The Twilight Zone

[Qman1]

Does anyone remember watching this show? I love old shows like this. (and its a PLUS if you like Science Fiction)

[IMG]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:hvtCaGIOoV0J:www.newcriterion.com/weblog/film-twilight-zone.jpg[/IMG]

[I]One of television's most rightly revered series, The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959-64) stands as the role model for TV anthologies. Its trenchant sci-fi/fantasy parables explore humanity's hopes, despairs, prides and prejudices in metaphoric ways conventional drama cannot.

Creator Rod Serling wrote the majority of the scripts, and produced those of such now-legendary writers as Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. The series featured such soon-to-be-famous actors as Robert Redford, William Shatner, Burt Reynolds, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Carol Burnett, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Peter Falk and Bill Mumy, as well as such established stars as silent-film giant Buster Keaton, Art Carney, Mickey Rooney, Ida Lupino and John Carradine.

An often worthy revival series ran on CBS from 1985-87, and in first-run syndication in 1988. Another recently ran on UPN, which reunited Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman in a sequel to the classic TZ chiller "It's a Good Life." But it's the daring original series that shows every sign of lasting the ages as the literature that it is.[/I]

It still comes on TV (the sci-fi channel) and EVERY year, on the 4th of July its a Marathon of this series.

[Shinmaru]

I love The Twilight Zone. I think there are two TZ marathons each year... one on the 4th of July weekend, and one on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day. I look forward to both of them very much, haha. I really got into TZ while watching one of those marathons a few years ago, in fact (I might've watched a couple of episodes before when Sci-Fi still showed the episodes outside of the marathons). I'm a developing writer, and TZ is a huge influence on me, both in the style of the stories and their structure.

I think what I enjoy most about TZ is that one can enjoy the series as both pure entertainment and intellectual entertainment. You don't really have to [i]get[/i] the deeper meaning behind any of the episodes to get some enjoyment out of the series. I think that's the basic reason why there is so much emphasis on science-fiction and fantastical stories on the series. With that genre, the writers could slip in social and political commentary without the network higher-ups being privy to it. Who would expect such a fantastical series to be commentating on the world at large? I think that was a pretty brilliant move, personally, and it makes the show that much more enjoyable. If you want to think, then you can try to figure out what each episode means, what it is trying to say, etc. If you just want to watch some TV, then you can just see, say, aliens coming to Earth, befriending the humans, and [spoiler]plotting to eat them,[/spoiler] and nothing more. :)

I really wish I could buy the TZ DVDs, but they're way too much for me to afford right now lol. It's a shame, really. Oh well, just a few more months until the next marathon, at least. :p

[Qman1]

[QUOTE=Shinmaru]I love The Twilight Zone. I think there are two TZ marathons each year... one on the 4th of July weekend, and one on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day. I look forward to both of them very much, haha. I really got into TZ while watching one of those marathons a few years ago, in fact (I might've watched a couple of episodes before when Sci-Fi still showed the episodes outside of the marathons). I'm a developing writer, and TZ is a huge influence on me, both in the style of the stories and their structure.

I think what I enjoy most about TZ is that one can enjoy the series as both pure entertainment and intellectual entertainment. You don't really have to [i]get[/i] the deeper meaning behind any of the episodes to get some enjoyment out of the series. I think that's the basic reason why there is so much emphasis on science-fiction and fantastical stories on the series. With that genre, the writers could slip in social and political commentary without the network higher-ups being privy to it. Who would expect such a fantastical series to be commentating on the world at large? I think that was a pretty brilliant move, personally, and it makes the show that much more enjoyable. If you want to think, then you can try to figure out what each episode means, what it is trying to say, etc. If you just want to watch some TV, then you can just see, say, aliens coming to Earth, befriending the humans, and [spoiler]plotting to eat them,[/spoiler] and nothing more. :)

I really wish I could buy the TZ DVDs, but they're way too much for me to afford right now lol. It's a shame, really. Oh well, just a few more months until the next marathon, at least. :p[/QUOTE]

Yeah, TZ was the one of the greates American television shows. It challenged the mind and what we, as a people, were up against. It also showed how creative one person can be. How many season did TZ last?

My favorite episode (in which you implied in the blackened out part of your paragraph, [I]To Serve Man[/I] is one of my favorites. My second favorite is the episode where everyone is the diner trying to figure out who is an alien (not a first though)

[Shinmaru]

[quote name='Qman1']How many season did TZ last?[/quote]

The original series went five seasons with nearly 150 episodes in all. That's a very impressive output lol. No season of the original series had fewer than eighteen episodes, while there are two seasons with thirty-six episodes and one with thirty-seven. No wonder the DVD sets cost so much if they have to pack that much in. :p

[Qman1]

[quote name='Shinmaru']The original series went five seasons with nearly 150 episodes in all. That's a very impressive output lol. No season of the original series had fewer than eighteen episodes, while there are two seasons with thirty-six episodes and one with thirty-seven. No wonder the DVD sets cost so much if they have to pack that much in. :p[/quote]

5 seasons? How many years is that (cause it went from late 60s to the early 70s didnt )

Ive see the prices for those DVDs....it would make a great Birthday present!