|
Rating:  -
From my teens this is one of the series that I more fondly remember. As a sci-fi fan I was attracted by "The Twilight Zone" proposal. At that time I wasn't able to see more than a score of episodes, but they remain in my memory with extraordinary persistence.
Thanks to the technological marvel of DVD I'm able to see these amazing stories again and find them as magical & thought provoking as 45 years ago.
As the structure of the episodes are mostly bounded to a surprise ending or to the argument in a very short span of time, usually 25 minutes each, I'll focus my review more on outstanding features than on the topic of the episode in order not to spoil the pleasure of the viewer.
Disk 2 contains four chapters well representative of the whole series spirit & charm.
1) Time Enough at Last - A great performance from Burgess Meredith as a myopic bank employee who isn't allowed to read neither at his workplace nor at his home. Meredith will be best known by his characterization of The Penguin at "Batman" series and latter on by his impersonation of Mickey, Rocky's manager.
Qualification: 8.
2) The Monsters are due at Maple Street - This is a Classic episode, it tackles with a characteristic them of the series & the cold war era: invading alien who can't be distinguished from ordinary citizen, arising mass paranoia.
A relatively vast cast where every character contributes creating the climate thru close faces planes, due to an excellent cinematography in charge of George Clemens. He won Emmy Award 1961 and nominations for the same honor 1962 & 1963 all due to several episodes of this series.
Qualification: 9.
3) Nightmare at 20,000 feet - A wonderful story due to a master as Richard Matheson author of famed book "I'm a Legend" and contributor to many of these series' episodes.
A man recently released from a psychiatric clinic due to a severe nervous breakdown, embarks with his wife in a flight. As soon as the plane takes off he sees thru the window a Gremlin trying to sabotage a motor.
A thrilling episode to be sure, starring William Shatner best know by his characterization of Capt. Kirk in "Star Trek" first seasons.
Qualification: 10.
4) The Odyssey of Flight 33. - A plane flying from London to NYC is catch into mighty air current & strange events starts to happen.
A very realistic cockpit dialogues are shown and the crew members are characterized greatly with John Anderson in the leading role of Capt. Farver.
Qualification: 10.
This DVD series has two great advantages: it has a very good price and allows buyers to choose their favorite chapters without needing to buy the whole series.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Rating: -
Whereas Vol. 1 of this series has three episodes, this disk has four--and a mixed bag they are. But then Twilight Zone was always unpredictable.
Burgess Meredith stars in episode #1 as a bookish bank clerk who can't find time for his passion, reading. The writing is a bit over the top. There's a dominating wife who snatches away his newspaper, a bank president who chastises him--and then there's an H-bomb that destoys the world while the hero is hiding in the bank vault to have some privacy for his passion. When he exits the vault, the world is in shambles, but there are no fires and apparently no radioactive perils. Now the little man has time to read, except...
The second episode is about an alien spacecraft that sweeps across the sky over a middle class street. Lights in houses flicker on and off. Cars won't start and then start mysteriously. A boy says that spacemen may have planted look-alikes among the residents, and they all begin to suspect one another, with violence ensuing. This didactic piece is really about the anti-communist investigations of the cold war, in which people, especially in Hollywood, were all but encouraged to suspect one another of being Reds. Thus, the real damage was not done by the communists but by those who planted the seeds of suspicion and by those who ran around like Chicken Little.
I liked the third episode best. William Shatner, recovering from a nervous breakdown, is on a commercial plane with his wife. Sitting in a seat over the wing, he sees a monstrous figure outside, a figure that no one else can see. When the monster begins to tear up the cowling over the engine, Shatner feels he must do something to save the plane from disaster. The outcome is a very excellent surprise.
Lastly, there is a good story of a jet commercial aircraft that gets lost in time for unexplained reasons. When it descends to land in New York, the city has disappeared and dinosaurs roam the landscape. The pilot takes the aircraft up through the clouds and then descends to try again. He contacts the airport but traffic control can't understand what a jet is or where the plane is from. Flying over Flushing Meadows, the people aboard see the trylon and perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair....
It's too bad that this sort of excellence is missing from today's TV set, with its so-called "reality" shows and dance contests. Twilight Zone made viewers think, and apparently that is too much to ask now. We are fortunate that the old shows were saved and you can see them again--or for the first time.
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.
Television Show
Collectibles
Movie Searches
|
|
|
Search for posters,
art prints, photos, collectables, merchandise, toys, t-shirts
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TV Guide
Program listings, celebrity profiles, industry
gossip, movie reviews, puzzle.
More
Entertainment
& TV Magazines
This site is
Hosted
by Bluehost
Read
my Bluehost Review
Most Popular TV collectibles
|
|
Home
Articles
Images
Forum
Search
Shopping
TV Trivia
Watch TV
Wallpaper
