RIP Kevin McCarthy (2/15/1914 - 9/11/2010)

I'm deeply saddened to report that Kevin McCarthy, star of my all-time favorite Twilight Zone episode "Long Live Walter Jameson," passed away yesterday at the age of 94. Here's the NW Times article. Mr. McCarthy is best known for his starring role in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

I was very fortunate, some years back, to acquire a personalized autograph from Mr. McCarthy through my good friend Bill Huelbig, who met Mr. McCarthy in person and thought of me.

Rest in peace, good sir.

Early Reviews for Season 1 on Blu-ray Are In!

Check these out:

Blu-news review

High Def Disc News review

Sounds like the blu-rays are everything I hoped for, and more... well, except for an isolated music track for Leith Stevens' score for "Time Enough at Last." Small complaint. Check out those screen captures! The naysayers over at The Twilight Zone Cafe (you know who you are) have clearly been proven wrong. Looks like a slim 5-disc case (like A&E's recent blu-ray release of The Prisoner: The Complete Series) in a foil-reflective slipcover.




Pre-orders are being taken at Amazon.com for $69.99. My order has been placed, and should arrive on the release date (9/14/10.... next week!).

I Give Up!

Regular readers of this blog (all three of you) have undoubtedly noticed that I've fallen behind in my weekly coverage of the summer repeats. I've missed the last two weeks, and I'll almost certainly miss this week's too. Therefore, I'm giving up. I'm going to simply post the remainder of the summer repeat schedule below, with links to the original blog entries/episode promos.


08/26/60 The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (rerun)
09/02/60 The Four of Us Are Dying (rerun)
09/09/60 A Nice Place to Visit (rerun)
09/16/60 The Lonely (rerun)
09/23/60 Execution (rerun)



Season two begins on 9/30 with the 50th anniversary of "King Nine Will Not Return." It's another Death Valley episode, so have a cold beverage handy.

TZ Repeat: "The Last Flight" (8/19/1960)

The summer reruns continue with "The Last Flight," a solid episode, mostly notable in Twilight Zone history as the first Richard Matheson teleplay produced. It was first aired on February 2, 1960, and repeated 50 years ago tonight. Here's my original writeup on the episode.

Um... not much to say. It's quite good, but not among my favorites. Season 1 is like that, though... most of 'em lie between excellent and outright brilliant, so a perfectly competent and clever episode might seem somehow lacking in comparison. That's how "The Last Flight" is for me. If another series had produced it, it probably would've seemed more impressive. But c'mon, when you're up against episodes like "Perchance to Dream," "And When the Sky was Opened," "The Hitch-hiker," "The After-hours"....

No disrespect to Mr. Matheson (who is still with us). It's really a very good script, well-executed, well-acted, well-shot, etc.

Okay, enough. I think I've made my point.




Next week: They're your neighbors. Your friends. Your kids play together. You barbecue together on summer afternoons. But when strange things start happening around the neighborhood... well, you might want to watch your back.

TZ Repeat: "The Hitch-hiker" (8/12/1960)

50 years ago tonight, CBS viewers were treated to an extraordinary half hour of television. Sure, it was a repeat, but The Twilight Zone is often better the second time around. You pick up things you might have missed the first time around. And speaking of picking up...

“The Hitch-hiker,” which premiered on 1/22/1960, reappeared for its encore telecast 50 years ago tonight. I’ve already covered the episode fairly extensively (see here), but I will say this: It’s a truly great episode (one of my top 10 favorites, in fact) with a truly unique history. It was originally presented as a radio show, which accounts for the large chunks of narration by the protagonist (radio was so much more internal than television). Character narration, a staple of police/detective shows (Dragnet in particular), was pretty uncommon on The Twilight Zone (since we had Rod Serling and all), but it did happen a few other times (“King Nine Will Not Return” and “The Long Morrow” come to mind; I’m sure there are a few others). The narrative device is particularly effective here: Inger Stevens’ anguished voiceover matches her onscreen performance quite well (the approach is much more elegant than, say, having one talk to oneself constantly, as in “Where Is Everybody?” or season five’s “The Last Night of a Jockey”). Her voice becomes a calm monotone when she realizes the true identity of her mysterious follower, and the lifeless expression on her face in the final shot is chilling.

Hey, it just occurred to me that the hitch-hiker himself would make a great bobble head… Bif Bang Pow!, are you listening? Maybe his THUMB could bobble…. or is that too silly?

Coming up: We’re only six weeks away from the start of season two! But for now, the summer repeats continue with an interesting tale of a plane that lands not so much in the wrong place, but in the wrong time…

TZ Oddity: "The Invaders" thong

No, it's not an April Fool's joke. It's, um, a rarity in the world of Twilight Zone collectibles: this one is designed exclusively for the ladies. I give you.... The Invaders thong.

Wanna order one for that special lady in your life? Go here. The Invader is a bit hard to see in that somewhat-garish design, but if you encountered this particular item in the wild... well, the design probably wouldn't be foremost on your mind. If you follow the above link, you'll note that the exact same design is available on a wide variety of items (T-shirts, mugs, chef's aprons, men's boxers, etc), but none are quite as charming or alluring as the thong. I'm tempted to get one to pair up with my Hallmark Valentine's Day card which, coincidentally enough, features an Invader on the back holding a box of chocolates. Ah, romance.

... on a side note, I love The Invader. The character, I mean. The episode... well, not so much. I appreciate the atmosphere and the production value (and the tour-de-force performance by Agnes Moorehead, of course), but I've never found the episode particularly effective. Anyway, I love the little guy, and I've decided that he's going to be my next tattoo. I'm using the following picture of the glorious Sideshow Collectibles Invader figure (which I don't own.... yet) as a reference shot for the tattoo artist. In other words, it's gonna look pretty much just like this (same angle, etc):

TZ Repeat: "And When the Sky Was Opened" (8/05/1960)

50 years ago tonight, one of my favorite episodes of all time enjoyed its summer repeat. It was originally aired on 12/11/1959 (see my previous entry here). I won't recount the story here (just click on the preceding link), but I will mention (again) that this was the episode that got me hooked --- for life, it seems --- on The Twilight Zone.

Funny side story --- I discovered the series in syndication in the early 80's. Our family didn't have a VCR (that would come a few years later), but what I did have was a tape recorder. So I taped as many episodes as I could once I'd become hooked. (I still remember that big box o' tapes in the corner of my bedroom). I didn't catch "And When the Sky Was Opened" until a subsequent airing, but I have vivid memories of listening to that tape over and over again. I have this, and several other episodes, memorized almost word-for-word because of the hours I spent listening to my tape recordings.

I also think this is why I developed such a passion for the music used in the series, since my focus was allocated exclusively to the audio. But that's a topic for another time. But if you're curious, Leonard Rosenman's brilliant score for this particular episode is easily obtainable...





Next week: Another Top 10 favorite of mine is repeated. Thumbs up, so to speak...