The Outer Limits Versus the Twilight Zone

3-2-06

[Indy Pendance]

The Outer Limits Versus the Twilight Zone, which is better?

[weegee]

The good thing about DVD is that studios are pulling out all sorts of series and offering boxed sets of full runs. The price per season on a show may initially be $25-40 but sometimes there is a blowout (think remaindered bookstores) where you can get full seasons of things like Peter Gunn for $12.

Why pay $50 a month for cable to watch something like TV Land? When Viacom moved syndicated shows to cable, people were paying for the exact content (WITH commercials) that used to be free.

Buy it and just watch it at your leisure. The question then comes up, would you watch some of these series if you had to actively select each episode? I'm not asking that about either of these series, more specifically that is about things like "Saved By The Bell" or "Sanford and Son".

When tv ceases to be "background noise" how much do some of the old reruns hold up? And would you watch some of these series several times?

What I'd like to be able to do is "upload" the content of several tv discs to a DVR at my home and watch an episode of this, an episode of this, and maybe a movie...

When you have to remember which episodes you've already watched (and some series like Rocky & Bullwinkle have longrunning continuity), it can be a hassle to keep popping in and out DVDs to watch a 25 minute show (especially when you can't fast forward through opening Disc titles/production credits/copyright notices, etc.).

It's good to have tv for brekaing news but now it isn't uncommon for Fox affiliates to switch to Fox News coverage for hours at a time or another network to pull in something like CNN. And those aren't great news sources anyway (basically I would turn to them for live video coverage but not care anything about the announcer yammering away).

But to take this back to the original comment. DVD means that you can watch a series like Danger Man/Secret Agent Man, The Prisoner, or Twilight Zone even if no network in your viewing area are carrying them.

And there are lots of obscure series coming out on DVD. Even more if you have a region free player and can buy British DVDs.

You may get to see One Step Beyond someday yet. Even if they aren't great, they would have a different (yet similar) feel to the TZ and OL series you may already have seen every episode of.

[drjimmy]

One Step Beyond actually predated Twilight Zone. Also, it wasn't fictional stories, but dramatizations of supposed actual supernatural phenomena. It was very atmospheric with a good host (whose name I can't recall).

[JCEccles]

Twilight Zone was usually clever and cool; Outer Limits was more often (to my sensibilities) stark and terrifying.

OL's "Architects of Fear" was the most frightening television episode I can remember from my youth. And this, even though I knew the "monster" was just a scientists who had under gone radical surgery and drug therapy to change his appearance. At the very end when he is dying, and the director still does not show the "monster's" form. Rather, he lets you only see the shadow of the hideous misshapen thing against a well-lighted tile floor as drops of blood fall. Finally, he lets you see its face and its scraggly finger as it tenderly touches its horror-stricken wife (who is completely unaware of what has happened to her husband) on her forehead, his final secret sign of fidelity and love. And then and only then does she know.

A masterpiece.

[FreeReign]

Morlocks?

Kanamits.

[Richard Kimball]

Noooooo. Night Gallery could have been great, and started out well, but after they yanked creative control from Serling it went downhill fast.

Twilight Zone was best.

Although almost completely forgotten, Boris Karloff's Thriller was my favorite. Scared the heck out of me. I think it had one episode where a guy finds a girl hitch hiking after a car wreck (rainy night, of course), and he gives her a ride home. She's injured, and keeps getting weaker. When he gets to the parent's house she's unconscious, so he runs to the door, and bangs on it. The parents answer, and tell him their daughter was killed years earlier, but every rainy night, someone knocks on their door. At the end, Karloff says, "so if you pick her up on a rainy night, take her home. Take her all the way home."

[Dominic Harr]

DVD means that you can watch a series like Danger Man/Secret Agent Man, The Prisoner, or Twilight Zone even if no network in your viewing area are carrying them.

Oh, man -- the Prisoner!

I had forgotten that show.

*MUST* go to hunt that down, can't believe I haven't thought of that in years.

I'm dreaming of a day it's all stored on a hard-drive somewhere and availabe 'on-demand'.

[Indy Pendance]

We just bought 'The Band of Brothers'. Well worth the investment. So far, we've watched it twice, the entire 10 episodes.

[Mike Bates]

Rod was a Lefty, but TZ was far superior to TOL I thought.

[MinorityRepublican]

Have anyone seen here one of the best Outer Limits episode, "Dead Man's Switch"? The title may be wrong but basically what happens is that this took place when Aliens first came to earth so America decided to select 6 different people and put them in each bunker alone hundreds of feet deep and they have enough supply to last for only for a year.

They were able communicate to each other through the internet and one of them had to press a button so that nuclear, biological, chemical weapons would not be launched all over the world.

I won't spoil the rest for people who haven't seen it yet. :-)

[weegee]

What if they saw this episode of TZ? I'd think they could be REAL brats!

It's a Good Life (1961)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Good_Life_(The_Twilight_Zone)

Six-year-old Anthony Fremont (Billy Mumy) terrorizes and controls his town by disfiguring or killing people. On a whim, he can wish people into the “cornfield” or transform them into a jack-in-the-box if they don’t think happy thoughts or otherwise act according to his wishes—just by using his mind. Every day is a living hell for the people in Peaksville, Ohio.

In early 2003, a Twilight Zone revival series on UPN showed a sequel called “It’s Still a Good Life” in which Bill Mumy reprised his Anthony Fremont role. His on-screen daughter was played by his real-life daughter Liliana Mumy. Cloris Leachman also returned as his mother.

The "new" Zone did a followup with Billy Mumy where he brought everyone back. DUMB.

[Indy Pendance]

Soylent Green. You say potatoe, I say patatoe... We sure are morbid....

[weegee]

I'd rather have my own "archive" and manage the data bits as I see fit.

I don't like to be nickel and dimed or to have my download viewing habits monitored for "ratings" guides.

[LdSentinal]

That's from the 90s version of 'The Outer Limits.' It was a pretty scary episode.

[Indy Pendance]

I don't recall that episode, but he was on 'lost in space'.

[weegee]

The Thtiller DVD set is 17 discs (for about $100 retail). Maybe 2 months of cable.

All in how you budget your entertainment dollar (and online DVDs can be had for 20-40% off retail).

As it stands, I can't afford to buy all the series I would like or have the time to watch everything anyway.

[weegee]

They remade that story in the Twilight Zone movie.

[Snoopers-868th]

The Lights Out I am referring to was on T.V.

[FreeReign]

You say potatoe, I say patatoe... We sure are morbid....

...or short on food. :)

[Indy Pendance]

And you said it was dumb. Was it? TV and movies aren't worth my time anymore. The last movie I bought tickets for was Forrest Gump. It used to be a family could actually watch stuff on TV or go to a movie without worrying about content. Now, we have to pre-screen everything.

[Indy Pendance]

That's where the Morlocks or Kanamits come in. Hmmmm, which tastes better with Bleu Cheese?