Twilight Zone - the Original Series: Season 4 [DVD]

When Twilight Zone entered its fourth season, changes took place. Producer Buck Houghton moved on, and Serling's involvement in the show was considerably less. The series also became made up of 18 hour long episodes. Unfortunately, this experiment never really caught on and the next season reverted back to half hour stories.

The fourth season has had something of a bad reputation for many years, but it seems that people are beginning to realise that some of the episodes worked extremely well at the expanded length.

The episodes that work well: 'In His Image,' about a man prone to psychotic tendencies and memory problems, who discovers a terrible truth; 'Death Ship,' featuring the excellent Jack Klugman and Ross Martin, about a space ship crew who discover their own dead bodies; 'Jess-Belle,' Earl Hamner Jr's finest episode, about a young woman who seeks out a potion in order to keep her beloved; 'Miniature,' an originally non-syndicated episode starring Robert Duvall as a shy, sweet man who falls in love with a figure from a dolls' house; 'The Incredible World of Horace Ford,' in which a toy designer returns to his childhood - literally; 'On Thursday We Leave For Home,' a powerful story with a superb central performance from James Whitmore; and 'The Bard,' a lighthearted satire about a writer who summons Shakespeare to help him with his plays.

The rest of the episodes either fall flat or remain average. 'The Thirty-Fathom Grave,' 'He's Alive,' 'No Time Like The Past,' 'The Parallel,' 'I Dream of Genie,' and 'Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville' are episodes that just don't work, and suffer from the expanded length.

The remaining episodes are pretty average - all full of good ideas that don't come off so well in execution.

But there's one episode that is difficult to watch for entirely different reasons. 'Mute' is the most uncomfortable episode the series has ever produced. Essentially supposed to be an episode about finding love in a family, it actually presents itself to be an episode more about child abuse, and the disturbing after taste of the episode stems from the viewer being made to believe that the story has a happy ending. It's extremely bleak.

This is still a very worthwhile season to buy, and the DVD itself will surprise you. This boxset has some more extras than the previous release. Interviews with some of the real players, Serling clips, colourised footage of 'Miniature,' commentaries as always and an excellent contemporary commentary by Marc Scott Zicree for 'Death Ship.'

After this, Twilight Zone stumbled into its worst season, Season five. But Season four can stand well on its own, and is certainly worthwhile of a fans consideration.

Not quite up to the high standard of Seasons 1 to 3 as this year The Twilight Zone was a mid season replacement so they made 18 50 minute episodes instead of 36 25 minute episodes.

This interesting experiment was only partially successful as the longer format led to a large amount of padding in many of the episodes. But there were still some classics - "Death Ship" with Jack Klugman, "On Thursday We Leave For Home", "In His Image", "Jess-Belle" and "The Bard" to name a few.

Definetly still worth buying, and not just for Twilight Zone Completists.

Twilight Zone Season 3 is certainly well worth getting. It is the only time the original episodes appeared in the one hour format. In some cases the more expansive approach allowed for a deeper exploration of the theme. "Miniature" for instance, is a complex psychological study which benefits from the opportunity to show more elaborate plot sequences than would be possible in a half an hour. Valley of the Shadow" is a marvellous episode as good as any of the classic half-hour episodes. Sure, some of the sci-fi sets look a bit dated, but the theme is anything but! The conflict of conscience within the hero and the mutual attraction between him and the girl is completely believable as is the resolution. It was interesting to see a young Scotty from Star Trek in the early sequence!

Sometimes one can lose as well as gain. "In His Image", has a theme similar to "The Lonely" from Season One in that it treats the idea of an artificial intelligence and the possibility that it has a reflexive intellect and thus can engage in self-reflection and possess a sense of identity. The context, however, is very different. The one hour format allows for a more extended treatment of the theme but "The Lonely" has the greater emotional impact. It still represents a very strong start to the Season.

One episode that makes many viewers uneasy {including myself} is "Mute. There are quite good reasons for this. The story begins with a prologue which creates an absurd scenario for future events involving a "pact" to raise children as pure telepaths {without the power of speech, as events later show}. Despite concerns by some members of the pact about violating the human rights of their children in pursuing such a course, the group charges on with their plan. In fact, this entire prologue could be skipped and the story could dramatically and effectively begin with the next scene. Here the plot fast forwards about a decade when one of the children concerned, Ilse, is found outside the burning house of her parents, apparently in shock.

Another annoyance is the surly xenophobic behaviour of an old man to a polite and gentle older German couple who have come to see about Ilse. This is a small Pennsylvanian community with the name "German Corner" which evidently would indicate a number of residents would have German ancestry and/or connections. Why would an older resident of such a town engage in that type of obnoxious behaviour?

Worst of all, is the horrible schoolteacher, Miss Frank, who psychologically brutalises Ilse. There is even an undercurrent of a repressed desire to inflict physical punishment on the child as she generally picks up and clutches a ruler as she questions the girl. Miss Frank never gets her comeuppance nor is her cruelty ever recognised, even by Cora Wheeler who bonds with Ilse, loves her, and convinces her husband to initiate adoption procedures.

What saves the episode is some excellent acting by Barbara Baxley in the part of Cora Wheeler, good support by Frank Overton as her husband and a brilliant performance by the young Ann Jillian as Ilse. The relationship of those three characters is beautifully and engrossingly dramatised. The photography is excellent with some interesting and telling shots and the inner life of Ilse is conveyed through both camera work and sound effects.

This is a case where compressing the entire story into half an hour would probably force the screen writer to deal only with the central problem of a telepath in a non-telepathic society. "Mute"is not a likeable episode but I get the feeling that there is a seed of a very powerful drama within it.

But most other episodes are well worth watching with good acting, interesting photography, and thought-provoking themes.

My one disappointment {apart from the flaws in "Mute"} was the fact that "Miniature" was presented in full only in the black and white version. The colorised sections are shown in a little extra on the final disc. I think both versions should have been given in their entirety. Perhaps sometime another issue will take up that opportunity.

It is an excellent set well presented and worth having.