The original Twilight Zone series (1959-1964) is widely regarded as one of the classics of television. The late 1980s revival of that show is less so.

The latter's first two seasons originally aired on CBS from 1985 to 1987. After a hiatus of a year, the show reappeared in first-run syndication, it's only raison d'etre being to fill out enough episodes for stripped (five days a week) syndicated reruns. With an all-new production staff headed by executive producers Mark Shelmerdine and Michael MacMillan and including story editor J. Michael Straczynski (who went on to greater fame as the creator and executive producer of Babylon 5), it struggled under the yoke of a greatly reduced budget.

Despite the challenges, it turned in a few good efforts, most notably The Hellgrammite Method, Dream Me a Life, and Extra Innings. But overall, it's generally agreed that the 1988-89 Twilight Zone fails to live up to the original. Perhaps its biggest handicap was that viewers, having been fed a steady diet of ironic twist endings on the original series, as well as on contemporary shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and in an earlier era, in the fiction of writer O. Henry, came to expect and even anticipate them. And if the story didn't deliver enough of a punch, it was disappointing.

I've chosen to list episodes from the third season only, since these are the ones about which there's the most confusion when it comes to original airdates.