Therefore I have been indulging in the classics as I work. I just finished The Hitch Hiker [season 1, ep 16]. First shown in 1960, it predates one of my favorite B flicks, Carnival of Souls, which I originally recognized as very Twilight Zone-like because it rips off the plot of The Hitch Hiker, in which a woman has a car accident. She is then haunted by a mysterious figure until she realizes that she actually died in the car accident and the figure is coming to claim her soul. Padded by redundant interior monolog, the Twilight Zone version eschews the subtlety and character development of Carnival of Souls in favor of one cheap thrill. Needless to say, I like Carnival of Souls much better, even though it’s not original.

In related Twilight Zone news, I just found twilightzone.org, a Web site that covers not just ep summaries, but the various revivals and spin-offs, a bio of Rod “Sentence Fragment” Serling himself and a thematic ep finder.