A Look Back At Rod Serling's Classic TV Series 'The Twilight Zone'

Some years ago, after being operated on to remove a kidney stone, I awoke from the anesthesia and found myself on a gurney in the middle of a row of gurneys.

My first thought was frightening. I believed that I was mistakenly placed in the morgue. I raised up and yelled. Two nurses rushed to my side. One said to the other that my blood pressure was alarmingly high. One nurse told me that I was in the recovery room and that I fine, as the other nurse gave a shot of something that put me back under.

I later blamed this episode on being weaned on Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone TV series as a preteen. 

Rod Serling (seen in the above photo), a prolific writer and creator of the mysterious and supernatural TV series, served as the narrator and host. His great presence and voice was often imitated and parodied. 

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone," Rod Serling would say at the opening of the show.

Rod Serling also offered great stories, many of which he wrote himself, as well as good direction and fine actors. Many of the writers, directors and actors went on to greater success and fame. The stories were clever, ironic, spooky and twisted. Even though many of the stories dealt with space aliens, they were always all too human with drama, comedy and pathos. I loved the show.

Now CBS All Access is offering a reboot of the series with Jordan Peele standing in as narrator and host. I don’t think I’ll watch, as I recently watched the entire original series on Netflix over the course of a couple of months.

Sara Stewart at the New York Post offers a piece on how some of the fantastic stories actually came true.    

As we approach the April 1 premiere of Jordon Peele’s “Twilight Zone” series on CBS All Access, it’s worth remembering that some of the most memorable episodes from the original 1959 run ended up being a little too prophetic. And even if we haven’t yet had an alien invasion like in the famed 1962 episode “To Serve Man” (“It’s a cookbook!!”), here are eight times Rod Serling’s masterpiece of a show proved unnervingly adept at predicting modern developments. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://nypost.com/2019/03/31/8-ways-the-twilight-zone-actually-came-true/  

You can watch the intro of the series via the below link:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If3SXJeZzMQ 

And you can watch Rod Serling via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIsm97HL0EU 

A Look Back At TV's Most Beloved Detectives

In light of the finale of HBO's True Detective series, Sara Stewart at the New York Post offers a look back at some of the most popular detectives on TV, like Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, Peter Faulk as Lt. Columbo and James Garner as Jim Rockford.

You can read the piece and watch video clips on the TV detectives via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2014/03/08/13-of-tvs-most-beloved-detectives/

True Detective Delivers in Miniseries Finale

The HBO miniseries True Detective ended last night.

My wife and I enjoyed the clever and compelling miniseries and I thought Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson offered fine performances, as did the supporting cast.

I look forward to seeing what new detectives and plot the producers and writers offer next season.

Sara Stewart at the New Post offers a view of the season finale:

Finally, the truth can be told (many spoilers below!): the real villain of “True Detective” is…  HBOGo.com, which crashed epically as the much anticipated finale of the eight-episode miniseries was set to begin.

Irate web viewers aside, the last installation of the brilliant detective noir did not disappoint, delivering a baddie of mythical proportions and a satisfyingly philosophical coda for former partners Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson).

It even offered a rather inarguable explanation for its failure to address the entirety of the conspiracy theories floated along the way (the Tuttle ministry and family! Maggie’s father! What happened to Audrey?): “We ain’t gonna get ‘em all. That ain’t what kind of world it is.”  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2014/03/09/true-detective-delivers-in-miniseries-finale/

Johhny Depp Channels His Old Pal Hunter S. Thompson In "The Rum Diary'

Sara Stewart at the New York Post offers an interesting piece on how Johhny Depp, a friend of the late writer Hunter S. Thompson, was instrumental in having Thompson's novel The Rum Diary published and came to star in the film adaptation.

"It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with a balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.”

Hunter S. Thompson wrote this about San Juan, Puerto Rico, in his novel “The Rum Diary,” itself a passenger on a bumpy ride. Penned in the early 1960s and rejected by a half-dozen publishers, the long-forgotten manuscript was unearthed in Thompson’s basement by one of his house-guests -- Johnny Depp.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/rum_dinger_ViMPW3MbLiEdZqqQdizUML

You can also read an earlier post on a collection of Hunter S. Thompson's Rolling Stone pieces via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/10/look-back-at-great-comic-writer-hunter.html