wbur.org � News � After 50 Years, ‘The Twilight Zone’ Still Knows What Scares Us: "A HALF CENTURY AGO, a young writer walked across an empty set and pitched a new idea to television advertisers.
“What you’re about to see, gentlemen, is a series called ‘The Twilight Zone’,” the young man said. “We think it’s a rather special kind of series. The thing we’re concerned with, the thing we’re aiming for, the thing we’re working toward is entertainment. This is a series for the storyteller.”"
Hat tip to Ted (The Younger) Fitzgerald.
3 comments:
I first watched T-Zone when I was 8 or 9 years-old, 'round about 1977-78, and I thought it was the best TV show I'd ever seen. Now, at the age of 40, I'm more thouroughly convinced than ever that it's the best show that's ever been on the "tube". The best of the stories are like perfectly self-contained, classic short stories. The writing, directing, actors, music--those elements all came together to form so many classic shows. The worst T-zone episodes are-well, bad. And there are plenty of in-betweeners. My one disappointment with the show is that Serling, and apparently ths other writers, didn't know how to do comedy. I couldn't believe it when I acutally heard a "laugh track" on the episode starring Carol Burnett. They weren't all horrible, some were amusing, like the one where Burgess Meredith is given super-strength by two aliens. But none of the comedy-oriented shows are even close to classics, as far as I'm concerned (although, beging a big Buster Keaton fan, I enjoyed his episode, and thought it was written in an innovative way, using the silent movie title cards, etc.). I probably am one of those geeks who can quote lines and know every episode (except for the hour episodes; don't care for those at all, although I did like "Miniature" with Robert Duvall). The Twilight Zone Companion is the T-zone Bible, and when the box set dvd's came out a few years ago, it was a joy to see Serling on shows like "Liar's Club" and "The Jack Benny Show", as well as hearing him answer questions and analyze episodes while teaching at that small college (I forgot the name), he taught at for a brief time.
Some fine writers besides Serling worked on that show.
They sure did. After Serling, my favorites, in order of my liking, are Beaumont, Matheson, Johnson, and Hamner. But they were all excellent and they each brought something different to the show.
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