ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Great post, Pow! And by a strange coincidence I had just watched the second video on BoG's review above, then I saw your reply below the one I'd added and realized you'd started your post with Serling's epilogue at the end of The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.

Notice in the video that during that narration we see an unused shot of the C-57-D miniature in space, moving very slowly away from the camera. But The Twilight Zone folks turned the image upside down!

Hmmm . . . Maybe they threaded the "end" of film into the projector first, causing it to run backwards AND upside down — which means the C-57-D was actually shot moving slowly towards the camera!

Perhaps this shot was originally considered for the opening narration in Forbidden Planet. I guess we'll never know.

[Gord Green]

One thing to keep in mind is that the TZ shows were originaly half hour shows. That means that the actual screen time was only about 22 minutes long. Every program was the equivalent of a "short story" requiring a quick and obvious characterization of all characters and a simple set up of the plot.

Also a part of it was that often a character spoke his thoughts and soliloquized to the screen to add impact to the denoument of the tale. This was also prevelant in the short stories of Bradbury, Baumont and Serling from which many of the stories were adapted. This was a device used to add impact to the story and was very effective in personalizing and drawing the viewer into the story. As a program TZ was the television equivalint of the X Minus One and Dimension X radio shows.

I really wasn't impressed by most of the hour long revival stories. They seemed to be half hour tales padded out to fill the hour of running time. Also the B&W format made the shows more "moody" and noir-ish. When we think of THE TWILIGHT ZONE I think it's the original half hour shows that are the most memorable.
_________________
There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Very true, Gord. The only hour-long TZ episode of real merit is On Thursday We Leave For Home, and I'm very glad it IS one of the longer ones. It's a great story.

But the rest of the shows in the 60-minute time slot are completely forgettable, and Death Ship, despite having overt sci-fi elements (shots of the C-57-D landing and in orbit) was essentially just a dull ghost story which rambled on and on for 51 minutes (the actual running time of the hour-long episodes).

On that note, the half-hour shows actually ran for 25 minutes according to IMDB. I checked both the first and last episodes of the series to be sure the network policy didn't change during the run of the series.

Today a half-hour show will have 22 minutes or LESS of onscreen time. Man, those were the good old days, eh?
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

Bud I have to disagree with you about the hour long episodes. "Death Ship" in addition to being a ghost story, was a good character story. Just watch the scene where Ross Martin meets his dead wife and child.

I also think that the episode "The Baird", in addition to being very funny, with a great Jack Weston performance as the world's worst scriptwriter, was a great jab at network censorship*. Burt Reynolds, as a favor, did his Marlin Brando impression playing a method.

David.

* Rod Serling wrote the episode because of network censorship. The example he gave, was having to remove a mention of the Nazi death camp gas ovens, because Westinghouse was the sponsor.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Well, perhaps I was a bit too hard on the hour-long episodes.

And I forgot the one about the man who found out he as an android. But by and large I think the hour-long stories (both the good and the not -so-good) would have been better with a tight 25 minute running time rather than 51 minutes.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bogmeister]

____________
episode #25 - People Are Alike All Over

Air Date: 3/25/60 written by Rod Serling, based on story by Paul W. Fairman Director: Mitchell Leisen



Two men stare up at a rocketship from behind a wire fence. They are astronauts on their last night on Earth; tomorrow they go to Mars.

The bigger man (Paul Comi) is matter-of-fact about it, a trained pilot. The smaller one, a scientist (Roddy McDowall), admits that he is frightened.

This makes me wonder why those in charge would send this frightened rabbit of a man up into space — there were no other possibles? He is scared of the unknown — strange for a scientist, too.

As fate would have it, arriving on Mars, the stronger man is the one seriously injured. For some reason, there is a crash landing. There is a banging noise outside the ship; with the tougher man out of commission, the weaker one begins to give in to his fears.


_________

This is one of those episodes with that cruel twist of fate, the surprise ending — what the show is famous for, though it's not quite as effective as the best ones.

For one thing, the main character is so pathetic that I sort of wished something bad would happen to him, just to quiet his whining. For another, his fate is not really as horrible as that in those very scary episodes. It's more of a cosmic joke, the whittling down of the human species to something less impressive.

And, finally, I think McDowall overacts his role. His stunned reaction at the end and his shouting out to his dead comrade was a bit too melodramatic. It takes away a little from the biting commentary on human nature — universal as it is, it seems.



It's also kind of a fairy tale in outer space. It's assumed that there are people on Mars for some vague reason and indeed there are . . . this doesn't make sense except as some parable, almost for kids.

I also liked the way the aliens behave behind the man's back. It's like a private joke between them and the audience. It is an intriguing trajectory — first the man consumed with fear, then the unknown revealed as not threatening . . . and then the other shoe drops. Rather typical of the Zone.

Trivia From the Zone: As with several TZ episode, this being an early one, the backdrop for MGM's famous Forbidden Planet was used to depict the alien planet (Mars).

Star Trek TOS actor alert: Susan Oliver plays one of the Martian peopl. She later appeared in The Cage, the unaired first pilot for TOS. Paul Comi appeared in Balance of Terror

BoG's Score: 7 out of 10



BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

A whimsical itheory I've proposed here on All Sci-Fi involves the idea that mankind still doesn't really know what Mars looks like, because all our really good images have been transmitted from space telescopes, probes, and Mars rovers.

What difference does THAT make you, may ask?

Quite a lot . . . if an advanced race of Martians don't want us to know that Mars really looks like this —





— and the Martians have cities that look like this.





To hide this fact, they've used their awesome technology for decades to block all the real data we think we're getting from the space telescopes, the probes, and the rovers. They replace it with fake data to make Mars look like this —





— and this.





If you think I'm daffy for suggesting such an idea because you believe that earth-based telescope would show us the real Mars, you might be surprised to learn THIS is the best image we can get of Mars from down here on Earth!





FYI: a Google search for "Best view of Mars from Earth-based telescope" invariable gets you an image taken by Hubble, NOT by an observatory on Earth!

So, it we apply my daffy concept to People Are Alike All Over and we get a race of advanced Martians who imprison poor Roddy to keep the secret of their existence from mankind.








_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bogmeister]

____________
episode #60 - The Rip Van Winkle Caper

Air Date: 4/21/61 written by Rod Serling Directed by Justus Addiss

______

A simple but effective plot involving suspended animation as applied by criminals. Four crooks have robbed a load of gold from a train.

One of these criminals (Oscar Beregi, Jr.) is also a scientific genius. His plan is to place the four men into suspended animation in a cave in a desolate part of the desert for about 100 years. The premise is that by the time they revive and exit into a new world, the law will no longer be after them and they can freely spend their gold.

However, nothing ever goes perfectly in the TZ. One of the special containers gets damaged by a falling rock, and the man inside is a skeleton by the time the others revive. Then human fallacy kicks in; another of the crooks (Simon Oakland) is more greedy than the others. He disposes of a rival, and now there are only two men left.

They trudge over the barren landscape and the greedy one soon begins to extract bars of gold from the scientist in exchange for sips of water.

________

The punchline to this one is not quite as effective as the rest of the episode, and it's certainly not earth-shattering as in the best TZ episodes. In fact, it's downright predictable — but it's a very good episode overall, filled with good scenes.

When the men revive, for example, the greedy one is convinced that the procedure had not worked, since everything looks the same. But they haven't yet checked the container with the dead crook, providing a rather shocking moment. It also hits home the point that the process did indeed work, in ways no one could expect.

The actors are excellent — Beregi, Jr. especially effective as a Lex Luthor-type criminal in the TZ. The dialog is very well done and there's ample suspense as we wait to see how it all develops and concludes.

Twilight Trivia: The futuristic vehicle at the end is a leftover prop from Forbidden Planet.

~ Serling, who wrote this one, also used the exact same technique for cryogenic sleep in his script for Planet of the Apes (1968), including the plot turn of one container getting damaged.

~ Actor Simon Oakland excelled at playing rotten bastards and brutal thugs on TV. About a decade later he would play a similar character in the western film Chato's Land, in which his character would end up in the same way as here — his head bashed in by a partner fed up with his lousy attitude.

BoG's Score: 7.5 out of 10



BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

To be perfectly honest, this modified version of Robby's car looks pretty cool, and the seats are more comfortable, not to mention being safer for the passengers. I'd love to know who did the modifications.

Bill Malone restored the car after he acquired it. Seems a shame we can't have both versions.





_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

I'd love to see the back of the car to see the full modifications. I'm willing to bet that the original seats are under the added padding. The work was probably done by the MGM prop department, they still had full facilities at the time.

David.

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

[Bogmeister]

____________
episode #62 - Shadow Play Empty episode #62 - Shadow Play

Air Date: 5/5/61 Director: John Brahm written by Charles Beaumont

PLOT: A man (Dennis Weaver) who has just been sentenced to death by electric chair insists that the whole scenario is just a dream he is having. Weaver was known for very tense performances back then and he provides such tension in this one.

_____________
_____________________

This episode also obviously raises questions about what is reality, in a more blatant fashion than usual (it's also probably more well known as a TZ episode).

The main difference to this one is that we know WHY this is happening - at least, we get a reason from Weaver's character — the main character is dreaming, that's all.

Or is he crazy?

Well, based on the ending, he's not nuts. There is only doubt among the other characters and, if one is watching this for the first time — the audience — in the middle of the story. Some interesting questions are raised concerning disproving (or trying to) Weaver's assertions.

We, the audience, are not in the dark with the main character (s) in this one, wondering what it's all about. We are told what it is about, so this lacks the mysterious quality of the other episodes (though there are still questions as to why he is having such a recurring dream — not something we are accustomed to).

But this story does have the same solipsistic viewpoint — again, more blatant — that all that really matters is the individual. He is literally the only real thing in this episode — it's spelled out this time. Or he is the only representative of what is truly real — some godlike entity perhaps — an entity which may be ill with fever.

And we have the same questions on the nature of reality: are we what we seem to be — flesh & blood — or are we just wisps of someone's or something's imagination? Can we cease to exist without a moment's notice, as if we had never been? (see And When the Sky Was Opened). We think we know what reality is — stone & brick & mortar & flesh . . . and atoms. Or do we just perceive the universe this way because something wills us to? Is this Base and its members real — or is it and they are just phantoms I conjured up in what I guessed a Board or website would be like? Life is but a dream . . . ta-da, ta-dum...

Trivia in the Zone: This episode was remade with the same title in the new Twilight Zone series in the eighties. A clip from this original is playing in a scene in the film Vanilla Sky (2001).

BoG's Score: 8 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Well, my goodness. BoG certainly demonstrated his introspective, philosophical side with his review of Shadow Play, and in doing so he definitely put more thought into this episode than I ever have!

However, I do like this episode and the hour-long version which was remade in the 1980s, despite the fact that it's not science fiction and it's pretty much a typical "Wow, that was weird!" TZ story, without much logic or story depth.

The premise is painfully simply; a man is having a recurring nightmare about being tried, convicted, and executed — with the only difference each time being the fact that the actors keep switching to different characters.

For example, the judge in one dream is the prison guard in the next, the prosecutor becomes a witness, the defense attorney becomes a cell mate, etc.

It's an interesting fantasy/melodrama, but (unlike Mr. Andrew Bogdan) it doesn't inspire me to contemplate whether I really am Bruce Cook, using the screen name Bud Brewster, who is the site admin of a website called All Sci-Fi, with interesting members like Gord Green, Krel, and Pow . . . or . . .

Gord Green is having a dream about a website called All Sci-Fi, created by a guy named Bud Brewster who claims his real name is Bruce Cook and he's says he's a science fiction writer . . . or . . .

Krel has the flu and a bad fever, so he's hallucinating about guys named Gord Green and Bruce Cook, the latter of whom is paying tribute to Gord in something called the Featured Threads on an imaginary board called All Sci-Fi . . . or . . .

My ex-wife is in an insane asylum and she's having delusions about the man she was married to . . .

Wow, I'd think I need to take a nap. But then I might dream. Or am I dreaming already!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

"Deaths-Head Revisited, "from November 10,1961.
Written by Rod Serling.

Plot } A former WWII Nazi captain returns years after the war to the ruins of Dachau, the concentration camp he once presided over, in order to happily reminisce about his time there.

He discovers he isn't alone.

At the conclusion of the episode a doctor asks about Dachau, "Why do we keep it standing?''

"There is an answer to the doctor's question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes --- all of them.

They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment of time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard.

Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience.

And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.

Something to dwell on and remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God's Earth."

This remains one of my favorite TZ episodes ever. The power of it cannot be underestimated by anyone who views it.

Joseph Schildkraut is poignant and haunting in his role as Becker, a former prisoner.

Oscar Beregi is potent as the malevolent and unrepentant Captain Lutze.

The message in this fifty-eight year old episode remains relevant for the human race in the 21st century.

Trivia } The exterior set for Dachau is an impressive looking one.

CBS had made a pilot for a western that required the construction of a four-sided frontier fort for a cost of $150,000-to-$200,000.

The production crew had to downgrade the look of it for this episode.