Review of Twilight Zone, The: Vol 24

Introduction

This Twilight Zone collection has the theme of “Just Like Us?…You Decide”


“People Are Alike All Over” - Episode 25
Passenger Sam Conrad (Roddy McDowall) is terrified to encounter the inhabitants of the planet he has landed on after a crash landing. But to his surprise they are human, extremely friendly and apparently just like us...

“Valley Of The Shadow “- Episode 105
Philip Redfield (Ed Nelson) becomes lost on his journey home and happens across a small quiet town off the beaten track. This town looks just like any other, but they are hiding something.
A secret that will keep the unfortunate traveller from ever leaving.


“Black Leather Jackets” - Episode 138
A small gang of tough-looking bikers disrupt a peaceful suburb when they move into the neighbourhood. Just how dangerous are these man and are the locals ready to tackle them and their terrible plans.


Well I knew it had to appear soon and to my utter delight this is the baby. ‘What the hell is he banging on about you may well ask’. And I would have to reply only two words. ‘Roddy McDowell’.
I have to admit I love big Rod and it’s a joy to see him in anything let alone a Twilight Zone classic. Roddy’s excellent performances always raise the quality of a film. I mean you only have to watch Fright Night to realise that a good quality actor can raise an otherwise dire film into something more than it really deserves. And what would Planet of the Apes be without Roddy?

Anyway this is got to be one of my favourite all time episodes. "People Are Alike All Over" has a great story, great acting and a great twist at the end. Now I dare you to find another sentence with more then three greats in outside of a brochure for fireplaces.
Being one of Serling’s first forays into the planet Mars, this episode would be reminiscent of the later episode ‘To Serve Man” and of course a theme that he would revisit in the script for ‘The Planet of the Apes’ which would also star Roddy McDowell.

Vic Perrin who played one of the Martians would also go on to provide the control voice for the Outer Limits series and the voice of the robot Nomad in the “The Changeling” episode of Startrek. The Startrek connections don’t stop there. Susan Oliver, one of the Martians in "People Are Alike All Over", was in the first Startrek episode, James Doohan in the "Valley of the Shadow" episode would play Montgomery Scott, and Michael Forest in “Black Leather Jackets” would play Adonis in the Trek episode ‘Who Mourns for Adonais?” The “Valley of the Shadow” episode also features a replicator type machine, a precursor to the more advanced Startrek version.

Anyway enough StarTrek anecdotes. All you need to know is that this is a corking episode and you would be a fool to miss it. A comment on mans nature would be the best summation for this episode without giving anything away. I could talk about this episode all day but as I would like you to discover it for yourselves, you’ll be glad to here that I’m going to shut up and skip to the rest of the episodes.

The "Valley of the Shadow" episode is an hour long treatment and for once it’s turned out pretty well with only a very small portion of the episode seeming like filler. Have you ever been in a place and everyone and everything just doesn’t feel quite right? Well I have and it’s quite disconcerting. If you have experienced this strange feeling than I’m sure you will appreciate this story just a little more. Think about how it would feel to be trapped in a town where everyone is watching you and you are unable to leave. It’s quite a frightening idea and although well treated here could have been expanded to be truly terrifying. Good acting though from the lead and a fantastic car crash to look out for.

“Black Leather Jackets” while seeming a little cheesy due to the ‘Wild Ones” influenced story is rather quite good with a nice twist. It’s also nicely shot with good use of shadow and light, and a fantastic overseer in the shape of a giant eye. Also look out for the appearance of Uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazard series. A real paranoid America episode which although seeming quite silly today has a deeper, menacing value I’m sure many people will appreciate.
This is a really good selection of stories which make this DVD one of the better compilations available.

Video

Presented in the original 4:3 ratio, the picture quality is good with only minor print damage such as dust or the odd small scratch to mar the picture. Grain is kept to a minimum and the contrast values are in general very good for material of this age with some real deep blacks in well composed scenes. One distracting detail to note is on the episode ‘Black Leather Jackets’ there were a couple of vertical line running down the picture for a few seconds but these do pass quick and the picture returns to the usual standard. The picture can be a little too soft at times masking the otherwise decent detail levels but there was no digital artifacts visible and in general the black and white picture looks very good considering the age.

Audio

Basically what you would expect from a made for TV series. The mono track is a little edgy or raspy at times but it’s far from unlistenable. The noise floor is also a little high with a hiss clearly audible in some scenes but its not particularly distracting and nothing that would stop you from enjoying the episodes on the disk.
Again at the same standard as the other disks, so if you enjoyed a previous edition then there’s nothing here to stop you enjoying this one.

Features

Like the rest of the Twilight Zone volumes on DVD this edition contains various notes and essays about the series in general and the specific featured episodes. Inside the Twilight Zone contains a Rod Serling biography, a season by season commentary, history of the twilight zone and a review and credit section for each episode on the disk. This section is written by the author of “The Twilight Zone Companion” Marc Scott Zicree.
You also get the small postcard set that have a brief synopsis and picture of each episode printed on them.

Conclusion

An excellent disk and one which I would heartily recommend to anyone for their first excursion into the Twilight Zone. The only downside in my book is the hour long episode. That’s not to say this episode is bad, in fact its one of the better ones I’ve seen, its just that I would prefer four shorter episodes with different stories rather than putting all your bets on one longer episode. I think the stories work better when they are kept to the standard running time and of course an hour episode ups your chances of getting an inferior collection of episodes. Thankfully, this is not a problem for this DVD.
Definitely one of the better Twilight Zone disks available.