The Key of Imagination

[Karl Henning]

[Karl Henning]

[Karl Henning]

"Now, television gives us Hogan's Heroes, and next year I suppose it'll be The Merry Men of Auschwitz."

Disclosure: I remember watching and enjoying Hogan's Heroes, and only sometime after the fact reading the objection to a sitcom about a prison camp.

[Karl Henning]

It did not register for me that Jeannot Szwarc directed two episodes of the '80s Twilight Zone, "Red Snow" and "The Last Defender of Camelot."

[relm1]

It did not register for me that Jeannot Szwarc directed two episodes of the '80s Twilight Zone, "Red Snow" and "The Last Defender of Camelot."

Who is that?

[Karl Henning]

Who is that?

He had directed several episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. And then Jaws 2, Somewhere in Time. 

[relm1]

He had directed several episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. And then Jaws 2, Somewhere in Time.

Ahh, I've never been able to see Night Gallery.  It is never on tv nor streaming unlike TZ which is everywhere.  Somewhere in Time is a lovely period film with beautiful score and heartfelt performances.  Plus was my introduction to Rachmaninoff!  Jaws 2 was a lousy film with a beautiful score.  I don't think they understood what Jaws 1 was actually about.

[Karl Henning]

Ahh, I've never been able to see Night Gallery.  It is never on tv nor streaming unlike TZ which is everywhere.  Somewhere in Time is a lovely period film with beautiful score and heartfelt performances.  Plus was my introduction to Rachmaninoff!  Jaws 2 was a lousy film with a beautiful score.  I don't think they understood what Jaws 1 was actually about.

Night Gallery had a troubled history. The third season saw Serling alienated from a show which had his name on it, and then in order to "fill it out" so that it could go into syndication, the episodes were sliced and diced and coupled with The Sixth Sense. the recent blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber is superb; I've not heard if there are any plans/prospects for streaming. I forget who the original director was for Jaws 2 (the first movie was a monumentally unpleasant experience for Spielberg--mostly a matter of shooting on the water--so he refused to direct the sequel) and Szwarc was engaged to pull it out of the fire.

[Karl Henning]

[Karl Henning]

[Karl Henning]

[Karl Henning]

For most of the five seasons of The Twilight Zone's run, it was a half-hour show, a format which arguably maximized its "punch." With the exception of the close of the first season, the renewal of the series suffered some degree of a question mark. And although the network approved moving ahead with a second season, they extracted a budgetary concession on the production side, by having some of the second season shows shot on tape rather than film. As to the fourth season, in the spring of '62, the Zone was slow to find a sponsor and CBS placed another show in that time slot. Serling hustled to salvage a new season. Eventually, CBS ordered eighteen hour-long episodes to populate a half-season beginning in January of '63. From my previous surveys of the fourth season, I have a misty recollection of one or two episodes felt "padded," like scripts that would have made a tight half-hour show, but perhaps oughtn't to have run for an hour. This year I'm revisiting that notion.

This weekend I watched the first two episodes, Charles Beaumont's "In His Image," and Serling's "The Thirty-Fathom Grave."

Beaumont's health and brain would shortly begin to decline, but here he is still in excellent form. "In His Image" is one of my favorite episodes. No fat on this thoroughbred.

"The Thirty-Fathom Grave" I find very good, in fact better now, for whatever passel of reasons, than I may have found it before. Could the story have been told in half an hour? Probably. Yet I don't feel that it drags at all, that it remains interesting throughout. Another thumb's-up.

[Karl Henning]

Next is another Beaumont script, "Valley of the Shadow." The premise is great fun: a reporter gets lost, pulls into a quiet little town in which he observes some strange things, and then ... he cannot leave. We, the audience are led to think that the author has painted himself into a corner, but then the solution ought to have been obvious. Another episode which wears its duration well.

When I first watched my way through the whole show (I bought the DVD set in 2010) I may have thought slightly dismissively of the script "He's Alive" as reflecting Serling's mild personal preoccupation (of itself completely understandable, as he'd fought in it) with WWII. "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" was a sub sunk during the Guadalcanal campaign. Oscar Beregi is a Concentration Camp commander who comes back to Dachau thinking he'll relive good old times in "Death's-Head Revisited" (a pun on the title of an Evelyn Waugh novel.) Leonard Nimoy's one appearance on the show was in "The Purple Testament," located in the Philippines at just about the war's end. There are more, but the point is made. "He's Alive posits the birth of a fascist movement in the US. Back when I first watched the episode, I thought it was Serling firing a blank, an unnecessary warning, in much the spirit of finding the Illinois Nazis in The Blues Brothers a joke. But with the ascendancy of MAGA and a former POTUS who deliberately sows stochastic terrorism, it is uncomfortable and timely. Serling was right and I was wrong.

[Karl Henning]

Next is another Beaumont script, "Valley of the Shadow." The premise is great fun: a reporter gets lost, pulls into a quiet little town in which he observes some strange things, and then ... he cannot leave. We, the audience are led to think that the author has painted himself into a corner, but then the solution ought to have been obvious. Another episode which wears its duration well.

When I first watched my way through the whole show (I bought the DVD set in 2010) I may have thought slightly dismissively of the script "He's Alive" as reflecting Serling's mild personal preoccupation (of itself completely understandable, as he'd fought in it) with WWII. "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" was a sub sunk during the Guadalcanal campaign. Oscar Beregi is a Concentration Camp commander who comes back to Dachau thinking he'll relive good old times in "Death's-Head Revisited" (a pun on the title of an Evelyn Waugh novel.) Leonard Nimoy's one appearance on the show was in "The Purple Testament," located in the Philippines at just about the war's end. There are more, but the point is made. "He's Alive posits the birth of a fascist movement in the US. Back when I first watched the episode, I thought it was Serling firing a blank, an unnecessary warning, in much the spirit of finding the Illinois Nazis in The Blues Brothers a joke. But with the ascendancy of MAGA and a former POTUS who deliberately sows stochastic terrorism, it is uncomfortable and timely. Serling was right and I was wrong.

"The weakness that makes a man his brother's keeper."

[Karl Henning]

But with the ascendancy of MAGA and a former POTUS who deliberately sows stochastic terrorism, it is uncomfortable and timely. Serling was right and I was wrong.

"Do you want your homes infected with the vermin of foreign shores?!"

[LKB]

Next is another Beaumont script, "Valley of the Shadow." The premise is great fun: a reporter gets lost, pulls into a quiet little town in which he observes some strange things, and then ... he cannot leave. We, the audience are led to think that the author has painted himself into a corner, but then the solution ought to have been obvious. Another episode which wears its duration well.

When I first watched my way through the whole show (I bought the DVD set in 2010) I may have thought slightly dismissively of the script "He's Alive" as reflecting Serling's mild personal preoccupation (of itself completely understandable, as he'd fought in it) with WWII. "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" was a sub sunk during the Guadalcanal campaign. Oscar Beregi is a Concentration Camp commander who comes back to Dachau thinking he'll relive good old times in "Death's-Head Revisited" (a pun on the title of an Evelyn Waugh novel.) Leonard Nimoy's one appearance on the show was in "The Purple Testament," located in the Philippines at just about the war's end. There are more, but the point is made. "He's Alive posits the birth of a fascist movement in the US. Back when I first watched the episode, I thought it was Serling firing a blank, an unnecessary warning, in much the spirit of finding the Illinois Nazis in The Blues Brothers a joke. But with the ascendancy of MAGA and a former POTUS who deliberately sows stochastic terrorism, it is uncomfortable and timely. Serling was right and I was wrong.

During his peak years in the late '50's and early '60's, Mr. Serling was almost certainly the most significant and influential creative force in American television. Perhaps " genius " would be an overstatement when defining his strengths, but he had a true moral compass, knew how to efficiently convey drama that would be impactful, and was able to realize his vision of television being more than simple entertainment. I wouldn't feel too badly about him being right, since he usually was. 

( And if it makes you feel any better, as far as I know he never composed a lick of music.    )

[Karl Henning]

During his peak years in the late '50's and early '60's, Mr. Serling was almost certainly the most significant and influential creative force in American television. Perhaps " genius " would be an overstatement when defining his strengths, but he had a true moral compass, knew how to efficiently convey drama that would be impactful, and was able to realize his vision of television being more than simple entertainment. I wouldn't feel too badly about him being right, since he usually was. 

( And if it makes you feel any better, as far as I know he never composed a lick of music.    )

I for one am comfortable saying that Serling was possessed of genius.

[Karl Henning]

Richard Matheson's "Mute." A fascinating premise and drama. The adaptation is rather disturbing, though. A girl of extraordinary telepathic talent is orphaned when the Pennsylvania farmhouse her family lives in is destroyed by fire. The town plays a kind of collective Procrustes. The couple who adopt her mean well, but simply don't understand her, which is no impediment to their embracing her with affection. Worse, the schoolmarm, whose father had tried to train her to be a medium, has suspicions on which she acts with zero compassion. The arc of the story is thus tragic, yet this adaptation (Matheson's own, BTW) draws to an ending which treats the girl's inevitable consignment to life among people lacking her gift, as somehow a "happy ending." It's an ironic betrayal of the series' "twist ending" tradition. My conclusion, I suppose, is that it is a good, but flawed episode. The hour length, though, is not a problem. 

[Karl Henning]

Richard Matheson's "Mute." A fascinating premise and drama. The adaptation is rather disturbing, though. A girl of extraordinary telepathic talent is orphaned when the Pennsylvania farmhouse her family lives in is destroyed by fire. The town plays a kind of collective Procrustes. The couple who adopt her mean well, but simply don't understand her, which is no impediment to their embracing her with affection. Worse, the schoolmarm, whose father had tried to train her to be a medium, has suspicions on which she acts with zero compassion. The arc of the story is thus tragic, yet this adaptation (Matheson's own, BTW) draws to an ending which treats the girl's inevitable consignment to life among people lacking her gift, as somehow a "happy ending." It's an ironic betrayal of the series' "twist ending" tradition. My conclusion, I suppose, is that it is a good, but flawed episode. The hour length, though, is not a problem.

Few moments in the five seasons of the show as sad as hearing that child speak aloud. 

[LKB]

I'll have to re-view that episode, it's been years since l've seen it. Hopefully I'll remember over the weekend...