White Tulip

Over the years this reviewer has developed a penchant for highlighting noteworthy episodes of individual series.

Usually when so doing I will arrive at the designated IMDb page (for the episode) only to find it empty, a tabula rasa.

While re-watching this amazing series sequentially, I was gob-smacked at how perfect the script for this episode was.

Sheer genius from start to finish. Manages to solve "conundrum" of the two arcs (the long and the short) by doing something I have never seen before -- making the short arc "about" the long arc (or perhaps vice versa).

That alone would be a feat. But this episode, one of the greatest in the history of TV, goes further. Handles time travel and time paradoxes better than any show prior, including VOYAGEUR which is generally thought to have aced that theme.

On a humanistic level, the complex angst of John Noble's character and the mechanism by which he solves it are extraordinary. In effect, if you watch closely, this story has not only one climactic moment which makes the viewer shudder but a second anti-climax at the end which makes you want to cry.

Hint to newbies; pay special attention to the title of the episode. These writers do nothing by accident.

We like to talk about some of the "perfect" scripts from the original Twilight Zone series, scripts that have held up over decades.

This is one for the record books.