STAR WARS
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STAR TREK
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FIREFLY
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SCI-FI
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DVDs of the Twilight Zone
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The Twilight Zone DVDs of the television series and radio shows.
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Submitted for your approval: The Twilight Zone's inaugural season, all 36 episodes complete with Rod Serling's original promos for the following week's episode, not seen since their original broadcast. To discuss television's greatest anthology series whose title has become pop culture shorthand for the bizarre and supernatural is to immediately become like Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd in Twilight Zone: The Movie; a can-you-top-this recall of famous shocks and favorite twists. Several essential episodes hail from this season, among them, "Time Enough at Last" starring Burgess Meredith as a bespectacled bookworm who is the lone survivor of an atomic blast; "The After-Hours" starring Anne Francis as a department store shopper haunted by mannequins; and the profoundly disturbing "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," in which fear and prejudice turns neighbor against neighbor (and, by the by, whose alien observers inspired Kang and Kodos on The Simpsons). From an unsettlingly persistent hitchhiker to a malevolent slot machine, The Twilight Zone's first season did plumb "the pit of man's fears." One forgets how moving the series could be. Three of this season's most memorable and enduring episodes are the poignant and primal "stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off fantasies, "Walking Distance," "A Stop at Willougby" and "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine," in which desperate characters seek refuge in a simpler past. Serling's few stabs at comedy ("Mr. Bevis," "The Mighty Casey") have not aged well, but the series finale, "A World of His Own," starring Keenan Wynn as a playwright whose fictional characters come to life, has a brilliant capper. The episodes are more deliberately paced than one might remember. Less patient younger viewers might be anxious to get to the payoffs, but once they settle into the rhythm, they will savor the literate writing and the performances by such veteran actors as Ed Wynn, Everett Sloan, and Ida Lupino, and newcomers such as Jack Klugman. The extras, including the unaired version of the pilot episode, "Where is Everybody?", audio commentaries and recollections, and a Serling college lecture, truly take this six-disc set to another dimension. --Donald Liebenson
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The younger you are, the more you'll enjoy UPN's short-lived revival of The Twilight Zone. Front-loaded with young actors (or marginal celebrities, like Jessica Simpson) and a bone-jarring theme by Korn's Jonathan Davis, the show panders to a teen demographic, which original-series creator Rod Serling would never have tolerated. It's a pale copy of Serling's original, and even the 1985 TZ revival was marginally better, but there are some memorable exceptions in this 43-episode, six-disc set. Not surprisingly, the best episodes are straight remakes of (or sequels to) classic Serling originals, including "The Monsters on Maple Street," "It's Still a Good Life" (with former child actor Bill Mumy reprising his creepiest role, and featuring a series-best performance by Cloris Leachman), and "Eye of the Beholder." Of the originals to this series, highlights include the pilot episode with Jeremy Piven; Jason Alexander in "One Night at Mercy," Amber Tamblyn in "Evergreen"; Lukas Haas in "Harsh Mistress"; Lou Diamond Phillips in "The Pool Guy"; ER's Eriq La Salle as writer, director, and star of "Memphis"; and a few others that capture the eerie quality of "another dimension of sight, sound, and mind." Woefully miscast as the series' host, Forest Whitaker delivers facile introductions devoid of Serling's literary finesse. More often than not, the writing relies on forgettable characters and thinly-disguised variations on original-series themes; at its worst, the series demonstrates a staggering lack of originality, and the youthful casting frequently results in one-dimensional performances, with a few notable exceptions. It's hit-or-miss at best, but shooting locations in Vancouver, British Columbia, lend the series a visually stimulating variety of settings and atmosphere; production values are consistently high (as they were in the Canadian seasons of X-Files), and Rick Maguire deserves praise for his cinematography on virtually every episode. If you can forget Serling altogether (a difficult challenge for his devoted fans), you'll be able to overlook the flaws and enjoy some occasionally clever trips into The Twilight Zone as it was meant to be. --Jeff Shannon
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The middle ground between light and shadow just became a whole lot sharper and detailed with this stellar five-disc set, which compiles the entire second season of Rod Serling's classic television series, The Twilight Zone, and gilds the whole package by including a treasure trove of supplemental material. TZ's second season (1960-61) is a stand-out in the series' history thanks to its sheer number of memorable stories; among the episodes that have achieved pop culture landmark status are the chilling "Eye of the Beholder" (a disfigured woman undergoes surgery to appear more "normal") and "The Silence" (Franchot Tone wagers that Liam Sullivan cannot silent for a year); "The Invaders" (Agnes Moorhead is pitted against tiny space travelers), "Long Distance Call" (Lost in Space's Billy Mumy converses with a deceased relative on his toy phone), and the more light-hearted "Night of the Meek," in which department store Santa Claus Art Carney gets a chance to fulfill the real St. Nick's duties. As always, the combination of sharp, intelligent scripting (mostly by Serling, but with notable contributions by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, and George Clayton Johnson) and superb casting (guest stars include Cliff Robertson, Dennis Weaver, Burgess Meredith, William Shatner, John Carradine, and Don Rickles) produces television that remains as thought-provoking and entertaining today as it was over 40 years ago. Though The Twilight Zone has received numerous home video releases over the years, the aptly titled Definitive Edition is arguably the finest presentation of this series to date. Each of the episodes have been digitally remastered from original camera negatives (even the episodes filmed on videotape look good) and magnetic soundtracks; Serling's previews for upcoming episodes and advertising "billboards" (sponsor spots) have also been included, as have commentaries by Rickles, Weaver, Robertson, Shelly Berman, and other performers. Clips of Serling on The Jack Benny Show and in conversation with Mike Wallace, audio interviews with cast and crew members by Twilight Zone Companion author Marc Scott Zicree, radio adaptations of classic episodes, and even the script for "Twenty-Two," complete with Serling's notes, round out the set, which belongs in the collection of anyone who's ever been enthralled by this landmark series. Now, if only the same treatment could be afforded to Serling's other anthology program, Night Gallery… --Paul Gaita
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The second collection of Twilight Zone "Treasures" features three quintessential examples of the show at its metaphorical, ironic best, allegories and morality plays disguised as thrillers and science fiction tales. "The Masks" (directed by Ida Lupino) stars Robert Keith as a dying patriarch with a death-bed Mardi Gras surprise for his petty family. John Carradine stars as a secretive monk with a mysterious prisoner locked in his hidden monastery in "The Howling Man." "Eye of the Beholder" is perhaps the most famous episode of the series, played almost completely in a twilight fog as the camera takes a behind-the-bandages view of a recovering plastic surgery patient until the startling revelation at the conclusion. Panasonic's package features the same supplements as the first Treasures collection, most notably a TV interview with Rod Serling conducted by Mike Wallace and an industrial film starring Serling to "pitch" potential advertisers for the in-production series, both from 1959. In addition a number of brief text presentations (taken from Mark Scott Zicree's definitive book The Twilight Zone Companion) offer historical background on the series and the individual episodes. The menu is designed around the floating eyeball from the series's credits sequence--just roll the gazing eyeball around to the item of your choice! --Sean Axmaker
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Three single-minded characters receive their comeuppance courtesy of series creator Rod Serling, who penned all of the episodes included in this volume. "Mr. Bevis": Good-natured, eccentric Bevis (Orson Bean) is allowed to "do over" a disastrous day by his guardian angel (Henry Jones)--but at the cost of his personality. Bean and Jones are first class, but like all of Serling's comedic efforts ("Mr. Dingle, The Strong"), the humor is badly forced. "Bevis" was originally intended as a pilot, but was scrapped when star Burgess Meredith refused to commit to a series. Serling rewrote the episode as the third season's "Cavendar Is Coming," but it too suffered from a lack of laughs. "The Silence": Annoyed by the ceaseless chatter of wastrel Jamie Tennyson (Liam Sullivan), Colonel Archie Taylor (Franchot Tone) bets half a million dollars that Tennyson cannot remain silent for one year. However, Taylor is unprepared for the extremes the younger man undergoes in order to win. Reportedly based on a story by Anton Chekhov, "The Silence" is a memorable shocker, with a conclusion worthy of E.C. Comics, and one of the few episodes with no fantasy elements whatsoever. "On Thursday We Leave for Home": For 30 years William Benteen (James Whitmore) has kept alive a small colony on a barren planet with the hope that a spaceship will arrive to return them to Earth. But when the ship actually arrives, Benteen is unwilling to relinquish his father-protector status. Buoyed by Whitmore's powerful turn, this is the fourth's season's finest moment. --Paul Gaita
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Volume 21 of The Twilight Zone DVD collection is a real keeper, beginning with "Mirror Image," a classic first-season episode starring Vera Miles as a woman whose sense of reality is shattered when she encounters her exact double in a bus station. Her fear of being "replaced" reaches a fever pitch, despite the efforts of a fellow passenger (Martin Milner) to calm her frenzied nerves. As the woman is taken away for psychiatric examination, her terror turns out to be entirely justified--emphasizing paranoia as one of Rod Serling's favored themes. The second-season entry "Dust" is pale by comparison--a lethargic tale of magic in the Old West that redeems a man about to be hanged for drunkenly running over a little girl with his wagon. He's saved from the noose by a bit of "magic dust," but the true pardon has come, of course, from the Twilight Zone. "Five Characters in Search of an Exit," scripted by Serling, is a third-season highlight in which the titular characters--clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and army major--are trapped in a giant cylinder, with no understanding of how they got there. The truth provides the kind of O. Henry twist that was Serling's specialty, and the performances by William Windom and Murray Matheson (as the belligerent major and carefree clown, respectively) offer a delightful study in dramatic contrast. Finally, "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" is a casualty from TZ's fifth season--a badly rewritten story (originally scripted by acclaimed series contributor George Clayton Johnson) starring veteran screen comedian Ed Wynn as an old man who's convinced he will die if his treasured grandfather clock ceases to tick. Robbed of its dramatic impact by a soft ending that compromises Clayton's original idea, the episode remains entertaining on the strength of Wynn's endearing performance. --Jeff Shannon
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"Hocus-Pocus and Frisby"
Cracker-barrel loudmouth and teller of tall tales, Mr. Frisby (Andy Devine) gets his comeuppance and a real-life tall tale to tell when he's abducted by aliens who mistake his bragging for the truth. Raspy-voiced Devine is perfect as the fabricating Frisby. Howard McNear (Floyd the barber from The Andy Griffith Show) is part of his long-suffering audience. "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville"
An hour-long--and overlong--episode from the fourth season that mixes a deal-with-the-Devil story with a yearning to return to a simpler place and time, two of the series' favorite themes. The corrupt plutocrat Feathersmith (Albert Salmi) trades his fortune to Satan (Julie Newmar) to return to the place of his youth, Cliffordville in 1910, where his knowledge of the future should make him a bigger fat cat than he was before. But the biter-bit ending is a very predictable turnabout. Notable for Julie Newmar sporting a pair of cute horns that make her look like Catwoman from TV's Batman. Mr. Garrity and the Graves"
No one could make the Old West weirder than Rod Serling. Mr. Garrity (John Dehner) saunters into Happiness, Arizona, one day and claims to be able to resurrect the dead in this grim comic gem. Only the townsfolk like their dead where they are. Happiness, Arizona: it's just asking for it. This disc has a twilight zone of its own, holding hidden features such as the original ads and program bumpers, and isolated music tracks for the first two episodes. --Jim Gay
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"Static"
Dean Jagger turns in a finely tuned performance as an aging curmudgeon who eschews the picture tube for the old-time radio. But the radio in question tunes in only to the past, where Jagger might make amends for lost opportunities. The fact that Rod Serling repeatedly revisited this subject matter in episodes like this one and "A Stop at Willoughby" suggests a deep-seated penchant for romanticism--or that he was greatly overworked. One of only six episodes shot on videotape, the downgrade in visual quality lends a chamber-drama quality to the episode's return-to-simpler-times theme. "Four O'Clock"
A lone bigot holed up in his little apartment with a vast card catalog of "subversives" has come up with the answer to all the "evil" people in the world: At four o'clock he will make them all two feet tall! Only--as so often happens on TZ--the biter gets bitten and comes up a little short himself. Theodore Bikel plays the paranoiac with relish. "The Parallel"
Bearing a striking resemblance to the classic 1969 film Journey to the Far Side of the Sun this is one TZ episode that deals strictly with science fiction, in this case the possibility of parallel universes. Steve Forrest plays an astronaut returning from a space mission only to find himself in a world askew, where everything looks the same but small differences keep cropping up (JFK isn't president, for example). Space exploration and the depths of the unknown make familiar bedfellows in this hour-long piece from the fourth season that earns every minute of screen time. --Jim Gay
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science
fiction articles
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X-Files
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TWILIGHT ZONE
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BATTLESTAR
GALACTICA
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SCIENCE
FICTION
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