort and waste the bandwidth to tell us what you could not do, rather then responding with what you could do? There is a good reason for compiling these lists. Rather then saying, like a certain friend of ours, that he likes a certain episode, say, oh, Probe 7-Over and Out over and over again, this exercise allows an empirical analysis of what episodes are popular one to another. That would expend alot of time and effort, but it would give the truest indicia of a shows relative worth in the eyes of folks in the know.



One that folks love, but I can't stand: The Howling Man

http://www.character-costumes.com/c%20tige...20cut%20out.jpg

Why, because I was curious how somebody can do it but since you explained it to me based on this ranking system you have I guess it makes sense. I'll just stick with the 20 episodes with a 10 rating. Thats all that matters to me, I like it or I dont. Or consider it alright. Sorry to spoil your 20 Favorite Episodes thread. bye

We did that on the old board, actually. And you're right. That was the best way to go if you ask me.

I say 'boo' to means/averages. Too many damn outliers. For my money, the 25th-75th percentile range paints a more vivid picture.

We did that on the old board, actually. And you're right. That was the best way to go if you ask me.

Wouldn't it be kind of randomly guess what is your 135th episode and 136th?

We did that on the old board, actually. And you're right. That was the best way to go if you ask me.

Wouldn't it be kind of randomly guess what is your 135th episode and 136th?

I'd have a hard time doing this. I'm sure that by the time I got my episodes in order, my opinions would have changed again, making the list obsolete. I like reading those lists from other people, though. Again, feel free to post one if the spirit moves you.

How many people did this on the old board?

#1. "Five Characters In Search of an Exit"
#2. "In His Image"
#3. "The Monsters are Due On Maple Street"
#4. "A Game of Pool"
#5. "I am the Night-Color Me Black"
#6. "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up"
#7. "The Midnight Sun"
#8. "The Last Flight"
#9. "Shadow Play"
#10. "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air"
#11. "Deaths-Head Revisited"
#12. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
#13. "The Silence"
#14. "Death Ship"
#15. "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim"
#16. "The Obsolete Man"
#17. "Walking Distance"
#18. "The Parallel"
#19. "Nervous Man In a Four Dollar Room"
#20. "The Purple Testament"

I'm still devising my list. To be fair, I haven't seen every episode from Season 5, so I'm gonna finish it all so I can rate fairly. TBA...

I wrote a preliminary top 20 list.
NO-- These are not in exact order, so don't quote me on that point.

These are 20 of my favorite ones to watch. There are alot that are borderline, so this isn't necessarily exact, and I reserve the right to change my opinion/list as I feel so inclined.
I like some others here, have a sort of "temporary favorites" too, as I go through spells and watch some for a while, then go back to my tried and true favorite classics.

Hey SVB/SVM Why don't ya just list 20 of the ones you like to watch most like I did? (instead of making it difficult)
Nowhere did it say that your top twenty list had to be in exact numerical order of preference.

Here we are...........

The Silence -- heh Cyril
The Masks
Ring-a-ding Girl
Eye of the Beholder
A Hundred Yards Over the Rim
The Midnight Sun
A Stop at Willoughby
Deaths-Head Revisited
Time Enough at Last
Long Live Walter Jameson
I Shot an Arrow Into the Air
Perchance to Dream
It's a Good Life
Miniature
One More Pallbearer
The Old Man in the Cave
Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
Probe 7 Over and Out -- damin f'n mance
Nightmare as a Child
The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms

Ok, Note to Bevis-- I hope this isn't final, and you all will engrave this onto my casket. All jokes aside, I may tinker with this a bit as we get closer to the final date. Is that cool?

Thank you and good night.
TZ DZ Fan

Oh sure, definitely. I'm probably going to tinker with mine, too.

Five Characters and Rip Van Winkle are my favourites

1.Five Characters in Search of an Exit
2.The Rip Van Winkle Caper
3.The Obsolete Man
4.It's a Good Life
5.Time Enough at Last
6.The Howling Man
7.The Silence
8.Where is Everybody?
9.The After Hours
10.Stopover in a Quiet Town
11.The Monsters are Due on Maple Street
12.The Jeopardy Room
13.Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
14.A Game of Pool
15.The Midnight Sun
16.Deaths-Head Revisited
17.Miniature
18.The New Exhibit
19.Long Distance Call
20.The Invaders

It's actually 21 on my list. So close...

I put a preliminary top 20 in my introduction thread, so I'll start with it...

1. Time Enough at Last
2. The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
3. Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up
4. To Serve Man
5. Mr. Garrity and the Graves
6. The Eye of the Beholder
7. The Masks
8. The Purple Testament
9. On Thursday We Leave for Home
10. Night of the Meek
11. What You Need
12. The After Hours
13. The Midnight Sun
14. A Game of Pool
15. A Kind of Stopwatch
16. Living Doll
17. Hocus-Pocus and Frisby
18. Printer's Devil
19. Walking Distance
20. Miniature

I may update as the mood strikes me...

Edited to attempt to place them in order of preference... Man, this is hard!

Living Doll
Nick of Time
The Hitchhiker
Time Enough at Last
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
The Rip Van Winkle Caper
The Shelter
The Eye of the Beholder
The Night of the Meek
The Lateness of the Hour
The Invaders
Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up
People Are Alike All Over
Third From the Sun
Back There
The Whole Truth
The Midnight Sun
You Drive
The Jeopardy Room
Spur of the Moment

The Hitch-hiker's only #3? Just kidding, anyway welcome to the board!

1. And When the Sky Was Opened
2. Where is Everybody? (I love this because it was an introduction to something that TV had never seen before.)
3. Night Call (Creepiest of the series)
4. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
5. The Howling Man
6. Deaths-Head Revisited
7. The Grave (loaded with old western character actors)
8. The Odyssey of Flight 33
9. The Purple Testament (love B&W Korean/WWII stuff)
10. The Lonely
11. The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms (loved this one always)
12. The Passersby (love anything about the Civil War, love the ending)
13. Third From the Sun
14. Mirror Image (Gotta love the idea of a 2nd Vera Miles somewhere.)
15. Long Live Walter Jameson
16. The Long Morrow (Have always loved this one. One of the saddest of the series)
17. A Quality of Mercy (See #9)
18. The Hitch-Hiker (Scared the crap out of me as a child)
19. The Last Flight (It's like something from One Step Beyond)
20. King Nine Will Not Return (see #19)

1. A Stop at Willoughby
2. And When the Sky Was Opened
3. Third From the Sun
4. The Shelter
5. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
6. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
7. The New Exhibit
8. Nothing in the Dark
9. The Purple Testament
10. To Serve Man
11. Walking Distance
12. Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
13. Living Doll
15. The After Hours
16. The Midnight Sun
17. The Dummy
18. The Obsolete Man
19. The Masks
20. An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge (although not a real Twilight Zone episode, they did air it once)

Twice actually.

NPO:

Eye of the Beholder
A Game Of Pool
It's A Good Life
One More Pall Bearer
To Serve Man
One for the Angels
Time Enough At Last
Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
Long Live Walter Jameson
A Stop At Willoughby
A Passage for Trumpet
A World of His Own
The Howling Man
The Invaders
Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up
The Silence
Nightmare @ 20,000 Feet
The Old Man in the Cave
The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms
The Masks

Isn't it a bit ironic that you talk so much about "The Silence"?

Isn't it a bit ironic that you talk so much about "The Silence"?

I don't know, is it?

Can you really hear me typing?

Isn't it a bit ironic that you talk so much about "The Silence"?

I don't know, is it?

Can you really hear me typing?

If a psychotic types alone in an apartment, does he really make a sound?