Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone – Season Four (1962 – 1963/Image Entertainment Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B Extras: B+ Episodes: B
In the
early 1960s, it was very common for all types of TV shows to only be a
half-hour in length. Now considered the
length of sitcoms, the attention span of TV programming and what viewers wanted
to see was actually expanding. As a
result, many half-hour shows transitioned into hour-long shows (Gunsmoke) or started out that way (Outer Limits), so many hit shows of the
time followed suit and a few made the transition. It is often said The Twilight Zone did this because of Outer Limits, but it also seems it was following the trend more
than it gets credit for. That would be Season Four of the series, but it would
not last and the show would return to a half-hour for what was its final
season.
Now, Season Four has arrived on Blu-ray and
it has always been my belief that it was a better, more underrated season than
it ever got credit for and though it may not have always been successful, new
approaches were tried and really show how smart and bold Rod Serling and
company really were. The switch also
saved the show from the weekly TV grind and helped to make the show the well-remembered
classic it is today. The shows may not
always stay with you like the half-hour shows, but some of these shows are the
most underrated in the series and deserves serious rediscovery. With the amazing Blu-ray set, everyone
(including fans) will be stunned.
For those
who missed our coverage of the first three sets, here are the links to our
coverage, which includes our opening discussion of this all-time classic in the
Season One set:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10322/Rod+Serling%E2%80%99s+The+Twili
Season Two
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10554/Rod+Serling%E2%80%99s+The+Twili
Season Three
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10736/Rod+Serling%E2%80%99s+The+Twili
The
following list of these next 18 shows (episodes 103 – 120) includes the writer
and director listed, include audio commentary tracks and (usually) isolate
music tracks in every case, plus some radio drama versions and sponsor ads in
many cases:
1) In
His Image (Charles Beaumont/Perry Lafferty) – A man (George Grizzard)
has supposed killed another man, then totally forgets about it by the time he
arrives at his girlfriend’s place, but more things keep happening and is he
losing his memory severely, is his personality splitting or something more
bizarre? Mixed but interesting show.
2) The
Thirty Fathom Grave (Rod Serling/Perry Lafferty) – Simon Oakland (Psycho, Kolchak: The Night Stalker) plays a submarine captain who must
figure out why their ship is getting a message from a WWII sub over twenty
years before, but an older crew member (Mike Kellin) may just know the answer
and it is not good news at all. Bill
Bixby also stars in this fairly good show.
3) Valley Of The Shadow (Charles
Beaumont/Perry Lafferty) – Ed Nelson is a very ambitious reporter who finds an
out of the way town that is somehow different and the residents know why,
telling him to leave quickly. If not, he
will find out the secret and his options will not be good. Natalie Trundy and James Doohan also star in
this good show.
4) He’s
Alive (Rod Serling/Stuart Rosenberg) – Dennis Hopper is great in this
excellent show heading a group of Neo-Nazis intent on a new fascist movement,
but he is not having the success he intended until an older man with great
advice shows up and helps him build up a disturbing following.
5) The
Mute (Richard Matheson/Stuart Rosenberg) – Ann Jillian (much later of It’s A Living) stars in this mixed,
problematic episode where a group of people decide not to talk in 1953 in order
to develop telepathic powers and communication, but ten years later, she is the
only survivor when her family house burns down killing everyone. Then the family who adopts her treats her as
disposable.
6) Death
Ship (Richard Matheson/Don Medford) – It is 1997 and a spaceship run by
Captain Ross (Jack Klugman) seek a planet much like earth so people can move
there and inhabit it. However, when they
do, something strange has happened in a group that has possibly beat them to
it. Ross Martin also stars.
7) Jess-Belle
(Earl Hamner/Buzz Kulik) – The great Anne Francis has the title role in a
twisted love story where she loses her boyfriend (James Best) and will do
anything to get him back, including going to a witch (legend Jeanette Nolan)
for a special position that will do the trick, but its serious side effect is
not listed on the label. Virginia Gregg
also stars in this decent show that has aged oddly, but is worth a look.
8) Miniature
(Charles Beaumont/Walter Grauman) – Robert Duvall is a bored, lonely office
worker who loves going to the local museum as soon as work is over all the
time. He is particularly interested in a
certain dollhouse with a female figure in it and she happens to really be
alive! William Windom, Pert Kelton (The Honeymooners) and Barbara Barrie (Barney Miller) also star in one of the
best shows of this season.
9) Printer’s
Devil (Charles Beaumont/Ralph Senensky) – Burgess Meredith is back
again, this time as the mysterious Mr. Smith, who kicks in some money for a
small newspaper to compete against larger ones threatening to put it out of business;
the position it is in when Smith arrives and even works for free! However, the arrangement is too good to be
true as they get the news far sooner than their competitors.
10) No
Time Like The Past (Rod Serling/James Addiss) – A man (Dana Andrews) invents
a time machine and thinks it is a good idea to change history, but his efforts
fail every time, so he decides the solution is to go back and not come back to
make a chosen change permanent, but other complications ensue. Patricia Breslin also stars in this really
good show.
11) The
Parallel (Rod Serling/Alan Crosland) – A spaceship lost turns up in a
place where it should not have been able to land in one piece, then everything
else seems at least slightly out of place, but only one of the crew (Steve
Forrest) is aware of this. Frank Aletter
also stars in this show somewhat similar to an earlier show, but it has its
moments.
12) I Dream Of Genie (John Furia/Robert Gist) – Howard
Morris plays a ship clerk who buys an old Arabian lamp to impress a young lady
he is having trouble connecting with, but cannot even give this to her without
discomfort. When he goes home and rubs
it, a genie (Jack Albertson) materializes and offers him the usual wishes, but
each one backfires. A mixed show with
some amusing moments, but we have seen this before.
13) The New
Exhibit (Charles Beaumont/John Brahm) – A wax museum has a collection
of figures representing the most famous killers in history and when a man (Martin
Balsam back again) breaks one, he takes it home to fix it. Unfortunately, it unleashes more trouble than
he ever expected by bringing them all back to life! This is another good one and often very
interesting.
14) Of
Late I Think Of Cliffordville (Rod Serling/David Rich) – Julie Newmar
(the original Catwoman) is Miss Devlin, who is thrilled that there is a
businessman (Albert Salami) who may be her match in the mortal world, so she
visits him and offers to send him back many years so he can build a bigger
business. Unfortunately for him, he
agrees.
15) The
Incredible World of Horace Ford (Reginald Rose/Abner Biberman) – Pat
Hingle is a man who makes toys for a toy company and loves doing it because all
he remembers is how perfect his life was decades ago when he was a child with
nothing but toys. It gets him to loose
his job, upsetting his family and driving him to revisit where he grew up. The visit is so good that it suddenly seems
he is in the past, but he is about to be reminded just how much revisionist history
his memory has been running on. Nan
Martin also stars in this smart show.
16) On
Thursday We Leave For Home (Rod Serling/Buzz Kulik) – James Whitmore is
the captain of a spaceship that crash-lands on a planet that is very rough, but
his skills keep everyone alive and put him in high reverence. He tells them a rescue ship will show up one
day, but when it does, he tries to get them to stay as he has become too
comfortable in having them co-depend on him.
Tim O’Connor and James Broderick also star in this fine episode.
17) Passage
On The Lady Anne (Charles Beaumont/Lamont Johnson) – When a couple (Lee
Phillips, Joyce Van Patten) take a cruise on the title ship to try and save
their marriage, they find two odd things: every other couple is elderly and all
of them are trying to get them to cancel their reservations. When they don’t, increasingly odd things
start to happen. Gladys Cooper, Alan
Napier (Batman), Cecil Kellaway and
Wilfred Hyde-White also star in this well-cast but overly long show.
18) The Bard
(Rod Serling/David Butler) – This season concludes with this entertaining gem about
a troubled writer (Jack Weston) gets a break to write on a TV show about black
magic. When he goes and gets a book on
the subject, it turns out to be a very special volume that conjures up no less
than William Shakespeare (John Williams) to help him write his teleplays and
the madness is only beginning. Burt
Reynolds shows up as a knowing knock-off of a young Marlon Brando and more
funny events continue in this show that writers of all kinds will especially
enjoy. John McGiver and Judy Strangis
are among the supporting cast and it shows that maybe if the next season stayed
an hour-long, it would have been even better.
If some
of the titles sound familiar and you thought you saw any of them in color, it
is because these shows were not always available and Miniature in particular
had been colorized for a horrid celebration special that is better
forgotten. This is the way these should
be seen and remembered. With this kind
of playback performance, you will not want it any other way.
The 1080p
black and white 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image is once again absolutely
amazing throughout on each print of every single episode considering the age of
shows. There is some grain, but it is
even a little less than the last three and you can see that as the image becomes
clearer still. I can add that it too can
definitely compete with most of the 1.33 X 1 black and white HD images we have
seen on most such feature film releases on Blu-ray.
The PCM
2.0 sound once again comes in original Mono and an “enhanced” version that is
essentially more stereophonic, but this time, it sounds so great it could
convince you these were originally in stereo!
The playback in both cases still continues to be very good, all coming
from the original magnetic sound masters also preserved and in good shape, but
I preferred the “enhanced” versions because they sound cleaner, clearer and
allow the exceptional music scores, sound effects and dialogue come
through. The result remains as good as
any non-multi-channel film production of the 1950s and will even impress
audiophiles. Whether it is because these
episodes were made later or not syndicated as much, the magnetic sound sources
are in stunning shape, rivaling the best film and music recordings of the time
in overall fidelity, raising the bar for how good anything coming from this era
should sound.
And once
again, the extras are tremendous and exceptional. New extras debuting on this Blu-ray set
include 13 New Audio Commentaries once again and often (to the benefit of all
fans) featuring The Twilight Zone Companion author Marc Scott Zicree,
author/film historian Gary Gerani (Fantastic Television), authors/historians
Scott Skelton and Jim Benson (Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After Hours
Tour), Twilight Zone writers
Earl Hamner, George Clayton Johnson and John Tomerlin, writer William F. Nolan
(Logan's Run), author/historian
Martin Grams, Jr. (The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic),
writer/producer Jeff Vlaming (NCIS, Fringe, Battlestar Galactica), writer Mark Fergus (Children of Men, Iron Man),
author Bill Warren (Keep Watching the
Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties), writer/producer
Joseph Dougherty (thirtysomething,
Judging Amy, Saving Grace), and writer/producer Jaime Paglia (Eureka),
plus another Vintage Audio Interview with director of photography George T.
Clemens who gave the show its look.
Extras
imported from the upgraded DVD set includes a paper foldout inside the Blu-ray case
with technical information and very brief episode guide, more audio
commentaries previous issued on DVD by Marc Scott Zicree for Death
Ship and William Windom for Miniature, Vintage Audio
Recollections with Herbert Hirschman, Ross Martin, Burgess Meredith, Pat
Hingle, Earl Hamner, Buzz Kulik and Anne Francis, Video Interviews with Morgan
Brittany, Anne Francis, Paul Comi and John Furia, Jr., 7 Radio Dramas featuring
Blair Underwood, Jason Alexander, Lou Diamond Phillips, H. M. Wynant, Mike
Starr, Barry Bostwick and John Ratzenberger, Isolated Scores for all 18
episodes featuring Fred Steiner, Van Cleave, Rene Garriguenc and others, Rod
Serling Promos for "Next Week's" Show, Rod Serling Blooper from He's
Alive, classic Saturday Night
Live Clip with the original cast including Dan Ackroyd imitating Serling, The
Famous Writers School Promo with Rod Serling, Genesee Beer Spot and Twilight Zone Season 4 Billboards.
With Season Five concluding these landmark
TV on Blu-ray releases, fans and other viewers can really appreciate how great
this series is. Along with the kind of
extensive extras section these first four sets have had, it will be a long time
before we see another Blu-ray set (TV or otherwise) be so rich, smart and
thorough. These sets are worth every
penny.
Continue
on with Season Five at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11106/Rod+Serling%E2%80%99s+The+Twili
- Nicholas Sheffo
