Review: The Twilight Zone – Season 2 / Cert: PG / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: William Shatner, Agnes Moorehead, Robert Cummings / Release Date: Out Now (Region One)
Made over fifty years ago, The Twilight Zone still stand the test of time. In large part this is due to the role played by the show’s creator Rod Serling, who penned 20 out of the 29 episodes of Season 2. But it also benefited from the contributions of writers such as Richard Mattheson, George Clayton Johnson and Charles Beaumont and the composers Bernard Hermann and Van Cleave.
This 5-disc box set has more than its fair share of highlights. Charles Beaumont’s The Howling Man is a creepy and atmospheric episode in which a lost hiker discovers an innocent man imprisoned in a hidden, mountain monastery who may not seem who he is. In Nick of Time, newlyweds William Shatner and Patrice Breslin allow themselves to be drawn into a web of superstition (or is it fate?) through a fortune-telling machine with a wobbling devil’s head. In King Nine Will Not Return, tormented World War II pilot Robert Cummings finds himself the sole survivor of his B-25 in the African dessert – but is he actually there or is he hallucinating? The Invaders sees Agnes Morehead delivering a tour-de-force performance as she fends off what appears to be tiny aliens from another world. And in The Odyssey of Flight 33, a commercial airliner piloted by John Anderson encounters a freak jet stream that sends the airliner and its passengers back into time. Will they get back to the present before their fuel runs out?
A stunning set with rich sound, this release is a worthy tribute to a great show and to Rod Serling, who throughout the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s was a matchless pioneer of quality TV.
Extras: None
