Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"It is the middle ground between light and shadow"... and between almost good and very bad, 14 Mar 2007
The revival of Rod Serling's legendary "Twilight Zone" was always a foolhardy, some may say foolish, project. The utterly changed landscape of television in the Eighties, the strictly commercial approach to programme making, but also the fact that fond memories had placed the original on such an unreachably high pedestal, made it almost impossible to (re)create something that would not pale by comparison. Nonetheless, the production team managed to enlist a impressively large number of great creative talents. Even so, Season One didn't do too well, both with the critics and the audience, but just well enough to generate a second series. The episodes' lengths was cut to fit a half-hour slot, giving some of the stories not enough time to develop, and CBS' unwillingness to put money into the show was still all too obvious in the low production values. In fact, the ratings took such a nose-dive that the show was cancelled halfway through.
The ultimate failure is not all due to "creative differences" between CBS and the production team, though. It must be said that some of the stories, or their adaptations, simply aren't very strong, to begin with, despite the often very talented writers, directors and actors. Of the 19 episodes comprising Season 2 (two of which actually feature two separate stories each), and this DVD box set, only a handful manage to tap into the compassionate, deep-rooted humanity which marks Rod Serling's original series, most notably "The Road Less Traveled" (directed by Wes Craven) and "The Toys of Caliban", arguably the best episode of season 2. And it is episodes like these which, along with a few others, make up for the other, all-too simple stories with disappointingly obvious "twist" endings. They even make it worthwhile to get this box set, even though the picture and sound quality is simply abysmal. Quite frankly, the old VHS copies that I taped off the telly have better picture and sound. All its failings aside, the show would have deserved a better transfer, a better presentation and better extras - only two rather forced sounding commentaries are, actually, slightly insulting.
For those interested, the featured episodes and their writers are: "The Once and Future King" (George R.R. Martin & Bryce Maritano); "The After Hours" (Rockne S. O'Bannon, story by Rod Serling); "Lost and Found" (George R.R. Martin, story by Phyllis Eisenstein); "The Saucer of Loneliness" (David Gerrold, story by Theodore Sturgeon); "The World Next Door" (Lan O'Kun); "Voices in the Earth" (Alan Brennert); "What Are Friends For?" (J. Michael Staczynski); "The Storyteller" (Rockne S. O'Bannon); "Aqua Vita" (Jeremy Bertrand Finch & Paul Chitlik); "Time and Teresa Golowitz (Alan Brennert, story by Parke Godwin); "Song of the Younger World" (Anthony & Nancy Lawrence); "Nightsong" (Michael Reaves); "The Convict's Piano" (Patrice Messina, story by James Crocker); "The Card" (Michael Cassutt); "The Road Less Traveled" (George R.R. Martin); "The Girl I Married" (J.M. DeMatteis); "Shelter Skelter" (Ron Cobb & Robin Love); "The Toys of Caliban" (George R.R. Martin, story by Terry Matz); "Joy Ride" (Cal Willingham); "Private Channel" (Edward Redlich); "The Junction" (Virginia Aldridge).
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