The Twilight Zone — Episode-by-Episode Review Thread
- Thread starter Michael
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It's a great show to start watching. I think the first time I saw it I was 13 or 14. Used to get up early to watch it late at night. My only regret now is that I've seen every episode. No new TZ for me.
I've also seen every TZ, although it took me many years. Mainly because the network who reran the series on my local station never showed the hour-long episodes. Despite the fact that they ran two half-hour episodes back to back in an hour block and it would have been no trouble to program those season four shows in. Ironically, the first hour show I saw was "Miniature", which was out of syndication for many years, but which my local station showed as part of a special coinciding with the release of TZ:The Movie. I don't think it was until the Sci-Fi channel started rerunning them that I saw those episodes. Also the fact that the George Takei episode "The Encounter" has never been aired since its initial showing in 1964, and I didn't see that one until it was released on video in the mid-1990's.
It took me a while too. Once I got the Sci-Fi Channel, I started seeing a lot of the episodes I had never seen before, including the one hour shows. The last two half-hour shows that I saw were "Long Live Walter Jameson" with Kevin McCarthy and "Nightmare as a Child" with Janice Rule. The last hour episode I saw was Jess-Belle. I put off watching that by several years because I didn't not want to have a new TZ to look forward too. Also caught the first twenty minutes of the hourlong episode "No Time Like the Past" and I was officially caught up.
If Rod Serling were still alive today, he would be 85. He still wrote for television when he died in 1975 although I think he was pretty burnt out at that point. But if makes you think, if his health and drive had remained, he might still be writing today. There's a bunch of things in society and on television he could be writing about.
The perfect television marriage for Serling likely would have been HBO. No censhorship, no sponsers to worry about. He would have had free reign to do a show exactly the way he would have liked to. Of course, it would probably be a very preachy show. But still...Rod Serling working for HBO is something that could have been potentially great.
If Rod Serling were still alive today, he would be 85. He still wrote for television when he died in 1975 although I think he was pretty burnt out at that point. But if makes you think, if his health and drive had remained, he might still be writing today. There's a bunch of things in society and on television he could be writing about.
The perfect television marriage for Serling likely would have been HBO. No censhorship, no sponsers to worry about. He would have had free reign to do a show exactly the way he would have liked to. Of course, it would probably be a very preachy show. But still...Rod Serling working for HBO is something that could have been potentially great.
For what it's worth, TZ writer Richard Matheson is 83 and he's still writing. Mostly books and short stories these days, but he's also scripting an upcoming Broadway musical version of SOMEWHERE IN TIME . . . .
His cool short story "Button, Button" was made into last year's crap-tacular feature film "The Box."
And his old TZ episode, "Steel," is now being remade as REAL STEEL with Hugh Jackman.
"Button, Button" was also adapted by Matheson himself as an episode of the 1986 CBS Twilight Zone revival.
Good for him -- and for you, as his editor. Matheson's having kind of a career comeback lately, it seems. The movies based on his work may not be turning out too well (here's hoping Real Steel breaks the trend), but they're bringing new attention, and as you've said to me once or twice, that's never a bad thing.
That's actually the first version of the story I ever experienced, and it worked much better as a TZ short than as a film. The first act of the film was basically the entire TZ episode; a focused, single, complete story; with the second and third acts a bunch of confused unnecessary nonsense added to bring the run time to an acceptable feature length.
I've only read the short story, which I liked a great deal. Short, simple, to the point, and effective.
I'm glad to see Matheson is still writing and doing well. He has had a ton of his stories adapted to the big screen.
I'm glad to see Matheson is still writing and doing well. He has had a ton of his stories adapted to the big screen.
Enough to fill a book, literally. There's a new book, RICHARD MATHESON ON SCREEN by Matthew Bradley, due out shortly.
I just got The Twilight Zone Season 1 on Blu-ray a few days ago. It looks great in high-def. I'm very impressed.
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