Posted on 09/29/2009 5:41:50 AM PDT by JoeProBono
One of the most overrated tv shows of all time.
The best 10% of the series ranks up there with the best 10% of all television ever produced.
That being said, the average TZ’s story could be conveyed in under 30 seconds. The stories are simple, though the best ones are not simplistic. When Serling wrote the episodes, the dialogue is stilted and heavy handed. When others wrote episodes (like Richard Matheson), the shows tended to be much better.
A typical TZ is a 30 second story stretched out to 30 minutes. It’s often painful to sit through. The one season when it was extended to an astonishing 1 hour per episode was torture.
I like the antholgy format, and to be fair TZ hit home runs now and then. As a series, it’s not a home run, let alone a grand slam.
The Outer Limits was much better tv science fiction with much more sophisticated plots and stories. Cooler aliens and monsters, too.
My faves are “to Serve Man” and “The New Exhibit”. For those with the Sci-Fi channel, the show is on sometime in the middle of the night, set up the DVR to record them. I actually watch them with my kids, they love them as well.
I dig The Outer Limits!
The Twilight Zone is by far one of the best programs in TV history and Serling is truly one of the pioneers of early television with his masterpiece “Requiem for a Heavyweight”. For a real treat, purchase “The Twilight Zone Companion” by Marc Scott Zicree which has an analysis of every program, listing the cast and credits and it’s loaded with pictures and commentary from everyone in association with the show. It’s out of print, but you could usually get it pretty cheap from websites like alibris.com and powells.com. We enjoy our copy of it, right sis?
Absolutely. I didn’t know it was out of print.
I ran into Rod Serling in the grocery store.
LOL
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