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Rod Serling's seminal anthology series focused on ordinary folks who suddenly found themselves in extraordinary, usually supernatural, situations. The stories would typically end with an ironic twist that would see the guilty punished.
Anthology type science fiction program with a different cast each week. Tending toward the hard science, space travel, time travel, and human evolution it tries to examine in each show some... See full summary »
A television drama centered around a female FBI agent who is forced to work with an institutionalized scientist in order to rationalize a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.
Two brothers follow their father's footsteps as "hunters" fighting evil supernatural beings of many kinds including monsters, demons, and gods that roam the earth.
Stars:
Jared Padalecki,
Jensen Ackles,
Misha Collins
Within the course of one hour 5 stories are shown. None of these stories have any logical explanation, and some of them actually occurred. You are left to decide which of these stories, if ... See full summary »
Stars:
Jonathan Frakes,
Don LaFontaine,
James Brolin
Night Visions is an anthology series similar to The Twilight Zone - some tales are supernatural, others are just commentaries on twisted human nature. Each hour episode is made up of two half-hour episodes aired back-to-back.
An updated version of the famous 1960's TV series created by Rod Serling. Each week presents one to three tales about some unusual situation that turns out to be even more unusual than initially suspected. Whether the tone of the story is horror, suspense or humor, there is always a surprise twist at the end. Written by
Jean-Marc Rocher <rocher@fiberbit.net>
Assuming the new Twilight Zone would be a huge hit with adults who had grown up on the original, CBS pre-sold the syndicated rerun rights with a "guaranteed" number of episodes. However, the show was a flop and was canceled after two seasons. CBS quickly made deals to produce additional episodes for syndication in order to fulfill the guarantee. In syndicated versions of this show, Robin Ward narrates all the episodes, including the episodes which originally featured narration by Charles Aidman. MGM/UA felt that this would give the series a greater sense of uniformity. Also this way they didn't have to pay residuals to Aidman, but only to (the considerably cheaper) Ward. See more »
The 1985 version of "The Twilight Zone" begins with a major disadvantage: it trailed the original Rod Serling vintage 1960s version! That original series was, and continues to be, the Gold Standard for programs of this type and for better or worse it's unlikely that any show in its wake could achieve that level of greatness.
However, this second attempt did have some positives going for it: First, it featured stories from a host of brilliant s/f writers, including such iconic names as Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen King, just to name three. And it had the advantage of better special effects, and color photography.
Unfortunately, the parallels to the original series meant this one was doomed to be considered an also ran, which is a shame, because there were some incredible episodes that I would rank among the best of any science fiction program from any era.
Examples: The astonishing "Profile In Silver" tells the story of a time traveling distant relation to John F. Kennedy, who goes to Dallas in 1963, intending to document, but then preventing the assassination of the President, which creates some surprising results. A remarkable story that is most certainly worthy of the "TZ" moniker.
The amusing "I Of Newton" tells of a professor who offhandedly says he would sell his soul to calculate an equation, but then has to try to back out of the deal when the devil shows up in his classroom to claim it. This is reminiscent of many of the humorous episodes from the original series.
They even did a "remake" of a few eps, like "Button Button," where an impoverished couple was offered the chance to receive a large cash amount if they simply pressed a button. The catch: someone they didn't know would die.
There were some hits and misses in this series, and to a degree, it did often reflect the mentality of the 1980s, rather than tell stories that had a "timeless" quality, which is another disadvantage it has to the original series, but it is most certainly worthy of bearing the name, and is worth seeking out, either on reruns or DVD.
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The 1985 version of "The Twilight Zone" begins with a major disadvantage: it trailed the original Rod Serling vintage 1960s version! That original series was, and continues to be, the Gold Standard for programs of this type and for better or worse it's unlikely that any show in its wake could achieve that level of greatness.
However, this second attempt did have some positives going for it: First, it featured stories from a host of brilliant s/f writers, including such iconic names as Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen King, just to name three. And it had the advantage of better special effects, and color photography.
Unfortunately, the parallels to the original series meant this one was doomed to be considered an also ran, which is a shame, because there were some incredible episodes that I would rank among the best of any science fiction program from any era.
Examples: The astonishing "Profile In Silver" tells the story of a time traveling distant relation to John F. Kennedy, who goes to Dallas in 1963, intending to document, but then preventing the assassination of the President, which creates some surprising results. A remarkable story that is most certainly worthy of the "TZ" moniker.
The amusing "I Of Newton" tells of a professor who offhandedly says he would sell his soul to calculate an equation, but then has to try to back out of the deal when the devil shows up in his classroom to claim it. This is reminiscent of many of the humorous episodes from the original series.
They even did a "remake" of a few eps, like "Button Button," where an impoverished couple was offered the chance to receive a large cash amount if they simply pressed a button. The catch: someone they didn't know would die.
There were some hits and misses in this series, and to a degree, it did often reflect the mentality of the 1980s, rather than tell stories that had a "timeless" quality, which is another disadvantage it has to the original series, but it is most certainly worthy of bearing the name, and is worth seeking out, either on reruns or DVD.