Three Clips from The Twilight Zone: Season One Blu-ray

Steve Barton |

Sep 7, 2010

As if you needed any other encouragement to pick up a copy of “The Twilight Zone” Season One on Blu-ray on Tuesday, September 14th, we’ve got three clips from the upcoming box set from Image Entertainment.

All new 1080p high-definition transfers have been created from the original camera negatives, as well as uncompressed PCM audio, remastered from the original magnetic soundtracks. In addition, the set includes new and exclusive bonus features not available anywhere else, including the rarely seen, never-before-released unofficial pilot “The Time Element,” written by Rod Serling and hosted by Desi Arnaz – the episode that started a cultural phenomenon – presented in glorious high definition!

Also included are 19 new audio commentaries, 34 isolated music scores, 18 radio dramas, new and archival cast/crew and scholar interviews, a “Tales of Tomorrow” episode of “What You Need,” the original unaired pilot version of “Where Is Everybody?” along with Rod Serling’s network pitch, Rod Serling’s audio lectures from Sherwood Oaks College, syndication promos, sponsor billboards, alternate opening and closing narrations, clips from the Emmy® Awards ceremony featuring wins for the series in Writing and Cinematography categories, and more! The 5-disc Blu-ray set has an SRP of $99.98, with pre-book on August 17th.

In The Twilight Zone: Season 1 you’ll see the debut of this seminal anthology which introduced the strange, the terrifying and the inexplicable to 1950’s mainstream America. Esteemed writers such as Emmy®-winner Rod Serling and fantasy/science fiction legends Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont and George Clayton Johnson contributed teleplays that explored that murky nether region between fantasy and reality, between ironic destiny and poetic justice, between “the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.”

The Twilight Zone: Season 1 included such stars as Anne Francis, Burgess Meredith (eventual veteran of numerous TZ episodes), Ida Lupino, Jack Klugman, Richard Conte, Gig Young, Nehemiah Persoff, Sebastian Cabot, Claude Akins, Earl Holliman, Roddy McDowall, Kevin McCarthy, Ed Wynn, Murray Hamilton, Vera Miles and Ron Howard, all featured in classic episodes. Before the season had even finished, it was hailed by the critics, named by Daily Variety as “the best that has ever been accomplished in half-hour filmed television,” a new phrase had entered the pop-culture lexicon and its success and impact is still felt today – fifty-one years after its debut.

Season One Episodes
Where Is Everybody?, One for the Angels, Mr. Denton on Doomsday, The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine, Walking Distance, Escape Clause, The Lonely, Time Enough at Last, Perchance to Dream, Judgment Night, And When the Sky Was Opened, What You Need, The Four of Us Are Dying, Third from the Sun, I Shot an Arrow into the Air, The Hitch-Hiker, The Fever, The Last Flight, The Purple Testament, Elegy, Mirror Image, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, A World of Difference, Long Live Walter Jameson, People Are Alike All Over, Execution, The Big Tall Wish, A Nice Place to Visit, Nightmare as a Child, A Stop at Willoughby, The Chaser, A Passage for Trumpet, Mr. Bevis, The After Hours, The Mighty Casey, A World of His Own

Here are the first two clips, “Rod Serling Twilight Zone Series Sales Pitch PART ONE and PART TWO”:

Special Features All Blu-ray Exclusive!

Extremely rare, never-before-released unofficial “Twilight Zone” pilot, “The Time Element,” written by Rod Serling and hosted by Desi Arnaz – presented in glorious high definition!

19 New Audio Commentaries, featuring “The Twilight Zone” Companion author Marc Scott Zicree, author and film historian Gary Gerani (Fantastic Television), author and music historian Steven C. Smith (A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann), music historians John Morgan and William T. Stromberg, writer/producer David Simkins (Lois & Clark, Dark Angel), writer Mark Fergus (Children of Men, Iron Man), actor William Reynolds and director Ted Post.

Interviews with actors Dana Dillaway, Suzanne Lloyd, Beverly Garland and Ron Masak.

“Tales of Tomorrow” episode “What You Need.”

Vintage audio interview with Director of Photography George T. Clemens.

1977 syndication promos for “A Stop at Willoughby” and “The After Hours.”

18 Radio Dramas

34 Isolated Music Scores featuring the legendary Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith and others!

Also includes:

Audio Commentaries by actors Earl Holliman, Martin Landau, Rod Taylor, Martin Milner, Kevin McCarthy, and CBS executive William Self.

Vintage Audio Recollections with actors Burgess Meredith and Anne Francis, directors Douglas Heyes and Richard L. Bare, producer Buck Houghton and writer Richard Matheson.

Rod Serling Audio Lectures from Sherwood Oaks College.

Rod Serling Promos for “Next Week’s” Show.

Original Unaired Pilot Version of “Where is Everybody?” with Rod Serling’s Network Pitch.

Footage of the Emmy® Award wins for the series.

Here’s the final clip, and it’s a classic: “Time Enough at Last – Breaks Glasses”