"The Twilight Zone" is brilliant television and one of the greatest series in history altogether; - I think we can safely establish that. Of course, not every single episode is as magnificent the next or the previous. For every legendary installment, like "Eye of the Beholder" or "To Serve Man", there are a handful of episodes that are just ... good! Inferior episodes are rare in "The Twilight Zone", but quite a lot of people - myself included - do seem to agree that "Still Valley" is such a rare inferior entry.
"Still Valley" is set in 1863, at a point during The Civil War when the Confederate side is losing terrain. Fanatic Confederate Sgt. Paradine sneaks into a little town beset by Northern Unit soldiers, but finds all of them motionless in the street. He learns they were literally frozen by an elderly Warlock, who offers Paradine is book of witchcraft that can easily help him to win the war. But at what cost? It's one of the few "Twilight Zone" stories based on previously published material, namely a 1939 short story by Manly Wade Wellman. Rod Serling processed the short story into a screenplay, but his touch of genius is clearly missing. "Still Valley" lacks the show's typically eerie atmosphere and the dull anti-climax makes it quite redundant. The sight of the frozen soldiers is rather silly. The same gimmick previously featured in "Elegy" (season 1, episode 20) and the effect worked a lot better there.