Entering 13 Hours of ‘The Twilight Zone’

Viewers of KTLA’s semiannual The Twilight Zone marathon will find much to keep them chained to their sets during 13 hours-22 episodes-of the series that begin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

Classic “Twilight Zone” irony is dished out in: “To Serve Man” (7:30 p...), in which aliens want to do more than just chew the fat with earthlings; “I Shot an Arrow Into the Air” (4:30 p.m.) about the desperation of a trio of lost astronauts, and “People Are Alike All Over” (noon), with a title that proves all too accurate.

Evil lives in: “It’s a Good Life” (7 p.m.), starring cute little Billy Mumy as an unholy terror; “The Howling Man” (1 p.m.), whom good people have a devil of a time trying to keep locked up, and “He’s Alive” (2 p.m.), with Dennis Hopper as a neo-Nazi.

A step into the future provides answers to a World War I coward who gets a second chance in “The Last Flight” (1:30 p.m.) and a 19th-century man heading West in “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim” (10 a.m.).

Soul-selling has unfortunate consequences for “Jess-Belle” (9 p.m.), a woman who makes a deal with a witch to win a man, and a newspaperman who hires a “Printer’s Devil” (Burgess Meredith, 8 p.m.).

Other typically heavy episodes are “The Purple Testament” (10:30 a.m.), a moving story of an Army lieutenant with a rare gift of sight, and “The Masks” (6 p.m.), about a group of unenviable heirs.

The marathon lightens up with “Mr. Dingle, the Strong” (5 p.m.), starring Burgess Meredith again as a loser who gets a chance to be a big shot.