“The Twilight Zone” may be celebrated as one of television’s standout horror anthologies, but its Season 4 finale occupies a far less flattering place in the franchise’s history.
“The Bard,” which aired on May 23, 1963, has an IMDb score of just 5.6, making the hour-long installment the second worst-rated episode in the franchise. Yet the much-criticized outing retains one notable draw: an early performance from the late Burt Reynolds, who plays an outsized parody of Marlon Brando.
Reynolds appears as Rocky Rhodes, an ego-driven leading man whose mannerisms and behavior were clearly modeled as a spoof of the screen legend. The role came years before Reynolds became one of the biggest movie stars of the 1970s, giving the poorly received episode an intriguing place in his career.
A Shakespearean solution to a television problem
The Season 4 finale centers on Julius Moomer, played by Jack Weston, a bumbling television writer struggling to produce worthwhile scripts. His unlikely answer is black magic: Moomer conjures the ghost of William Shakespeare and recruits him to secretly write his work.
John Williams plays Shakespeare, while Reynolds’ Rocky Rhodes becomes part of the episode’s satire of television, acting and show business. Reynolds had recently begun his regular run as Quint Asper on “Gunsmoke” when he co-starred in “The Bard.”
Although the episode’s overall reputation is dismal, reactions have not been entirely uniform. Some viewers have offered mixed or even mildly favorable assessments, with Reynolds’ comic take on Brando frequently singled out as the strongest element.
IMDb user classicsoncall highlighted the strange spectacle of watching “Burt Reynolds doing Marlon Brando.” Another reviewer, BA Harrison, wrote that “about the only thing that this one has going for it is the amusing pastiche of Marlon Brando by a young pre-fame Burt Reynolds, who mocks the pretentiousness of method acting.” A separate viewer called Reynolds’ Brando “spoof” effective.
Viewers remain divided over “The Bard”
The episode continues to provoke sharply different responses among “Twilight Zone” fans. During a Reddit discussion about the show’s weakest installments, one participant declared, “The Bard was awful.” Others branded it “unwatchable” and “boring and confusing.”
Not everyone agreed with that verdict. One Reddit user called the episode “awesome” and added, “I don’t understand the hate. Episodes like ‘Four O’Clock’ or ‘The Big Tall Wish’ are much, much worse.”
Those divided reactions have done little to change the episode’s standing on IMDb, where its 5.6 rating leaves it near the bottom of the franchise. Still, Reynolds’ performance gives viewers a glimpse of the future star embracing broad satire long before his biggest film successes.
His appearance in “The Bard” ultimately became a small stop on a much larger career path. Reynolds remained on “Gunsmoke” until 1965 before making the transition from television to movies. During the 1970s, blockbusters including “Deliverance” and “Smokey and the Bandit” established him as one of the era’s biggest stars.
For “The Twilight Zone,” “The Bard” remains an infamous creative misfire rather than an enduring classic. For Reynolds fans, however, the episode offers something more distinctive: a pre-fame performance built around an unmistakable and deliberately exaggerated Marlon Brando impression.