The Twilight Zone - Season 1: BD Review
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Page 1 of 3 Image / 936 Minutes / 1959-1960 / Unrated / Street Date: September 14, 2010
No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity, his sympathetically enthusiastic curiosity about us, and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves . . . He dreamed of much for us, and demanded much of himself, perhaps more than was possible for either in this time and place. But it is that quality of dreams and demands that makes the ones like Rod Serling rare . . . and always irreplaceable. - Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry on Rod Serling. It makes sense that Gene Roddenberry would speak in such glowing terms about Rod Serling, six-time Emmy Award winning writer and the creator of the timeless television classic, Twilight Zone. Both men orbited the same moral and creative universe. They each saw humanity as flawed, but basically good, well-meaning, and deserving of continued existence. Roddenberry, of course, used 23rd century space travel as his safe and sneaky foundation to make points about our societal shortcomings and by acknowledging them, proving we're capable of doing better. Serling needed a bigger canvas. So he created one, made mostly out of irony.
Twilight Zone, which ran for five seasons on CBS starting in 1959, is filled with irony. Sometimes, it's directed at a particular character, as when a lonely bank teller, complaining that he never has enough time to read his beloved books, breaks his reading glasses. Sometimes, the irony plays on the audience, as when a facially deformed woman, her head obscured by bandages, has her dressing removed, only to find out she's still ugly. The irony is, she looks beautiful to us, but in her world, she's hideous. Irony, fear, ignorance and prejudice (the latter sometimes a combination of fear and ignorance) were themes Serling found effortlessly elastic. He wrote or adapted 99 of the show's 156 episodes. And no matter what the topic, they all felt like a Serling script. They were smart, thoughtful, edgy, topical, and benignly didactic. Even the episodes that had nothing particularly important to say were said as if something sublimely intelligent or thought-provoking was just around the corner. Episodes included on this set: 1. Where Is Everybody? |
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