Customer Reviews

The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas CD Collection 2

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I am admittedly the perfect candidate for this series; I don't have much time to sit and stare at a TV and watch most of the brilliant original television shows, but the nature of my work is such that I constantly crave new audio entertainment. Short of flying to London and purchasing every audio drama the BBC ever released or picking up scratchy old-time radio broadcasts, wonderful as they are, there's little or nothing for someone like me to enjoy out there. Beyond that, however, I have no idea how anyone thought they could make money off reproducing old Twilight Zone episodes as radio dramas. I was so excited to find out these existed, and that there are so many of them, I may have a bias; however, I've found many of them to be superior in quality as a bonus.

It's true the translated stories suffer from audio over-exposition, some dubious acting even from the guest celebs and, pulled out of the time-frame in which they were originally produced they don't always hold up. However, on the plus side the stories are as solid today as ever, the sound effects and music are genuinely creep-inducing, the shows have a confident polish and the element that imagination adds to the proceedings is exciting and enjoyable. Imagining the dark, dream-like department store landscapes of "The After Hours" is thought-provoking in ways even the best of today's visuals could never live up to. Not on this collection, but one of the more effective moments is the awful sound of the strange creature Anthony conjures up in the audio version of everyone's favorite, "It's A Good Life."

These shows are also wonderfully quiet and cerebral; I've traveled to cities where they air on local radio stations and can attest they're a wonderful way to chill out before bed time. In a world obsessed with literalization and noise, I'm thrilled that something exists out there for adults to enjoy that involves using one's imagination, even if the product isn't perfect.

When word got out that "The Twilight Zone" would make its move to radio with Stacy Keach filling in for Rod Serling as
host, the response was generally on the order of, 'Uh,
how can you go from TV back to radio? And why
Twilight Zone to make the regression?' Well, the producers
of the series obviously saw no problem with it...they
pay CBS their fees, get the product on the shelves,
and collect the cash from the sales.

This is, unfortunately, another example of an

over-commercialised, slapdash attempt to sequelize a classic masterwork. If the effort is an attempt to make "Twilight
Zone" accessible to the younger generation, there's no need...you can go pop in a tape or DVD and watch the original
episodes. But this seems to be a case of taking Shakespeare
and cutting out all the middle English, in attempt to make the plays more universal.

The producers hooked Dennis Etchison, an otherwise superlative

writer, to "expand" the great old stories
of Rod Serling (and yes, the stories of Richard Matheson,
Chuck Beaumont, and other writers are going to be
adapted for radio as well, sans a few segments
that don't work well on radio including Matheson's
near-silent "The Invaders" and Serling's highly visual
"Eye of the Beholder"). Sadly, it is all too apparent
that Etchison knows, deep down, that the work of
the old writers can't be topped. For a show like
"The Twilight Zone", whose domain was almost like
a world parallel to our own, with the entire universe
as its breeding ground,
to take its stories and bring them back to the mundane and the reality-grounded
as radio programs is pointless. These first two sets
really come off as no more than bland recitations of
old stories that fans know inside and out from the
original TV versions.

The actors for the first series of eight dramas
include Jim Caviezel, Lou Diamond Phillips, Tim
Kazurinsky, Jane Seymour, James Keach, Blair Underwood,
Kim Fields, Chris MacDonald, and Ed Begley Jr.
Of these, only Jane Seymour does a credible job
as star of Serling's episode "The Lateness of the Hour"
(which originally starred the late Inger Stevens).
Tim Kazurinsky and Lou Diamond Phillips do earn
their paychecks with fairly humorous performances
in episodes "Mr. Dingle the Strong" (originally
starring Burgess Meredith) and "A Kind of Stopwatch",
respectively. The rest of the actors quite obviously
have no clue as to what they were doing, reciting
all their lines as if read directly from a cue card
(which in fact is probably what they did!)

In the role of ersatz-Rod Serling, the narrator,
Stacy Keach pretty much mails in his performance.
His readings of the intro/closings are but
lacking the gripping sincerity and meaning that
Rod always imparted to each and every narration.

Further hampering the dramas is the inclusion
of sponsor commercials, which pop up several
times. The CD versions are all one continuous
42-minute track with no option of fast-forwarding
through the commercials unless done manually.

In short, this new radio series does not yet offer
anything that the original series didn't. The
days of good ol' radio are gone, never to return.
But there are many more of these dramas still yet to
be released. Collections 3 and 4 have already
been released and do offer some nice sound
effects and a fabulous performance by Morgan
Brittany in episode "The Passersby". So perhaps
there's hope. Brittany is the first actor who
appeared in the TV series, to star in these dramas,
and more celebrities are reportedly going to
appear in future installments. Stay tuned...but
keep the volume on low until the producers come
full circle and prove their worthiness to carry
Rod Serling's gauntlet.