La cinquième dimension

Here's hoping that the 1985 and 1986 versions of The Twilight Zone will one day be released on DVD as it was an outstanding series with well written episodes. The beginning titles have a half-second animation of Rod Serling in them as a salute to the originator of the series. The episode "Nightcrawlers" was directed by William Freidkin and is brilliant. One episode called "Shatterday" features the TV debut of Bruce Willis. There is also a small budget third season which was made after cancellation to make up the numbers for syndication,but it's budget was small and apart from one good episode,where a man is possessed by what looks like Christ,it is a poor third season. But the first two seasons are brilliant.

I remember the "new" series of The Twilight Zone with much fondness. I grew up with them. I don't remember many films/TV programs from childhood, but one episode from this series stood out for me more than any other. It was called "The Burning Man" and it was the most eerie piece of film making I had ever witnessed as a kid. In fact it first inspired me to start film directing.

I know now that this short episode came from a book by Ray Bradbury, but it was the way the short film was shot that awe-inspired me. I seem to remember it featured a young Danny Cooksey as the kid. Had Piper Laurie in it too.

Please CBS, bring them out on DVD. (And do it proper with extra features!)

The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) was a great show; the first revival (1985-1989) set a precedent for its resurrection, an exercise that's been repeated twice more. The '80s TZ makes some changes from Serling's old format. We never see the narrator; there isn't narration for the opening and closing of every story. But I actually think that's respectable - I really felt, watching the first season, that the makers recognized their show couldn't be the same as Serling's, and thought it was more important to try to capture the spirit of it. Also notable is that, despite the fact that non-sitcoms are expected to have hour-long episodes, the makers evidently agreed with Serling that the stories shouldn't be that long, telling two to three stories per episode. The flash of Serling in the new opening is a nice touch to show how important they felt it was to get the spirit right.

The problem in trying to capture the spirit of the original TZ is that the '80s series is inconsistent. It's hard to rate individual episodes, in fact, when the segments within the episodes are inconsistent - "To See the Invisible Man" is a novel concept but is followed by something stupid (and stupidly titled) like "Tooth and Consequences." ("The Elevator" is also in there- creepy and atmospheric, well made, though not totally TZ-esque). "Take My Life...Please!" is a weak piece that sets up "Devil's Alphabet", which is well made and atmospheric.

There are some great stories in season 1: "Nightcrawlers" features some phenomenal acting from Scott Paulin and spectacular scenes recalling the nightmare of the Vietnam War. Ditto Glynn Turman in "Paladin of the Lost Hour", despite the humiliating fact that episode was directed by Alan Smithee.

Ultimately, would Serling approve? I think, in answering that question, you have to keep in mind the fact that Serling himself wasn't infallible. There are less than stellar episodes of the original, and he personally wrote several of them.

Unfortunately, there's a noticeable quality drop in season 2, when the network began to lose faith in the show. "Nightsong" is soap opera-esque and predictable; something like "Lost and Found" is a jokey throwaway before going into "The World Next Door" which is a drag despite starring Jeffrey Tambor (who appeared in the brilliant "Dead Woman's Shoes", a superior reimagining of an original TZ episode). However, "Shelter Skelter" is great, followed by "Private Channel" which is gripping enough. The quality drop is steeper and more severe in season 3, where the narrator Charles Aidman (who didn't really sound like Serling but had the right tone) was replaced by Robin Ward, who sounded way too upbeat. The acting across season 3 becomes, on average, terrible; the production values are sacrificed. That said, there's still some great work here; I particularly found "The Hellgramite Method" terrifying. Altogether, the '80s TZ is head and shoulders above the 2000s version, but neither can touch Serling.

I still can't get enough of the original series. It is and was a classic, not to mention damn hard to compete with. The Twilight Zone that was resurrected was pretty good in it's own right. The stories I remember most was the Nightcrawlers episode and Cat and Mouse. The same sense of horror, dread and irony filled this series as well. It was pretty good and enjoyable. It was just too bad that it was taken off. It was one of the better of the redone television series.

The 1985 version of "The Twilight Zone" begins with a major disadvantage: it trailed the original Rod Serling vintage 1960s version! That original series was, and continues to be, the Gold Standard for programs of this type and for better or worse it's unlikely that any show in its wake could achieve that level of greatness.

However, this second attempt did have some positives going for it: First, it featured stories from a host of brilliant s/f writers, including such iconic names as Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen King, just to name three. And it had the advantage of better special effects, and color photography.

Unfortunately, the parallels to the original series meant this one was doomed to be considered an also ran, which is a shame, because there were some incredible episodes that I would rank among the best of any science fiction program from any era.

Examples: The astonishing "Profile In Silver" tells the story of a time traveling distant relation to John F. Kennedy, who goes to Dallas in 1963, intending to document, but then preventing the assassination of the President, which creates some surprising results. A remarkable story that is most certainly worthy of the "TZ" moniker.

The amusing "I Of Newton" tells of a professor who offhandedly says he would sell his soul to calculate an equation, but then has to try to back out of the deal when the devil shows up in his classroom to claim it. This is reminiscent of many of the humorous episodes from the original series.

They even did a "remake" of a few eps, like "Button Button," where an impoverished couple was offered the chance to receive a large cash amount if they simply pressed a button. The catch: someone they didn't know would die.

There were some hits and misses in this series, and to a degree, it did often reflect the mentality of the 1980s, rather than tell stories that had a "timeless" quality, which is another disadvantage it has to the original series, but it is most certainly worthy of bearing the name, and is worth seeking out, either on reruns or DVD.