There’s always a chance the Flip Collective will be making brand new episodes of The Twilight Zone. Excited by the possibility of inspiring modern audiences with a re-imagining of classic sci-fi fare, I can only hope to spark the recesses of the mind in the same way the original audience was shocked and thrilled way back when.
I wanted to be the first to pitch some ideas for episodes. I hope you will find these premises as creatively eye-opening, as thrilling, and as spine-tinglingly, horrifyingly original as the classic series.
Toy Dreams
In this episode, a child dreams of going to China, because that’s where all his toys are from. When he steps off the plane, he finds he is indeed in toy-heaven, China… only he won’t get to play with any toys since he’s dragged off to work at a toy manufacturing sweat-shop!
May I Check Your Credit?
So many renters are displaced and evicted by banks after foreclosures on their landlords… that now before signing leases, the prospective tenants ask to check… the landlord’s credit. Zoinks!
Cruelty To Humans
We follow one member of an angry mob of PETA protesters who we assume are going to attack someone that was really mean to animals… then our protagonist is shocked to find out they are coming to his house!!! Because he threw paint on some woman from the meat industry. (Since they consider humans no better than animals, they also consider them no worse, right? He is guilty of cruelty to animals!! WHAT!!!!?!)
The Terrifying Thing About Funny-Bones
Episode where a guy wakes up in an alternate universe where everything is the same except Howard Hawks’ 1938 screwball paleontology themed rom-com masterpiece is called “Bones” and the David Borneaz/Emily Deschanel TV series is called “Bringing Up Dead Baby”.
Maverick
Not so much a single episode as a series of episodes. Some may even call it a series within the series.
Maverick
A former renegade cop, MAVERICK, 39, finally hangs up his badge, and goes back to college. He is still every bit the rugged individualist, loose cannon, non-comformist rebel with an itchy trigger finger that he was when he was on the force. AND his old police captain, the loud, angry black boss guy, has retired from the police force, too (probably because Maverick was going to give him a heart attack with all his crazy antics). Oh shit, Maverick’s former Police boss’s wife has made the former Police Captain get a part time job and he is now Maverick’s student guidance counselor. Nearly every day the guidance counselor has to call Maverick into his office and get all mad and throw shit and threaten to take away Maverick’s student I.D. if Maverick can’t start following the rules. But we kinda figure that Maverick will never listen.
CAPTAIN ANGRY BLACK GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:
MAVERICK!!!!!!! My office! NOW!!!
(Maverick walks past a row of cubicles that belong to the other college guidance counselors, since the rest of the guidance counselors only get cubicles, and into the large office of an upset, angry, African American guidance counselor whom slams the door as Maverick walks in. SLAM.)
(Captain Angry holds up a thick document.)
CAPTAIN ANGRY BLACK GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:
Do you know what this is, Maverick?!!?
MAVERICK:
Is it your habilitation dissertation?
CAPTAIN ANGRY BLACK GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:
NO! But it’s even more verbose! It’s the god damned write up about your misbehavior in class Wednesday.
(Reading from list, flipping through pages)
Let’s see.. Wanton disregard for authorities, asking questions out of turn, putting the professor on the spot, showing up late! Leaving class early!! Jesus christ, Maverick, is there anything you didn’t do?
MAVERICK:
My homework.
CAPTAIN ANGRY BLACK GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:
That’s beside the point, Maverick. The point is that I’m going to be forced to suspend you until I get all this paper work sorted out! I’m sorry, but give me your student I.D.
(Maverick reluctantly slaps his student I.D. on Captain Angry’s desk. Maverick also removes his old trusty Smith & Wesson model 10, his Glock 22, and his Beretta 92 which all clank onto Captain Angry’s desk.)
(Maverick stoically walks out of Captain Angry’s office, but just before he leaves, he turns his head back to the Captain. He slowly removes his sunglasses as his mullet billows in the wind. His wife-beater undershirt clings to his muscles as his unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt hangs there really cool-ly…)
MAVERICK:
You wanna know why I shot those six classmates of mine Wednesday?
CAPTAIN ANGRY BLACK GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:
They were American students, Maverick. They had rights!! You shouldn’t have killed them without checking in with me!
MAVERICK:
They were Americans of Middle Eastern decent. Middle Eastern, damnit! If I hadn’t shot those terrorists, hell only knows how many American American students would have died that day!
Angry Black Guidance Counselor Captain:
That may be. Look, I know you’re a good cop, and an even better student, shit, sometimes, much as I hate to admit it, you’re a god damned hero, Maverick, but I can’t have you going around all willy-nilly when we have PROTOCOL, MAVERICK! Ok, fine. Take your student I.D. and handguns, but don’t let me catch you not following the student handbook protocol, or else the university president will have my balls! Now get outa here! You have Western Civ. starting in… five minutes ago!
MAVERICK:
Captain?
CAPTAIN ANGRY BLACK GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:
What is it, Maverick?
Maverick:
Thank you.
(For a moment Captain Angry looks like he is touched, then..)
CAPTAIN ANGRY BLACK GUIDANCE COUNSELOR:
I said WESTERN CIV.! OUT!! NOW, MAVERICK!!!