Le voyageur

This series played on Friday and/or Saturday nights through my youth and so it shaped me every bit as much as Tales From the Darkside, Ray Bradbury Theater, Friday the 13th the Series, Monsters, and other such programs. To my surprise, I recently found season one and two of The Hitchhiker on DVD at a local video store. I rented and re-watched them after more than a decade and found them to be not only happily nostalgic, but generally very entertaining (some, of course, being much better than others). There isn't much available on television any more that has the offbeat, cathartic campiness of every episode being taken from some short story of the horror or thriller genre. The Outer Limits is still on, but that's about it. While we're all in this dry spell of such programming, it is wonderful to find something like The Hitchhiker return on DVD (if not on TV).

This tv show was one of the best ever made. It kept audiences hooked, and you never could predict exactly how the episodes would turn out. With a style somewhere between The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, everything about this show from the opening theme and hitchhiker's opening monologue to the final shocking scene was first-rate. Try either to catch it on tv or the episodes available in the video store. You won't regret it.

*** out of ****

The Hitchhiker was a television series that was truly imaginative with every episode. Each episode was unique in that you as the viewer did not know what to expect. One episode you could be scared as hell and next could leave you in a state of bewilderment. This series also launched many successful acting careers such as Helen Hunt, Gary Busey and others. "The Hitchhiker" was a series that was ahead of its time. It is certainly one of the most underrated shows that I know of....not to mention the most frightening opening songs which helped set the tone for the viewer and the "hitchhiker's" journey in each episode.

To get right down to it, this show makes Tales From the Crypt look like a Disney series. The main character almost always dies. It is hilarious to see them so arrogant and ignorant in the beginning and then have all of this horrible stuff eventually happen to them. Some of the episodes are a bit corny, but they are so in that bizarre, remote 80's way. I remember watching the re-runs on USA when I was in grade school (that song gave me nightmares), and those showings were edited. The unedited episodes are the real deal, but unfortunately only a few are for sale on VHS and they are no longer shown on any HBO channel. A DVD with ten episodes is due in March 2004, but with only ten episodes. If you are an enthusiast of the series, buy the DVD and maybe there will more to come.

When I was living in Barbados, CBC used to carry this anthology series in its late night (and by late, I mean around 10:30) Tuesday slot - they definitely didn't show all the episodes of this, or "Tales From The Darkside" (which replaced it). Not a patch on "The Twilight Zone," this anthology of tales about people who either got what they deserved or met their doom - and the two weren't always the same - was still effectively creepy, if a bit morbid, viewing.

Some of the most notable tales topped and tailed by Page Fletcher's wandering man: a story with Michael O'Keefe's dog getting revenge on his enemies, and driving him to his death when his girlfriend told him he was his own worst enemy; a tale with a man who thought his girlfriend was an escaped mental patient, and ended up getting killed by the real loony; "One Last Prayer," with Lisa Blount as a singer who invented an image for herself that was guaranteed to succeed, but worked TOO well and ended up replacing the singer in real life; and an episode with Harry Hamlin as a developer under a curse, which stood out as one of the few stories with a happy ending.

And yes, that music is very memorable. But Home Box Office's reputation was not built on this show.