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Rating:  -
I ordered this particular volume to augment, with video, a story in the literature book from which I teach my students. I knew what to expect from the DVD and was not disappointed. It did arrive sooner than I expected which was a pleasent surprise.
Sincerely,
B. Stiegelmeyer
Rating:  -
Four great episodes are included in this Twilight Zone Volume. Also included is some background information about the six seasons of The Twilight Zone, as well as a biography of Rod Serling. Like many who have reviewed The Twilight Zone, I became an instant fan of the show and think it still is one of the most intelligent and creative shows ever created.
My favorite episode of all time is "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," so I had to check this out just for that. In this episode, after residents on a block see something mysterious fly overhead all sorts of unusual events begin to happen and the people, suspicious of one another, begin to make accusations and lose their patience. This episode is so intelligent because it really draws on the whole idea of mass hysteria and mob thought, and what can happen when it takes over a community, even a peaceful one.
The other episodes are all classics as well...
Time Enough At Last-Burgess Meredith plays a bookworm working at a bank. He is dissatisfied with his life at home because he never has enough time to read, so he reads everywhere he goes. He finally gets his wish of having enough time to read, with an ironic twist.
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet-This one stars William Shatner, who gives an extraordinary performance as a man who has had a previous mental breakdown, and now must take a flight with his wife. Once the plane takes off, he begins to see that all is not well as he looks outside the window. Is there really someone, or something out there, or is this just his imagination?
The Odyssey of Flight 33-A plane takes off trying to get to its destination, but mysterious things begin to happen when the plane apparently breaks the sound barrier and goes back into time.
The only beef I have with the volume is that, as others pointed out, it is a little thin (only four episodes) in a day and age where we can get an entire season of other shows on DVD. You can get other larger volumes of Twilight Zone on Amazon, but they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty dollars for approximately thirty episodes. If you are looking for a specific episode, I think you are better off getting these smaller volumes for about six or seven dollars.
And this volume is a great way to start!
Rating: -
As others have already commented on the technical features of the set and the individual episodes, I just wanted to make a few comments on the series as a whole and perhaps how it was influenced by the cultural milieu of the time.
It was the drab 50s and then turbulent 60s, and the Cold War, with its threat of possible nuclear annihilation, was in full swing. Perhaps that explains the pervasive film noir ambience and dark mood that often hangs like a pall over many of the episodes. Although the characters are drawn from all levels of society and from all walks of life--from two-bit criminals to the rich and famous--many are just various and sundry low-lifes, riff-raff, criminals, and grifters. And then there are the simply down and out--the bored or emotionally overwrought, middle-aged and overstressed, desperate housewives, the dyspeptic, dispossessed, or depressed, and your average guy just down on his luck.
Almost every human emotion or character flaw or neurosis is explored: loneliness, depression, euphoria, greed, obsession, gambling addiction, hypochrondria, the lust for power, the fear of death, feelings of inferiority, failure, and inadequacy, feelings of ugliness and beauty, the stress of modern life, the old and unwanted, the young and neglected, the dispirited but still hopeful, the dispirited who have abandoned all hope, the highly successful who find their success and fame empty and meaningless, the losers who find their failures just as galling and damning, the boredom of a comfortable marriage, the boredom of the single and lovelorn, the boredom of a respectable middle-class existence, the boredom of grinding poverty, the desire to live forever, and on and on. Modern civilization and its discontents (or more like 20th-century America and its malcontents) seem to march by in all their false and meretricious glory. If this was the dull and malaise-ridden 50s and early 60s, one can only wonder what Serling would make of our frenetic and divided and paranoid post-9/11 world.
One funny aspect of the episodes is how unflatteringly writers themselves are portrayed. The episodes starring Keenan Wynn (in the first season) as a America's most famous (but philandering) playwright and Richard Haydn in the second season as a snobbish, effete, arrogant, spiteful, and verbally abusive wine and food writer with a short temper and a sharp wit and tongue, don't exactly portray writers in a positive light. :-)
In fact, overall, the series is notable for how many unsympathetic, unprepossessing, and even despicable characaters where often in the lead roles. :-)
So all in all, a truly unique piece of Americana from a long lost era whose themes and stories have held up better than I expected.
Rating: -
"Submited for your aproval" we can find here in these vol 2 :
4 gems of the old show.
Nightmare at 20.000 feets, probably one of mst revered and beloved episodes of twilighT, and the most parodied, (in the simpsons treehouse of horror No 8, Johny Bravo, & Tiny Toons i thinks ..and of course the 80's version movie with John Lightowsegment
The others episodes are interesting for example Burgues Merdith performance in "Time enought at last", when i was child and i watched in 1983 the movie Twilight zone, I heard the dialogue between Dan Akroyd & Albert Brooks in the car about favorite episodes and this is one...
I remember when i read another review of the 1st seasen where is included originally this chapter t " The monster are due on maple street" with Claude adkins ( Aldo in planet of the apes last movie / & Sherrif Lobo).. that the aliens that appears in "monsters" were the inspiration behind Kang and the other alien from the Simpsons show.
The other episode about another nightmare with planes that have all the pasengers who travelled around time is interesting
Unfortunaly doesnt have subtittles
see Ya.
Franz
Rating: -
Volume #2 in the series of "Twilight Zone" DVDs is what I consider to be by far the best individual volume. It offers four classic "TZ" programs, including two of my all-time favorites -- the two airplane-related episodes ("Nightmare At 20,000 Feet" and "The Odyssey Of Flight 33").
The other two half-hour shows on this DVD are also extremely good as well -- "Time Enough At Last" and "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street".
The picture quality is very good within the "Twilight Zone" series of DVDs. Audio is good too (in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono). There are a minimal number of Chapter Stops included on all four programs, too (3 breaks per show), but they certainly could have placed the breaks in more appropriate spots throughout each episode. Some of the chapters begin in mid-sentence. And there's no break right after the opening credits, which would have been nice.
A "Play All" option is also provided, although it's not labelled "Play All". Selecting "Feature Presentation" from the Main Menu will play all four shows back-to-back.
No subtitles are included.
Not much in the way of extra features here. But there are some text-based "Inside The Twilight Zone" items.
Since this second volume is one of the earliest (1999) TZ discs put out by Image Entertainment, you'll have to put up with the annoying "animated eyeball" Menu design (and repetitive "Zone" music that never stops) -- but it's a minor annoyance. The quality of these four episodes overcomes the aggravating and slow-transitioning Menu system. ;)
I have enjoyed nearly all of the TZ volumes, but this "Volume 2" tops 'em all for great episode selection, IMHO. The only thing that could have possibly made this volume better would have been by adding a fifth program to the disc -- that being another William Shatner classic, "Nick Of Time". Volume 9 contains that one.
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