The Twilight Zone - Season 1 (The Definitive Edition)

First time i saw this show was in 1983,and they showed it late at night.
I was amazed at this series,which seemed to realy make you think.....what if?You watch an episode with all its twists and turns and at the end you would be suprized by a fascinating ending.
I couldnt wait each week for each episode,and i then found out some of my friends were also watching it.I remember we just sat around talking one day about the episode To Serve Man.We just couldnt get over how well that particular episode was made.
The show ran for about a year then,but i didnt see it again till i started buying the episodes on DVD.That was in 2002.Its great they are putting out alot of series out on DVD nowdays so we dont have to wait such lenghts of time till we see them again.
Now this series was filmed in black and white,but i realy think that it adds to the mystique of the atmosphere surrounding each episode.
If you purchase this season then you cant go wrong with this masterpeice work from Rod Serling.
You cant go wrong with any season of this series.

Great, inspiring short stories, most of which make you think. The Definitive Collection is the best places to start for the Twilight Zone.

While the quality of the episodes is fantastic, the extras are rather lacking. About all you get is Rod's promos for the next episode and audio commentaries. There's no documentaries or TV featurettes about The Twilight Zone or Rod Serling (Maybe there is none? Hard to believe).

The "Sherwood Oaks College" audio lectures are interesting as they discuss filming techniques and plot positives/negatives for certain episodes.

However, I had to force myself to listen to the Marc Scott Zircree interviews with Rod Serling. The information was great, but the interviewer has this unemotional "uh-huh" that he does EVERY THREE SECONDS and it's extremely annoying.

Aside from that, an outstanding collection!

The price for these just raised as the complete set was made available for $250.00. Unfortunately I have purchased The Definitive Collection Seasons One and Two so unless I sell these and purchased the entire collection I am out of luck because I cannot with good common sense buy these individually for $90 when I purchased the first two for @$70 and saw the price drop recently to @$50.00. I was back to buy the rest of the seasons and saw this increase. Why?????

* I love The Twilight Zone and the seasons that I have so I won't rate the DVD's low - I am just not happy with the pricing inconsistencies.*

I was very confused by the title of this collection. I saw a collection in a store., also called the "Definitive Edition" which included a collector's book filled with trivia about the series and photographic stills. So, I expected this to be the same set, though it was a few dollars cheaper. I was stunned when it arrived in a different format with all the video but no book. As for the videos themselves, this is an excellent collection and very well mastered. My only complaint is that each episode requires multiple clicks to view because of the way the menus are built. Instead of just clicking an episode and having it play, you are taken to a screen where you select from the scenes in that episode. You can select the first one and it plays through to the end. This is mildly annoying, but not a big deal. When the episode finishes, you end up back on that scene selection screen instead of at the main menu, which is also less than ideal. But it's a minor complaint considering the otherwise superb quality of the set.

Such things are available at [...] and elsewhere, but their place of origin is most assuredly... The Twilight Zone.

Ah, what can you say about The Twilight Zone? In my humble opinion, it's a work of art as much as it is a TV show, one of the best television shows *ever.*

You almost cannot say enough good things about this show. For its time, it combined top notch writing, cinematic production values, techniques, and storytelling, and excellent acting. It has bequeathed a legion of pop culture references to the current generation, its plot twists are legendary, it made its influence felt in so much of what was to come that it would be difficult to catalogue it all. Some of the filming techniques such as camera angles and lighting were ahead of their time for television (watch "Third from the Sun" for a good example of this). So much of the movies, books, and TV shows that people have found entertaining since the Twilight Zone had their genesis in this show. If you got a group of people together to list all the movies that seem to have borrowed from the Twilight Zone, you end up with quite a staggering list, some of which you may have never thought of yourself! I had that reaction when someone suggested The Twilight Zone episode "Night of the Meek" had a lot in common with "Bad Santa" and "Perchance to Dream" had much in common with "A Nightmare on Elm Street."

The Definitive Edition DVD seasons bring you The Twilight Zone as you've never seen it before, excellently restored and uncut (not like the butchered syndicated episodes). And extras! You've got more *quality* extras than you can shake a stick at! So many DVDs cheap out on extras, the Definitive Edition set(s) give The Twilight Zone the royal treatment it deserves in extra features. They're all worthwhile.

Here are my favorite extras:

- All the extras associated with the first episode (and there are a ton of them on the disc with the episode and the bonus disc), including the original intros and endings (with a different narrator), Rod Serling's pitch to the networks, and his college lecture, in which he tells a humorous story about how he got the idea for the phone booth scene in "Where Is Everybody?"

- Rod Serling's college lecture on "Walking Distance."

- Rod Serling's college lecture on "And When the Sky Was Opened" (it's informative and hilarious).

- Rod Taylor doing a commentary on "And When the Sky Was Opened" some 40 odd years after it aired!

- Martin Milner's commentary on "Mirror Image."

Actually, I have to say all the extra features are well worth your time, but generally my favorites are the Marc Zircee interviews and very insightful and some great extras are Rod Serling's college lectures. Kudos to whoever dug those up, they're fascinating and entertaining listens! You learn all sorts of things... how Serling often did not regard some things in the shows as very good, how he hated the establishing lines in "And When the Sky Was Opened" (this part in the lecture was *hilarious* to me), and you get to learn a very sad story from the making of the episode "The Mighty Casey." Zircee's interviews with various different people, including Richard Matheson, are a treasure as well, thought I don't always agree with some of his criticisms. We can only wonder what if Zircee had been able to interview Serling, but he had passed on by that time sadly.

Even the commercial bumpers are a treat, a view of a bygone era. The Liar's Club episode was even rather amusing. If you're a Twilight Zone fan, you really can't go wrong indulging in each and every extra. I know on some DVDs I pass on some of the more stodgy looking extras, in my opinion, they're all fun (though the commercial sponsor bumpers less so).

Well, enough about the extras, how about the episodes? Fantastic, as I've said. Some of the best work you'll ever see, I think. Season 1 has a lot of the best Twilight Zone episodes ever, the cream of the crop. There are ten or so episodes that are only so-so for the Twilight Zone, which means they're above average television shows, but not top-notch. My favorites from this season include:

Where Is Everybody?

The Lonely (Great, touching story. Really gives you a great of the spectrum the show would go on to cover.)

Time Enough at Last (Can anything more be written? Classic!)

Perchance to Dream (Very eerie and surreal)

And When the Sky Was Opened (An absolute first-rate classic in every way.)

Third From the Sun (Great story and acting, stunning visuals, top notch episode.)

I Shot an Arrow Into the Air (Excellent. The classic "strand astronauts on an unknown planet and get ready for an ironic twist to blow you away" episode. In retrospect the movie "The Planet of the Apes" is like one long Twilight Zone episode.)

The Hitch-Hiker (Going my way? One of the creepiest episodes and a fan favorite, featuring Inger Stevens.)

Mirror Image

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (One of the very best Twilight Zone episodes ever, if I made a top 5 list this would make it. A chilling glance at the what lies beneath the idyllic veneer of post-World War II American suburbia, and an indictment of Cold War paranoia. Amazing episode.)

A World of Difference (Fascinating premise, and very well executed. The acting and the script really make the main character sympathetic and the story involving.)

People Are Alike All Over (Roddy McDowell is the victim of more interplanetary irony.)

A Nice Place to Visit (A friend of mine once said that the best Twilight Zone endings are those that end with someone laughing and/or screaming. This episode has a nice kick to the gut with some great mocking laughing right before the end narration. Good story.)

A Stop at Willoughby (As pertinent today as it was back then. Many people feel overstressed by the pressures and demands of modern lives. Watch this episode and see people felt similarly back then... and how one man longed for something better. An all-time fan favorite, deservedly so.)

The After Hours (Another creepy episode about a woman who finds something amiss on the 9th floor of a department store.)

A World of His Own (The best Twilight Zone twist ending ever? For comedic value, it's definitely a contender.)

In conclusion, I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of good television and good stories. The Twilight Zone may tout itself as science fiction but it is also a way to explore the issues that are pertinent to all humans and the human condition at large.