I am – Hercules!!

Having, over the Christmas holidays, torn through Twilight Zone: The Definitive Edition - Season Five – which is a blast, and literally fun for days - I believe I am now likely to acquire the first four. I resisted previously because the “Twilight Zone” sets are pricey. Not “Star Trek” pricey, but certainly pricier than a lot of the other series that emeged in the 1950s and early '60s. This new set retails for $69.99 on Amazon and one won't find the first four seasons there – even used – for less than 60 clams.

But the last of the five “Twilight Zone” season sets, at least, is way worth the money.

Forty years after it left the air and 30 years after creator Rod Serling’s untimely death at age 50, “Zone” remains the most seminal of shows, having inspired everybody from Steven Spielberg to Stephen King to Alan Moore to Joss Whedon to Night Shyamalan to Peter Jackson to J.J. Abrams and on and on and on. Think of any sci-fi or fantasy writer born after World War II and chances are he or she is a mammoth “Zone” fan. (I note that the first filmed entertainment referenced in the Christmas column authored by my movie-producer pal Harry Knowles – a good man, but not a man not known for his love of TV - is Serling’s second-season “Zone” episode “Night of the Meek.”)

The series’ influence is well-earned. Serling liked to explore stories from a lot of different angles, and with multidimensional characters. Serling’s interest, as the series’ title suggests, lay in the gray areas. The evil men who dwelled in "The Twlight Zone" could be funny; it was often easy to sympathize with a villain’s point of view. Heroes could have unpleasant flaws. Serling and his stable of writers (Serling wrote well over half the episodes, but also employed the estimable likes of Richard Matheson, Earl Hamner Jr. and Charles Beaumont) also demonstrated a keen faculty for marrying the uncanny to the familiar. These were not tales set in Eastern European castles; these took place in office buildings, small towns and bedroom communities.

The season-five set contains dozens of installment-specific extras, as well as episodes a lot of people never saw before this week.

One of these episodes, never syndicated, is “The Encounter,” about a young Japanese-American gardener (George Takei) who decides to chop up his redneck war-vet boss when he stumbles upon the white man’s cursed samurai sword. One of the worst “Twilight Zones” ever, but one fans have been curious about for decades.

Another installment never included in any syndication package, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” is barely a “Zone” at all. It’s actually “La Rivière du Hibou,” an arty 1962 French movie about a doomed innocent, set during the American Civil War (!), that ultimately won an Oscar for best short subject.

After decades of holiday “Zone” marathons, I was certain I’d seen all the other half-hour “Twilight Zone” segments at least half a dozen times. Not so. Somehow I’d never stumbled across “Ring-a-Ding Girl” (a spooky piece of jewelry inspires a famously spunky celebrity to make an impromptu visit to her tiny hometown) or “I Am the Night – Color Me Black” (the sun fails to rise on a town that engineers a grave injustice) or “The Jeopardy Room” (a Martin Landau vehicle shockingly devoid of any sci-fi or fantasy elements) or “The Bewitchin’ Pool” (neglected children discover another, less stressful, dimension at the bottom of their parents’ ce-ment pond.

Few series hatched in the 1950s and ‘60s have aged this well. And unlike, say, the original “Star Trek,” “Twilight Zone” was little diminished toward the end of its run. “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” was part of its final season, as was “The Long Morrow,” “Stopover in a Quiet Town” “The Old Man in the Cave,” “Over and Out,” “Black Leather Jackets,” “The Masks,” “Steel,” “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” (watch and wonder if Richard Long’s performance didn’t inform Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil), and for my money one of the most disturbing installments of anything ever: “Living Doll,” about a vengeful and invulnerable plaything focused on bringing Telly Savalas’ bullying household reign to an end.

Video Extras.

… The highlight of the season-five extras is the superb “Rod Serling: Submitted For Your Approval” (1:26:17), an exceedingly well-reseached 1995 “American Masters” profile that puts Serling’s most famous brainchild into a wider career context.
… Learn that Serling was forever traumatized by his wartime experiences as a teen paratrooper, and carried an obsession with death that stemmed also in part from the fact that the men in his family were not long-lived. Learn that Serling endured years of struggle and rejection. Learn that NBC’s Kraft Television Theatre mounted a 1955 production of Serling’s corporate drama “Patterns” that the New York Times hailed as “one of the high points in the TV medium's evolution.”
… Learn that “Zone” emerged out of frustration with the censorious attitudes of network sponsors; Serling discovered that he could make his points on television most effectively when he cloaked them in the fantastic. Learn that Serling’s immediate TV followup to “Zone” was not “Night Gallery,” but rather 1965’s “The Loner,” a “thinking man’s Western” starring Lloyd Bridges that lasted 26 episodes.
… Learn that though Serling authored perhaps 30 of the 99 teleplays for “Night Gallery,” he was frustrated with his lack of control over the project, and said his primary function on that show was “host.”

… Highlights From the Museum of Television and Radio (11:24) features a panel with, among others, writers Richard Matheson, Earl Hamner Jr. and George Clayton Johnson, actors Cliff Robertson, Earl Holliman, Billy Mumy and Martin Landau, and widow Carol Serling.

… Conversations With Rod Serling Part One (8:08), attached to “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” is b&w video depicting Serling conversing with six Ithaca College hippies, one of whom appears to firing up a doobie. All are gathered around a coffee table and all wear huge microphones around their necks. Part one deals with the only “Twilight Zone” to win an Oscar, fifth-season episode “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

… Conversations With Rod Serling Part Two (13:24) is more b&w video depicting Serling conversing with six Ithica College hippies. Part two deals with Serling’s hunger to be young again, and how that desire is at the root of so many of his stories. Serling discusses a story he’s working on about man trying to readjust to the world after being cryogenically frozen for 18 years, and compares a Chekov story to a similarly themed “Zone” about a yappy guy who bets he can remain silent for a year.

… Alfred Hitchcock Promo (2:15) features the director in a “dead-letter office” touting what I take to be CBS’ 1964-65 Friday-night line-up: “Great Adventure” at 8 p.m., “Route 66” at 9 p.m., “Twilight Zone” at 10 p.m. and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” at 10:30 p.m.

… George Clayton Johnson Home Movies (2:15) is perhaps the oddest of the extras, with occasional “Zone” writer Johnson signing some sort of contract as he describes his singularly unremarkable first meeting with Serling.

… Excerpts From Rod Serling’s Sherwood Oaks Experimental College Lecture (12:27) is audio played over stills, and one of the most fascinating components of the DVD set. Serling praises the series “Lucas Tanner,” which situates this lecture just months before Serling’s death. Serling reveals he’s working on a pitch for a “Rookies”-era Aaron Spelling (with whom Serling collaborated on the 1969 NBC series “The New People”) about a mobster readjusting to the outside world after 40 years in prison. Serling also points out that scripts are often rejected for legitimate reasons that have nothing to do with talent, and that struggling writers should “never throw anything away.”

… Season Five Billboards (3:43) are anachronistic network “bumpers” that explain that “‘Twilight Zone’ has been brought to you by …” Sponsors featured in these include Pall Mall, Tareyton and Lucky Strikes cigarettes, Lilt hair product, Prell concentrated shampoo and Crest toothpaste.

… Season Five Photo Gallery (4:08) unfurls numerous b&w stills “from the Twilight Zone Museum.”

… Video Interview With Bill Mumy (7:19), attached to “In Praise of Pip,” has the “Lost in Space” actor discuss the three “Zones” he made as a child actor.

… Video Interview With Richard Matheson (9:23), attached to “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” sees the author/screenwriter reveal that he liked the series version of “20,000” better than George Miller’s movie version, though he liked the look of the monster in the movie version better.

… Video Interview With Richard Matheson (3:22), attached to “Steel,” sees the author/screenwriter reveal, among other things, that Lee Marvin prepared for his boxing-ring scenes by simulating crowd noises.

… Video Interview With June Foray (11:59), attached to “Living Doll,” has the veteran voice actress reveal that she was hired to lend her voice to the malevolent Talking Tina because she had already contributed the voice to Tina’s real-life inspiration, Chatty Cathy. “Living Doll,” she says, inspired Churck Jones to cast her as Cindy Lou Who in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

… Video Interview With Carolyn Kearney (10:21), attached to “Ninety Years Without Slumbering,” has the actress discuss both her experience playing clock-happy Ed Wynn’s granddaughter in “Slumbering,” and her work on “Time Element,” which served as “Twilight Zone’s” pilot.

… Video Interview With George Clayton Johnson (19:21), attached to “Ninety Years Without Slumbering,” has the writer discuss several of his “Zone” contributions.

… Video Interview With Earl Hamner Jr. (18:59), attached to “Ring-a-Ding Girl,” has the writer discuss his 29-year history with Serling and some of the other “Zone” writers, which went all the way back to 1946.

… Video Interview With Earl Hamner Jr. (2:32), attached to “You Drive,” has the writer discussing how reading about a hit-and-run accident inspired him to write the episode.

… Video Interview With Michael Forrest (8:06), attached to “Black Leather Jackets,” has the actor reminiscing about, among other things, the motorcycle he rode in the episode.

… Video Interview With Richard Matheson (13:24), attached to “Spur of the Moment,” has the author/screenwriter reveal, among many other things, that his 2000 novel “Hunger and Thirst” was actually completed in 1950, but sat in a drawer for 50 years because his agent deemed it “unpublishable.” Matheson also reveals that he scripted a sequel to “The Incredible Shrinking Man” its producer dubbed “The Fantastic Little Girl,” which followed the protagonist’s wife as she, too, began to shrink. She and her husband apparently reunite in their basement, and the pair eventually return to their normal sizes once the shrinking stops.

… Video Interview With Terry Becker (5:43), attached to “I am the Night – Color Me Black,” has the actor who played the doomed man talk about identifying with the pained character he plays.

… Video Interview With Nancy Malone and Earl Hamner Jr. (9:15), attached to “Stopover in a Quiet Town,” has the lead actress remember her heels were uncomfortable and it was plenty hot on the MGM lot that week. Hamner reveals episode was inspired to a backlot visit. He imagined the ending, and simply built in incidences leading up to the ending’s big reveal.

… Video Interview With Earl Hamner Jr. (5:57), attached to “The Bewitchin’ Pool,” has the writer reveal that the series’ final episode was inspired by his argumentative California neighbors.

Secondary Audio.

… Optional audio commentaries adorn eight of the 36 season-5 episodes:
… * Billy Mumy on “In Praise of Pip”
… * Rod Serling on “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (via the Sherwood Oaks lecture)
… * Mickey Rooney on “The Last Night of a Jockey”
… * June Foray (and Rocket J. Squirrel!) on “Living Doll”
… * Mariette Hartley on “The Long Morrow”
… * Author Marc Scott Zicree on “Number 12 Looks Just Like You.”
… * “Laugh-In” regular Alan Sues on “The Masks”
… * Martin Landau on “The Jeopardy Room”

… Optional isolated scores adorn 10 of the season-5 episodes:
… * “In Praise of Pip” score by Rene Garriguenc
… * “Steel” score by Van Cleave
… * “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” score, composer uncredited
… * “A Kind of Stopwatch” score by Van Cleave
… * “Living Doll” score by Bernard Hermann
… * “Ninety Years Without Slumbering” score by Bernard Hermann
… * “Spur of the Moment” score by Rene Garriguenc
… * “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” score by Henri Lanoe
… * “Come Wander With Me” score by Jeff Alexander
… * “The Bewitchin’ Pool” score, composer uncredited

… Radio-drama remakes adorn six of the of the season-5 episodes:
… * “A Kind of Stopwatch” starring Lou Diamond Phillips
… * “Living Doll” starring Tim Kazurinsky
… * “The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms” starring Richard Grieco
… * “The Long Morrow” starring Kathy Garver
… * “Sounds and Silences” starring Richard Kind
… * “Mr. Garrity and the Graves” starring Chris MacDonald

… We didn’t get a chance to look over last week’s Serenity DVD in time for last week’s column, but we’ve seen it now, and I want to quickly relay a few observations on why the disc is way worth every one of its 1,799 cents:

… Extras include:
… 1) A feature-length commentary by writer-producer Joss Whedon.
… 2) “Future History: The Story of Earth That Was” (4:33) has Whedon discussing, among other things, the genesis of “Serenity’s” prequel series “Firefly,” and why everybody in the movie keeps talking Chinese.
… 3) “What’s in a Firefly” (6:33) looks at how the first-act hovercraft chase was engineered and the film’s other special effect marvels.
… 4) “Re-Lighting The Firefly” (9:41) takes a gander at the fans’ role in taking Mal, River, Inara, et al to the big screen.
… 5) Joss Whedon Introduction (3:55) is what the lucky people who got into last summer’s “Can’t Stop the Signal” screening got to see before the movie.
… 6) Outtakes (6:05) is a compiliation of bloopers, included many more uses of “fuck” than are actually found in the movie.
… 7) The nine deleted scenes (14:39), featuring optional Whedon commentary throughout, are the REAL reason to buy the disc: They show you the movie that wasn’t, with entertainingly meaty character moments that deepen one’s rooting interest in Kaylee, Jayne, River, Book and, mostly, Inara. (Almost all were excised for the sake of pacing.) The Inara stuff, especially her scene with Sheydra, push the enterprise toward romantic comedy in a highly gratifying manner, and was sorely missed. I’m not sure the cuts weren’t the best for the movie’s commercial prospects, but I don’t think many would dispute that the longer film would have been the better film.

TV on DVD Calendar

Last Week

The Amazing Race 7.x

Battlestar Galactica 2.1-2.10

ER 4.x
Firefly: The Motion Picture
Party of Five 2.x

December 26

Nowhere Man: The Complete Series

SeaQuest 1.x

The Shield 4.x
Tracey Takes On 1.x
The Twilight Zone 5.x

December 27
America's Funniest Home Videos: Kids & Animals
Criss Angel: Mindfreak
Sunday Morning Shootout: Best of 1.x

January 3

Alien Nation: The Complete Series
All in the Family 5.x
1st & Ten 1.x
1st & Ten 2.x
Gunsmoke 50th Anniversary Gift-Set
Have Gun Will Travel 3.x
Hunter 3.x
Silk Stalkings 4.x

January 10
Andromeda 5.x Vol. 3
Black Books 1.x
Boy Meets World 4.x

The Flash: The Complete Series
Hee Haw Vol.5
The House of Eliott 2.x
Men Behaving Badly 3.x
Men Behaving Badly 4.x
Nighty Night 1.x
Red Dwarf 7.x
Rising Damp 1.x
Strong Medicine 1.x
Urban Gothic 1.x
Viva La Bam 4.x/5.x
Wild Kingdom: African Wild 2
Wild Kingdom: Hunters of the Sky

January 17

The Adventures of Superman 2.x
Doogie Howser, MD 3.x
Fraggle Rock Vol. 5
Good Morning World: The Complete Series
Lois & Clark 2.x

The Mary Tyler Moore Show 3.x

Mr. Show: The Complete Series
Old Grey Whistle Test Vol. 2
Titus 3.x

January 24
'Allo 'Allo 4.x
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book One, Vol. 1
Codename: Icarus
Dallas 4.x
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Missing 2.x
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Alec Baldwin

Saturday Night Live: The Best of David Spade
The Time Tunnel: Vol. 1
The Tomorrow Show: Punk & New Wave
The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss: The Cat's Home

January 31
All American Girl: The Complete Series
Archie Bunker's Place 1.x
The A-Team 3.x
Benny Hill: Set 4
Dark Shadows Vol. 22
Diff'rent Strokes 2.x
Gastinau Girls 1.x
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates 3.x

Hill Street Blues 1.x
Inked: Best of 1.x
Knight Rider 3.x
Magnum PI 3.x
MI-5 Vol. 3
The Pink Panther: Classic Cartoon Collection
Rat Patrol 1.x
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 20
Two's Comany 4.x
The X-Files 1.x ($37.48 Slimcase Edition)
The X-Files 2.x ($37.48 Slimcase Edition)
The X-Files 3.x ($37.48 Slimcase Edition)

February 7

The Batman 1.x
Blue Collar TV 1.x Vol. 2
The Electric Company: Best Of
Emergency 2.x
Grounded For Life 1.x
Growing Pains 1.x

Hearts Afire 3.x
Inspector Alleyn Mysteries Set 2
The Lost World Vol. 1
The Lost World, Vol. 2
Moonlighting 3.x
One Step Beyond Collection
Pet Alien Vol. 4
Poltergeist:The Legacy 1.x
Sex and the City: Breakups
Sex and the City: Lust
Sex and the City: Mr. Big
Sex and the City: Romance
The Simpsons: Kiss and Tell

Survivor 7.x