Cheap The Twilight Zone - Collection 2 (DVD) (Rod Serling) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Twilight Zone - Collection 2

Now Entering...The Nostalgia Zone
Having had a partial collection on video for many years now, I anxiously awaited the release on DVD. Finally! The complete series (156 episodes) has finally received the treatment it truly deserves. This series has held up well for 40+ years, and I have no doubt it will make it for at least another half century. Television writing was at its peak with this show, and the evolution of television filming (and videotaping) techniques is obvious over the course of this series. And the trademark twists at the end of each episode still take me by surprise!

Technically, the digital remastering to DVD has brought new life to Rod Serling's brainchild. The video presentation is crisp and well defined, bringing out the subtle details so well, that you will find yourself completely absorbed in the nuances of Serling's vision, and the outstanding production values for this early 60's series (just keep in mind that this is pre-Computer Generation era). The audio was clear, and blissfully noise free, but a bit low on the volume when compared to the title and menu audio tracks (both on the geyeballh version of the earlier disks, and the intro sequences on the later disks). The shows are presented in their original format, so no widescreen version is necessary. And television always translates well to...well, television. Although the extras include a Rod Serling bio, a brief synopsis of each of the 5 seasons that the series ran, and a Twilight Zone history, these features are identical on each disc. The true gem of the extra features is the episode synopsis and review. Each disc is unique in this respect, with a plot summary and some background "inside info". Although mostly taken from the book "The Twilight Zone Companion," I found this feature to be the most interesting.

Each collection has its ghitsh and gmissesh, but the series is, overall, a rewarding experience. The only "disappointments" that I found were the collection's lack of a subtitles option (which I really would have appreciated), and the fact that the episodes are not in order (which slightly detracts from observing the actual progression of growth within the series). That makes this more of a 4 1/2 star rating (but you can't do that, can you?). If you have ever enjoyed even one episode of this legendary series, you will not regret buying these collections. And if you've never seen it, give it a try...you'll be hooked.

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Continuing the Excellence
My favorite TV show of all time is "The Twilight Zone". There are a number of reasons for that but mostly it is because those 1/2 hour shows packed more drama, excitement, and morality lessons than anything I've seen before and since. The star of the show was Rod Serling whose staccato-like voice opened to set the stage and wrapped up at the end with a statement of irony, intrigue, warning, or hope. Watch the credits at the end of any episode that really impressed you and the odds are that it was written by Rod Serling.

The First Collection in this series left you wondering if it had gotten all the "big" episodes but "Collection 2" shows that there's still plenty more out there. This collection has a couple of the later, hour-long shows that the first collection didn't have. The first one, "In His Image", was one of the old episodes that stuck with me for years and I was surprized to find that it was an hour-long show. It seemed then and now to move along at the same pace as the half-hour episodes. The second, "Death Ship", however, gives a hint that the extra half hour tended to drag down the pace too much. The rest of the episodes includes some of the great ones of the series. There are the humorous ones such as "Once Upon a Time " (with Buster Keaton), "One for the Angels" and "Escape Clause". There are the ones with happy endings such as "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim", "In Praise of Pip", and "Still Valley". There are the true morality plays such as "The Fever", "A Quality of Mercy", "The Man in the Bottle" and "I Shot an Arrow into the Air". Finally, there are the down-right chilling episodes such as "The Dummy", "Living Doll", and "The After Hours".

I watched these episodes with my son, now 12, who seemed to enjoy them just as much as I did. We'd only watch them at night with the lights turned out. Sometimes we'd just look at each other afterwards and say "Wow!". When there was the occassional episode that I thought might not interest him, he still talked with me about it afterwards. They seemed to work just as well for him as for me and that may be the ultimate testimony to "The Twilight Zone". With all the glitz and sparkle that TV has today, impressing a kid with a half-hour black and white show with (for him) no recognizable stars seemed too tall a task. However, true greatest meets and exceeds the test of time. Time now for "Collection 3".

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Twilight Zone - One Of My Favorite Shows
If you buy one of these TZ Box Sets, you might as well buy the other four. Each set has nine volumes (sans the documentary Rod Serling - Submitted For Your Approval). My favorite episodes deal with Time Travel (No Time Like The Past, Back There, Walking Distance, Static, The Seventh Is Made Up Of Phantoms), Old Age (Kick The Can, Nothing In The Dark, The Trade-Ins, One For The Angels), The Civil War (The Passerby, An Occurrance At Owl Creek Bridge, Still Valley), and Paranoia (The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, The Shelter, 4:00). My other favorites are the four by Jack Klugman (A Passage For Trumpet, A Game Of Pool, In Praise Of Pip, Death Ship) and Burgess Meredith (Time Enough At Last, Mr Dingle Mr Strong, The Obsolete Man, Printer's Devil). If you are new to the show, watch these episodes first. They are the creme de la creme of the show.

The series is excellent. However, it's deliberate attempts at humor are often misfires (The Whole Truth, The Bewitching Pool, I Dream Of Genie). The episode A Short Drink From A Certain Fountain is the "Spock's Brain" on the series, meaning it's the worst. The ending is bad; what were they thinking??? No wonder it didn't make the syndication package.

The Sound Quality varies from each DVD. Some have two channel mono while others have HIFI mono. Closed Captioned doesn't work for any of the DVD's. There's usually only 3 or 4 episodes per DVD, unlike other Box Sets that fit 8 per DVD, thus lowering the price. This is a minor beef, because the show is worth the money.

You will also notice that 3 episodes (Where Is Everybody, The Encounter, The Eye Of The Beholder) appear twice if you buy all five. Again, a minor beef since The Encounter is the only one of the three to be exactly the same on both separate DVD's.

These Box Sets are now a bargain compared to when each volume is sold separately. I never tire of watching the episodes and reading the notes. I also recommend Rod Serling's Submitted For Your Approval. It gives insight to Rod Serling and his creation as told by friends, relatives and co-workers.