Review of Twilight Zone, The: Vol 5

Introduction

The Twilight Zone was, as creator Rod Serling explained to viewers, "the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition." This abstract concept became as familiar as any continuing character on TV. In most episodes, there came a point at which the central character realised he was in a situation that defied explanation. Other times, it was the TV viewer who got trapped in the Twilight Zone, unable to grasp what was happening on screen until the end. A sense of uneasy unreality suffused the entire series and kept viewers riveted even to sub par episodes. The Twilight Zone inspired many other sci-fi and horror collections that we know and love – Aliens, X-Files, Close Encounters etc etc.

This volume, the fifth in the series, is a collection of 4 classic episodes all of which were originally transmitted between 1959 and 1963.

Can a 40-year-old series still manage to captivate viewers today?

Video

The re-mastered 1.33 full-screen imagery is impressive for such old source material, although there are the occasional speckles and dust marks that betrays its age. For black and white film (shot on 35mm film), the quality is surprisingly good and is actually quite captivating to watch, in a nostalgic kind of way.

Audio

Although proclaiming DD5.1 on the case and during the disk’s introduction, it is something of a disappointment to be greeted with a large amount of background hiss as the first episode begins. This is noticeably reduced as soon as the vocals kick in, however, but it’s still a distraction. It is another problem caused by the age of the source material I guess and it really makes you wonder what it was like to hear the original airing on television. As with the visual inadequacies, once you have watched a few minutes of this disk, you tend to ignore its shortcomings.

Features

The key extra here is the “Inside the Twilight Zone” section which was written by Marc Zicree author of the best-selling “The Twilight Zone Companion”. There is also some biographical information on Rod Serling, out erstwhile presenter and creator of the series. Additionally, there are reviews of each episode, cast information and a season-by-season commentary. The features are all text-based scrollers, but do contain much information for fans of the series.

The menu is largely dominated by a CG eye-ball which turns to look at whichever item is highlighted. Quite effective in a tacky sort of way, and a bit of good fun.

Conclusion

This series has such a long standing reputation, particularly in the USA, that it seems unfortunate that this reviewer thought them a bit long-in-the-tooth and more amusing than chilling. I’m afraid the special effects are nothing more than laughable at best, but I guess they were considered state-of-the-art back in the 60’s. Fans of the series will find all they hoped for here, with noticeable improvements in the restored imagery and improved sound.

The episodes seem to be of quite variable quality also, with the best on this disk being “Probe 7 – Over and Out”. Many household names from the movie business were drawn to appearing in the series, such was its popularity with television audiences. On this volume, Jack Warden (star of Hawaii 5-0) is the best known of the actors included here.

Basically then, one for dedicated fans of “the Zone” only, but it has got interest for those who enjoy a (generally) good storyline and some dodgy acting. It is interesting to see how life has changed in 40 years – try and spot a man doing any household chores for example, let alone changing a dirty nappy.

Oh, happy days!