The Twilight Zone: Vol. 2

So much of what we see on the classic TZ episodes has been redone to death these days. These are some of the ORIGINAL stories from a classic age of sci-fi suspense. This volumes includes four of the best episodes ever. It really is odd that they put such complete quality on one disc. This volume will not disappoint! Highly recommended.

Ever since the New Years/4th of July Marathons on SciFi channel started, I have been hooked on The Twilight Zone.

This dvd is a great array of representative episodes: Time Enough at Last, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet and The Odyssey of Flight 33 are the episodes featured. Burgess Meredith, William Shatner, over-reacting, mob mentalities, the unexplainable, the ironic, and the human are all here. Everything TZ embodies in every episode and in its overall ideal is here on this dvd.

A good choice for a first time buyer/viewer. This one is sure to please.

From my teens this is one of the series that I more fondly remember. As a sci-fi fan I was attracted by "The Twilight Zone" proposal. At that time I wasn't able to see more than a score of episodes, but they remain in my memory with extraordinary persistence.
Thanks to the technological marvel of DVD I'm able to see these amazing stories again and find them as magical & thought provoking as 45 years ago.
As the structure of the episodes are mostly bounded to a surprise ending or to the argument in a very short span of time, usually 25 minutes each, I'll focus my review more on outstanding features than on the topic of the episode in order not to spoil the pleasure of the viewer.

Disk 2 contains four chapters well representative of the whole series spirit & charm.

1) Time Enough at Last - A great performance from Burgess Meredith as a myopic bank employee who isn't allowed to read neither at his workplace nor at his home. Meredith will be best known by his characterization of The Penguin at "Batman" series and latter on by his impersonation of Mickey, Rocky's manager.
Qualification: 8.

2) The Monsters are due at Maple Street - This is a Classic episode, it tackles with a characteristic them of the series & the cold war era: invading alien who can't be distinguished from ordinary citizen, arising mass paranoia.
A relatively vast cast where every character contributes creating the climate thru close faces planes, due to an excellent cinematography in charge of George Clemens. He won Emmy Award 1961 and nominations for the same honor 1962 & 1963 all due to several episodes of this series.
Qualification: 9.

3) Nightmare at 20,000 feet - A wonderful story due to a master as Richard Matheson author of famed book "I'm a Legend" and contributor to many of these series' episodes.
A man recently released from a psychiatric clinic due to a severe nervous breakdown, embarks with his wife in a flight. As soon as the plane takes off he sees thru the window a Gremlin trying to sabotage a motor.
A thrilling episode to be sure, starring William Shatner best know by his characterization of Capt. Kirk in "Star Trek" first seasons.
Qualification: 10.

4) The Odyssey of Flight 33. - A plane flying from London to NYC is catch into mighty air current & strange events starts to happen.
A very realistic cockpit dialogues are shown and the crew members are characterized greatly with John Anderson in the leading role of Capt. Farver.
Qualification: 10.

This DVD series has two great advantages: it has a very good price and allows buyers to choose their favorite chapters without needing to buy the whole series.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

Whereas Vol. 1 of this series has three episodes, this disk has four--and a mixed bag they are. But then Twilight Zone was always unpredictable.

Burgess Meredith stars in episode #1 as a bookish bank clerk who can't find time for his passion, reading. The writing is a bit over the top. There's a dominating wife who snatches away his newspaper, a bank president who chastises him--and then there's an H-bomb that destoys the world while the hero is hiding in the bank vault to have some privacy for his passion. When he exits the vault, the world is in shambles, but there are no fires and apparently no radioactive perils. Now the little man has time to read, except...

The second episode is about an alien spacecraft that sweeps across the sky over a middle class street. Lights in houses flicker on and off. Cars won't start and then start mysteriously. A boy says that spacemen may have planted look-alikes among the residents, and they all begin to suspect one another, with violence ensuing. This didactic piece is really about the anti-communist investigations of the cold war, in which people, especially in Hollywood, were all but encouraged to suspect one another of being Reds. Thus, the real damage was not done by the communists but by those who planted the seeds of suspicion and by those who ran around like Chicken Little.

I liked the third episode best. William Shatner, recovering from a nervous breakdown, is on a commercial plane with his wife. Sitting in a seat over the wing, he sees a monstrous figure outside, a figure that no one else can see. When the monster begins to tear up the cowling over the engine, Shatner feels he must do something to save the plane from disaster. The outcome is a very excellent surprise.

Lastly, there is a good story of a jet commercial aircraft that gets lost in time for unexplained reasons. When it descends to land in New York, the city has disappeared and dinosaurs roam the landscape. The pilot takes the aircraft up through the clouds and then descends to try again. He contacts the airport but traffic control can't understand what a jet is or where the plane is from. Flying over Flushing Meadows, the people aboard see the trylon and perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair....

It's too bad that this sort of excellence is missing from today's TV set, with its so-called "reality" shows and dance contests. Twilight Zone made viewers think, and apparently that is too much to ask now. We are fortunate that the old shows were saved and you can see them again--or for the first time.

I ordered this particular volume to augment, with video, a story in the literature book from which I teach my students. I knew what to expect from the DVD and was not disappointed. It did arrive sooner than I expected which was a pleasent surprise.
Sincerely,

B. Stiegelmeyer