The best Twilight Zone episodes countdown continues with Number 3: “Walking Distance,” the most autobiographical thing Rod Serling ever wrote.

I'm not going to respond, but curious to see your guess.

As someone who just wrote a biography of the guy, I was sorely tempted to put it at the top. But the last two feel more quintessentially TZ to me.

The best Twilight Zone episodes countdown continues with Number 3: “Walking Distance,” the most autobiographical thing Rod Serling ever wrote.

(for what it’s worth, two things are in play: 1. Even if you’re a huge fan of the show, the finale is mostly memorable for the montage at the end. 2. If you’re watching the show Too Long; Didn’t Watch style, all of those deaths seem meaningless)

What a bittersweet gift to have recorded a podcast episode with her that the public will never hear. (Spoiler: she didn’t care for the Six Feet Under finale.)

Fantastic show. Revelatory performance by Lili Reinhart.

For The New York Times, I wrote about how Rod Serling create The Twilight Zone in part because it was the only way in the 1950 and 60s for him to comment on the subjects he cared about most, and how that's a good blueprint for contemporary media to deal with our surreal current moment:

And my take flipped back and forth multiple times, especially after a passionate argument from JJ Abrams, who is 1000% on Burgess Meredith’s side.

A running thread throughout my interviews with Serling fans, famous or otherwise, was the divide between “what a cruel fate for a man who just wanted to read!” vs “served him right for caring more about books than people!” Jane Schoenbrun’s response is one of my favorite quotes in the whole book.

The best Twilight Zone episodes countdown continues with Number 4: Burgess Meredith wants “Time Enough At Last” to read his books.

The best Twilight Zone episodes countdown continues with Number 4: Burgess Meredith wants “Time Enough At Last” to read his books.

In Top Gun: Maverick, Jon Hamm has one of the most thankless roles in the history of blockbuster filmed entertainment. Yet every now and then he figures out how to play a moment perfectly, like this one where Cyclone is the first person to articulate who's flying a vintage F-14 Tomcat towards them.

The best Twilight Zone episodes countdown continues with Number 5: A former Nazi concentration camp commandant returns to the scene of his many crimes in “Deaths-Head Revisited.”