55th Anniversary DVD Collection announced...

Looks like Image Entertainment is releasing yet another DVD compilation on July 1st (*yawn*). I already own the entire series on both DVD and Blu-ray, and if I didn't, I could watch it on Hulu (all five seasons) or Netflix (everything except season four as of this writing), so this kind of announcement doesn't excite me in the least. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because, as far as I know, it's the first item to commemorate the series' upcoming 55th anniversary, which falls on October 2nd. 

Having said that, it does contain a pretty great selection of episodes. The 2-disc set features the following:

"Walking Distance"

"Time Enough at Last"

"The Hitch-hiker"

"The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"

"A Stop at Willoughby"

"The After Hours"

"The Howling Man"

"Eye of the Beholder"

"Nick of Time"

"The Invaders"

"The Obsolete Man"

"It's a Good Life"

"The Midnight Sun"

"To Serve Man"

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

"Living Doll"

"The Masks"

I have no argument with the selection: all 17 episodes are top notch (well, I'm not exactly fond of "Time Enough at Last," but I can't deny its iconic status). There are of course a few I'd swap out (I'd probably trade "The Masks" for "Third from the Sun," for example), but this is a really solid compilation. I guess it's a great (and inexpensive; Amazon's pre-order price is $18.99) way to introduce new viewers to the series. The fact that it's a DVD-only compilation is a bit troubling, however. There's simply no excuse in this day and age to restrict content ---- particularly content that has already been remastered in high definition --- to lowly standard-def. Given the number of times Image has milked the Twilight Zone cow, this is more than a bit disappointing.

Still haven't upgraded? C'mon.

Episode Spotlight: "Living Doll" (11/01/1963)

Season 5, Episode 6 (126 overall)

Originally aired 11/01/2013

Cayuga Production # 2621

Fifty years ago tonight, a mean ol’ sumbitch matched wits with a doll… and lost miserably. Jeez, wotta wuss.

Erich Streator is your average everyday wicked stepfather. Overbearing and cruel, he makes life miserable for his wife Annabelle and stepdaughter Christie on a daily basis. When Annabelle buys Christie a new Talky Tina doll, Erich is clearly perturbed because, well, nobody in his house should ever enjoy anything. Kinda reminds me of my stepdad when I was a kid.

Hi Daddy! Meet your adorable new nemesis!

“My name is Talky Tina, and I love you very much,” coos Tina whenever her string is pulled. But whenever she’s alone with Erich, she says other, more interesting phrases: they start with “I don’t think I like you” and quickly escalate to “I’m going to kill you.” The aforementioned battle of wits escalates from there and, to borrow a catchphrase from Highlander: there can be only one.

ZICREE RAPED MY CHILDHOOD!

I was pretty new to the series when I first read Marc Scott Zicree’s The Twilight Zone Companion in 1982, and there were many episodes that I hadn't seen yet, one of which was “Living Doll.” Zicree’s comments on the episodes are as follows:

“Erich Streator is trying desperately not to alienate his wife and her young daughter. When the child brings home a doll that makes clear its murderous intentions --- but only when it's alone with him --- Erich is in one hell of a bind. If he tries to tell his wife of it, he sounds like a lunatic, and if he tries to protect himself by attempting (unsuccessfully) to destroy the doll, his actions seem those of a twisted mind striking out resentfully to hurt a helpless little girl. Poor Erich; it is clear early on that he hasn't much of a chance against this ruthless doll.” 

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Zicree?

This was all I knew about “Living Doll” until I finally saw it a few years later. I was expecting to see a basically decent guy get decimated unfairly by an evil doll; imagine my surprise to discover that said “decent guy” was actually the villain of the piece! Did Zicree even watch the episode before writing about it? He couldn't have possibly sympathized with Erich Streator AT ALL if he had; however, the excessive praise he heaps on it would seem to imply that not only had he seen it, but had deemed it absolute top tier Zone: “Masterfully written and superbly directed, acted, photographed and scored, it is an episode that can stand with the best of any season.”  It was at this point, at the tender of age of 13, that I had the sobering realization that Zicree was perhaps not the be-all-end-all Twilight Zone expert that I’d assumed he was. I mean, he’d written a goddamned book about it; how the hell could he have been so incredibly wrong?

I think, in describing this dark event in my TZ-formative years, I've figured out why I’m so hostile toward Zicree. Serling was my new idol (after outgrowing such childhood heroes as Spiderman and Luke Skywalker), but he died before I ever heard his name, so Zicree, having chronicled Serling’s wonderful TV series, was the closest I could get to him. And the son of a bitch let me down by being so blatantly wrong about something so obvious. Erich Streator was a bad guy; he deserved what he got. This was the cosmic justice that lay at the very heart of The Twilight Zone, which even I understood at that early age. If Zicree didn't understand that, then who was he to write the book in the first place?

Ahem. I think I might just have exorcised a serious demon here. Maybe now I can move on with my life. Maybe I can even forgive Mr. Zicree his egregious trespasses against my inner child. Maybe.

Okay, therapy session over. Let’s move on.

“Living Doll” has a great concept (which is unfortunately pretty clichéd nowadays; I’m looking at you, Child’s Play franchise) which, coupled with Telly Savalas’s fantastic bad-guy-you-love-to-hate performance, makes for a highly entertaining half-hour (except for the last thirty seconds; see below). Unfortunately, it’s pretty flat on a visual level, the exception being when the action moves to Erich’s garage, where he attempts to dispose of Tina in a number of ways (she’s definitely more menacing in semi-darkness). Still, these scenes offer nothing on the level of, say, season three’s “The Dummy” (which features a menacing ventriloquist’s dummy framed by complex camera work with marvelous lighting).  And the final shot of the episode, in which slow-motion is abruptly employed for no apparent reason, does nothing to advance the mood (and was likely done to stretch out the ending to accommodate Serling’s closing narration, which suggests poor planning during filming).  

In fact, the ending is disappointing in general, since having Tina murder Erich is the easiest possible conclusion. Why not have Erich scared straight, so to speak, and forced to treat his family better under Tina’s ongoing supervision? Further, why the hell does Tina threaten Annabelle (Christie’s one and only champion) after Erich is dispatched? Up until this point, the episode was operating under the cosmic justice approach (discussed in detail last week) but, in the final moment, gears are abruptly switched over to something more akin to chaos theory. It seems Tina is just an all-around evil doll (yawn) instead of a protective shield for a mistreated child (infinitely more satisfying) after all.

One minor bid of weirdness. Annabelle says to Erich that “I know you got more than you bargained for when you married me; two for the price of one, wasn’t it?” Um… surely he was aware that she had a kid, right…? If he wasn’t, then I’m almost willing to cut him some slack for being such an asshole. On that note, surely she was aware that he was a profoundly mean bastard, so why the hell did she marry him in the first place? 

Jerry Sohl and Charles Beaumont

“Living Doll” is the first of three episodes credited to writer Charles Beaumont this season. Unfortunately, he didn't actually write any of them, as by this time his health was rapidly deteriorating (he passed away in 1967). In this particular case, Beaumont mapped out the plot with Jerry Sohl, who ghostwrote the script.

THE MUSIC

“Living Doll” features another great score from Bernard Herrmann. As a fan(atic) of his work, I find it fascinating to compare his Twilight Zone work with the film scores he composed around the same time (for example, his score for 1959’s Journey to the Center of the Earth shares similar instrumentation with TZ’s “The Lonely” from that same year). His sole film score in 1963 was Jason and the Argonauts which, now that I think about it, doesn’t really sound like “Living Doll” at all.  Here, Herrmann employs a very small ensemble (two harps, celesta and bass clarinet) to create moody, suspenseful cues that perfectly underline the escalating psychological warfare between Erich and Talky Tina. The original Herrmann recordings have never been properly released; however, they can be obtained via the isolated music tracks present on both the DVD and blu-ray sets of season five (from Image Entertainment).  

Additionally, Joel McNeely recorded all seven of Herrmann’s Twilight Zone scores in 1999 for a 2-CD set released by Varese Sarabande Records (which was the only game in town for 4/7ths of Herrmann’s TZ output before Image came along). I do have some issues with some of McNeely’s interpretations (some cues are too fast while others are too slow; further, much of “Where Is Everybody?” just sounds off to my ears); however, his take on “Living Doll” is quite good (though it’s no match for the original recording).

FAMILIAR FACES

Telly Savalas, who has a long history of imposing and often malevolent characters on his resume, is perfect as Erich Streator.  This is his only TZ appearance, but he does have another connection to the series: he appeared in 1962’s Cape Fear, which was scored by Bernard Herrmann (and co-starred TZ vets Martin Balsam, Edward Platt and Paul Comi). Savalas also played super villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, one of my favorite James Bond films.

Mary La Roche (Annabelle Streator) previously entered The Twilight Zone as Mary, Gregory West’s mistress, in season one’s “A World of His Own.” Here she plays an unhappy wife, so I guess she got to play both sides of the extramarital fence (though I guess Erich isn't depicted as an adulterer; but honestly, would we be surprised?).

Tracy Stratford is convincingly sad and under-loved as Christie (she was also Tina in season three’s “Little Girl Lost,” which was also scored by Bernard Herrmann. Wait, so first she played Tina, then she had a doll named Tina… is it possible that Talky Tina came from the fourth dimension?). Additionally, Stratford provided the voice of Lucy Van Pelt in the 1960s Charlie Brown TV specials. So when Annabelle tells Erich to see a psychiatrist, I wonder if she meant….

Good grief! Uh, I mean... who loves ya, baby???

And hey, Telly Savalas and Charlie Brown are both bald. Coincidence?  I dunno… maybe Charles Schulz was a Twilight Zone fan…?

June Foray, probably the hardest working voice actor in Hollywood, provides the unforgettable voice of Talky Tina. She’ll also do some (slightly controversial) dubbing later this season in “The Bewitchin’ Pool,” but she has another less-obvious TZ connection as well.  80’s kids like me will have no trouble remembering the 1985 film Weird Science, but do you remember the TV spin-off, which lasted five seasons (1994-1998) on the USA Network? In the episode “Sci-Fi Zoned,” the main characters are trapped inside black and white episodes of their favorite TV show (a thinly-veiled TZ knockoff called The Sci-Fi Zone), one of which involves a murderous doll named “Talking Tammy,” who is voiced by…. yup, you guessed it, June Foray (she also voices a sentient candy bar named “Baby Ruth” in the same episode).

An iconic episode like this is almost guaranteed to spawn a parody somewhere along the line. Like “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” a few weeks back, “Living Doll” got the Simpsons treatment in 1992’s “Treehouse of Horror III,” in which a Krusty the Klown doll menaces Homer Simpson (“Clown without Pity”). Also of interest to genre fans is the framing device employed in this episode, which is patterned after TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents and features the rotund Homer standing in for Hitch.

Good morn--- D'oh!

Bif Bang Pow! has immortalized Talky Tina in every conceivable form (a talking bobblehead, action figure, and a fully-functioning life-sized replica). The bobblehead seems to be sold out but, as of this writing, the action figure and life-size replica are still available through Entertainment Earth (but, as with any collectible, they won’t be around forever). I can’t comment on the life-sized replica since I don't own it (c'mon, how could I possibly justify buying a fucking doll? For over a hundred bucks, no less!), but I've reviewed the other two (see here and here).

Questionable ending aside, “Living Doll” is great fun and a definite highlight of The Twilight Zone’s fifth and final season. Other than the misfire “A Kind of a Stopwatch” two weeks ago, season five’s offerings have ranged from good to excellent… unfortunately, the quality is about to start dipping in a big way.  Stay tuned, but temper your expectations from here on out.

Next week: Hoo boy. Where’s Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery when you need ‘em? 

Episode Spotlight: "Steel" (10/04/1963)

Season 5, Episode 2 (122 overall)

Originally aired 10/04/1963

Cayuga Production # 2602

Ah, the old Man versus Machine bit.  We've seen it before (“A Thing about Machines”) and we’ll see it again (“The Brain Center at Whipple’s”) but, 50 years ago tonight, The Twilight Zone brought us a fresh take on the subject… with boxing gloves, no less.

Richard Matheson’s “Steel” (adapted from his own short story, as most of his TZ teleplays were) introduces us to Joe “Steel” Kelly, former heavyweight boxer (he earned the nickname by never getting knocked down) and his sidekick Pole, who have just rode into town for a three-round bout. But it’s not Steel who’s doing the fighting… it’s Battling Maxo, a model B2 automaton who’s seen better days (and several generations of newer models). This is 1974, you see, and human boxing has been outlawed.

As he is apparently prone to do, Maxo breaks a spring during his pre-fight check-over, rendering his arm useless.  The guys are broke, so they have no way to get the parts they need to fix him, so Steel comes up with a clever (albeit dangerous) plan… one that will place him in considerable jeopardy.

The robot boxers are an ingenious creation, and quite well realized. They look human enough at first glance, but their artificiality becomes quickly apparent upon closer examination: their expressionless faces look like sculpted rubber, and their eyes appear to be made of black glass. They look menacing and soulless, which is exactly what they should look like.

THE MUSIC

“Steel” features original music by Nathan Van Cleave, a welcome jazz score with a few avant-garde touches.  Of particular note is the “Test Run” cue, which plays during act one (when Steel and Pole are checking Maxo’s reflexes before the fight, time stamp 10:30).  Frenetic strings intertwine with warbling guitar notes for a minute-long aural smack upside the head. It’s a vivid and exciting piece, one that would've made a great Twilight Zone title theme (if that pesky Marius Constant theme wasn’t so deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness, that is). Have a listen:

As with all season five scores, Van Cleave’s “Steel” has never been released (no vinyl, no tape, no CD, no mp3, no nothin’), but it can be found, isolated for your listening pleasure, on both the Definitive DVD and blu-ray release of season five from Image Entertainment.  I wish the same could be said of Van Cleave’s other jazz score from season five (“Black Leather Jackets”), which is NOT isolated on the season five sets and continues to be maddeningly unattainable in any form.

Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots first appeared in 1964, the year after “Steel” first aired. I can’t help but wonder if the toy’s designer, Marvin Glass (no, it wasn’t Horace Ford, smart ass) saw this episode, came up with (or, y’now, outright stole) the idea and immediately starting producing them.

2011’s Real Steel, on the other hand, didn't rip off Matheson’s idea, as he actually has a writing credit in the film. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t really comment. It’s got big robots and Hugh Jackman, so how bad can it be?  

FAMILIAR FACES

Lee Marvin, last seen in season three’s “The Grave,” is excellent as the mono-minded Steel Kelly (but really, he’s excellent in almost everything he ever did). For some reason I was thinking he also starred in the upcoming episode “The Old Man in the Cave,” but that’s actually James Coburn. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me? Take this as an indicator that my season five memories are very fuzzy.

Ah ha!  I’m not the only one who’s made this mistake!

Joe Mantell stops by The Twilight Zone for another visit (he was marvelous in season two’s “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room”). Pole is pretty cardboard as written, but Mantell makes him breathe. Pole is generally argumentative and negative, but witness the fear in his eyes when he somberly predicts the outcome of the bout: “Steel, you’ll be killed.” He’s pre-grieving, and it’s very effective.

As The Maynard Flash, Chuck Hicks is convincingly soulless and mechanistic. We’ll see Hicks again in an uncredited role as an unnamed furniture mover later this season in “Ninety Years without Slumbering.” Apparently this particular B7 was able to find work when he was supplanted by later B models (I’m reminded of Mountain McClintock from Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight, in which an over-the-hill boxer seeks work through the Employment Office).

Two more TZ vets to mention:  Nolan is played by Merritt Bohn, who was also the truck driver in season one’s “One for the Angels” (you know, the one who runs over poor Dana Dillaway). Maxwell is played by Frank London, who was also the truck driver in season two’s “A Penny for Your Thoughts” (you know, the one who almost runs over Dick York).  I imagine these guys were good buddies with Dave Armstrong, who was equally dangerous behind the wheel on this show.

And speaking of familiar faces, what's the deal with the screaming guy in the crowd? He looks a lot like the star of next week's episode....

    Shatner.                        Not Shatner.

“Steel” is definitely upper-tier TZ which, as season five trudges forward, will become an increasingly rare thing to behold.  It’s tight and toned and sturdy on its feet… in other words, no oil paste or replacement springs needed here.

Next week: Captain Kirk sees a Mugato on the Enterprise’s port nacelle and totally loses his shit.

SyFy's 4th of July Twilight Zone marathon 2012

If you like your Twilight Zone blurry, scratched up, missing scenes and interrupted by frequent commercial breaks, then SyFy's 4th of July marathon is for you!  Here's the schedule (all times are eastern):

7/04/2012

08:00 AM Probe 7 Over And Out
08:30 AM Caesar And Me
09:00 AM The Old Man In The Cave
09:30 AM Mr. Dingle, The Strong
10:00 AM A Kind Of Stopwatch
10:30 AM A Hundred Yards Over The Rim
11:00 AM Little Girl Lost
11:30 AM A Game Of Pool
12:00 PM Long Distance Call
12:30 PM A Most Unusual Camera
01:00 PM Stopover In A Quiet Town
01:30 PM Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
02:00 PM I Sing The Body Electric
02:30 PM Five Characters In Search Of An Exit
03:00 PM Night Of The Meek
03:30 PM Kick The Can
04:00 PM Where Is Everybody
04:30 PM Dead Man's Shoes
05:00 PM The Hitch-hiker
05:30 PM The Dummy
06:00 PM The Invaders
06:30 PM The Bewitchin' Pool
07:00 PM Living Doll
07:30 PM The Howling Man
08:00 PM Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up
08:30 PM The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
09:00 PM Nightmare At 20,000 Feet
09:30 PM Time Enough At Last
10:00 PM To Serve Man
10:30 PM A Stop At Willoughby
11:00 PM Eye Of The Beholder
11:30 PM The Obsolete Man

7/05/2012

12:00 AM The Midnight Sun
12:30 AM The Odyssey Of Flight 33
01:00 AM The Masks
01:30 AM Third From The Sun
02:00 AM It's A Good Life
02:30 AM Nick Of Time
03:00 AM Night Call
03:30 AM A Penny For Your Thoughts
04:00 AM The After Hours
04:30 AM The Little People

Now, if you prefer your Zone complete and uncut, in pristine high definition and supplemented with extensive bonus features, treat yourself to Image Entertainment's wonderful blu-ray treatment of the series (no, I'm not gonna stop harping on this until every one of you takes the plunge).  The complete series is available as I type this for $230.95 from Amazon, which is a helluva deal.

I've emailed Image Entertainment to see if early purchasers of the individual season sets (like yours truly) can possible get that gorgeous outer box, perhaps for a nominal fee.  I'll report back after they've (hopefully) answered.

Happy 4th, folks!