The Twilight Zone: The Complete Definitive Collection

When I was a little kid in the early 1960s, we only had one television, and Mom would never allow me to watch The Twilight Zone. "It'll give you bad dreams!" she insisted. In retrospect, perhaps there simply was some other show in that time slot that Mom preferred. Or perhaps it was she herself who feared having "bad dreams" from Rod Serling's eerie "fantasy/sci-fi" series.

In any case, from the get-go I recognized a captivating program when I saw it, and in subsequent years I was always keen to catch a vintage TZ rerun whenever the opportunity presented.

In more recent decades we've had, of course, Steven Spielberg's 1983 flick Twilight Zone: The Movie and a couple of revived-for-TV TZ series (1985-89 and 2002-03). But none of the latter could recapture the incomparable presence and narration of TZ's creator, the chain-smoking Rod Serling, who, tragically, died at the age of fifty in 1975 (his heart trouble was likely exacerbated by his oral addiction).

I mean, nothing against Forest Whitaker, but he's no Rod Serling. Nor were most of the "modern" TZ series' episodes quite as compellingly scripted or acted as the best of Serling's original, black-and-white series.

Viewing these "1959 to 1964" episodes in the 21st century is, inescapably, not entirely the same experience as viewing them from the perspective of childhood or adolescence decades ago. Many of the episodes remain--virtually--as captivating as ever. Others demand we suspend not only our disbelief but also our sophistication as viewers. And still other episodes simply never were particularly good.

To paraphrase Rod Serling's own (somewhat severe) final assessment of the series, perhaps about one third of the scripts were mediocre and another third were worse than mediocre. But Serling also proudly knew that, at its best, TZ constituted some of the finest television programming then available. Few other shows of that era dared address such verboten issues as "bigotry, racism, prejudice, nuclear war, ethics, witch-hunts,

But what I most especially continue to savor is TZ's uniquely eerie aura that no other "scary" show (not excepting even the original Outer Limits or X Files series) has since managed to surpass. Who can resist getting sucked into even a "mediocre" TZ fantasy after hearing that spooky introductory music and Rod Serling's inimitable narration through clenched teeth?

Format of "The Complete Definitive Collection" DVDs:

As you'd expect with these vintage-TV episodes, the on-screen display is strictly full-screen. The spoken language is English, no subtitles are available, and the display format is NTSC.

Each DVD in the "Definitive Collection" includes not only a chronological succession of original TZ episodes but also some "special features" content, which (as with some of the Season One episodes) may be somewhat limited (more on this below).

The main menu's available selections (primarily TZ-episode titles) are accompanied by a succession of spooky audio/video clips excerpted from various memorable episodes. The number of episodes per disc varies. Discs containing half-hour episodes may have perhaps seven or eight episodes each. But the Season Four discs (that contain one-hour episodes) comprise proportionately fewer episodes.

Regarding the Main Menu, after you select an episode from one of the displayed rows of titles (arranged from top to bottom alongside some nice graphics), the screen changes to a display of (primarily) that episode's "scene-selection" options. Additionally, this display includes: a selectable link to a separate "Special Features" display for that episode; and another link to return to the Main Menu for the current disc.

Like it or not, the Main Menu doesn't include any "play all" option to initiate a "marathon" viewing of all the episodes on the disc. Instead, you must either accept the already highlighted first episode or select one of the other episodes on that disc; and once your selected episode's own "scene-selection" options are subsequently displayed, you must select the (already highlighted) "first scene" in order to start viewing that episode. Once that episode finishes playing, you are returned to its own "scene-selection" display, and you must select "Main Menu" to select a different episode.

"Special Features":

There are more than enough "extras" to keep any diehard TZ freak occupied for a long while. For example, you vicariously get in on the ground floor of Season One by viewing Mike Wallace's 1959 interview of Rod Serling (be prepared for lots of cigarette smoke), not to mention Serling's original, protracted sales pitch to network executives and potential corporate sponsors for the series.

Especially noteworthy is that the final disc of the "Season Five" set is itself a "Special Features" item insofar as it comprises the excellent 1995 ("American Masters") 90-minute documentary Submitted for Your Approval, which is a fascinating biography of TZ creator Rod Serling. Among numerous people interviewed are Serling's wife and daughters; his brother; and Jack Klugman. By the time you finish viewing this documentary, you'll have an enhanced appreciation for Serling's determination to survive early rejections and finally succeed as a television playwright throughout much of the 1950's, not to mention his "outwitting" powerful television executives by using "fantasy" scripts in order to air some of the most contentious issues of that era.

Additionally, the penultimate disc of the "Season Five" set has somewhat more than the usual amount of "Special Features" content (the additional content is accessible from the main menu), including an extended excerpt of a lecture that Rod Serling gave at Sherwood Oaks College in the mid seventies. It's interesting hearing a relatively mature Serling reflecting on the genesis of some of his early scripts (not to mention his casually uttering a four-letter expletive that never would've gotten past sixties-era censors).

Otherwise (with most of the other, preceding discs), Special Features content is generally only accessible via a given episode's own scene-selection menu (not the Main Menu). For many episodes, the number of Special Features content options is minimal. For example, for Episode One, "Where Is Everybody," there are only two Special Features options: "Audio Commentary by Earl Holliman;" or "Isolated Score by Bernard Herrmann." And for Episode Two, "One for the Angels," there is only one Special Features option: "The Twilight Zone Radio Drama, Starring Ed Begley, Jr."

Moreover, a relative few episodes include no Special Features content whatsoever.

Still, for each available Special Features option, you're getting up to a half hour's worth of content, and when you add everything up (remember we're talking about a whopping 156 episodes!), what is included is substantial and impressive contrasted with most other vintage-TV-episode collections on DVD. For example, on balance this set includes a reasonably generous amount of "complete-episode commentary" from many original TZ stars (most of them now speaking from the perspective of their "senior" years).

Some of the original actors and other luminaries providing commentary or interviews are (to name but a few): Earl Holliman, Don Rickles, Leonard Nimoy, Billy Mumy, Jonathan Winters, Donna Douglas, Mickey Rooney, Martin Landau, Cliff Robertson, Rod Taylor, Burgess Meredith, Martin Milner, Kevin McCarthy, Ted Post, and William Self.

Additionally, there's a goodly dose of reasonably lengthy "vintage audio interviews" of various actors, writers, directors or other figures such as Buck Houghton, Richard Matheson, Douglas Heyes, Burgess Meredith and Anne Francis. Although those old (audio-only) interviews are certainly historically interesting and irreplaceable, now and again "host" Mark Scott Zicree's incessant strings of needless "u-huh's" (while I'm trying in vain to focus solely on each interviewee's words) drive me up the proverbial wall! It's unfortunate those noises weren't edited out of the otherwise worthwhile audio interviews. [Note: My foregoing criticism in no way diminishes the praise Mr. Zicree merits for his evidently prodigious contributions involving the accumulation and preservation of sundry TZ lore. In that regard, he has my gratitude!]

In addition to the Special Features content per se, this "Definitive Collection" of TZ episodes includes nearly all of the original end-of-episode comments by Rod Serling, whereby he briefly previews "next week's" episode. At such junctures, Serling occasionally likewise casually endorses the "Chesterfield" cigarette he's smoking. I never quite know whether to chuckle or sigh whenever he does that.

Moreover, just after the conclusion of each episode's end credits, the original CBS "public-service" ad (or programming blurb) and the closing (animated) network logo are included, which adds a delightful touch and makes you imagine you really are in your living room "back in the day," watching an original, live broadcast via that unwieldy old antenna on your rooftop!

Five seasons' worth of episodes:

Thankfully, "The Complete Definitive Collection" organizes all episodes in the order they were originally broadcast. Original broadcast date information is discreetly displayed (vertically at the left margin) adjacent to a given episode's scene-selection menu.

Below are the titles for all 156 original Twilight Zone series' episodes. In some instances I'll also make a few comments.

Season 1 (fall 1959 through spring 1960):

Episode 1: Where is Everybody?
The premier episode involves just the sort of scenario for which Rod Serling could write so masterfully. A confused man finds himself mysteriously alone in a town that appears only recently deserted. One of my favorite scenes occurs when the protagonist belatedly discovers that the woman he espies in a parked truck is actually a mannequin. I can't say that Earl Holliman is one of my all-time favorite actors; however, he does more than a creditable job here. Additionally, his more recently recorded commentary for this episode (activated via a "special features" option) is well worth a listen.

Episode 2: One for the Angels.
Episode 3: Mr. Denton on Doomsday
Episode 4: The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine

Episode 5: Walking Distance.
An executive in his late thirties returns to his boyhood hometown and discovers that, strangely, everything is exactly as it had been decades ago. Soon he encounters his surprisingly youthful parents and even himself as a boy.

Episode 6: Escape Clause
Episode 7: The Lonely

Episode 8: Time Enough at Last.
This famous episode remains one of my favorites. Burgess Meredith portrays a bespectacled, absent-minded bookworm whose overriding desire is to have more time to read. He enters a bank vault and hears a tumultuous roar. After emerging, he discovers he is evidently the only survivor of a nuclear war. Initially, he is despondent, but then he discovers the public library's many books are still very much intact, and he's got "all the time in the world" to do nothing but read to his heart's content. It's his lifelong dream come true! But then....

Episode 9: Perchance to Dream
Episode 10: Judgment Night
Episode 11: And When the Sky was Opened
Episode 12: What You Need
Episode 13: The Four of us are Dying
Episode 14: Third from the Sun
Episode 15: I Shot an Arrow into the Air

Episode 16: The Hitchhiker.
Driving cross-country, an increasingly nervous young lady notices a sinister man at the side of the road. No matter how fast or how far she drives, that same, insistent hitchhiker reappears.

Episode 17: The Fever
Episode 18: The Last Flight
Episode 19: The Purple Testament

Episode 20: Elegy
Three astronauts arrive on a distant asteroid where they discover countless ordinary people in ordinary situations; however, everybody is absolutely motionless, as if frozen in time. Just when the visitors assume they're the only sentient beings on that world, one of the figures suddenly comes to life and speaks.

Episode 21: Mirror Image

Episode 22: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
It only takes a few inexplicable events to provoke a normally peaceful group of neighbors to radically distrust each other. "Pogo" might say, "They have met the enemy, and he is them."

Episode 23: A World Of Difference
Episode 24: Long live Walter Jameson

Episode 25: People Are Alike All Over.
After a spaceship crashes on Mars, Conrad is the lone survivor. But he's encouraged by a group of seemingly friendly, helpful, telepathic humanoids. These people provide Conrad with a fine house. But soon he notices all the doors are locked, and there are no windows.

Episode 26: Execution
Episode 27: The Big Tall Wish
Episode 28: A Nice Place to Visit
Episode 29: Nightmare as a Child

Episode 30: A Stop at Willoughby.
A highly pressured executive rides the same commuter train home every evening to his unsympathetic wife. At the end of his proverbial rope, the man finally escapes via the "final exit"--seemingly to a dreamlike, leisurely existence in an 1890's town named Willoughby.

Episode 31: The Chaser
Episode 32: A Passage for Trumpet

Episode 33: Mr. Bevis.
Initially Bevis thinks himself a consummate failure, but then his guardian angel arranges for him to have all the trappings of the success that has so long eluded him. But his newfound "success" entails an unforeseen price.

Episode 34: The After Hours
Episode 35: The Mighty Casey
Episode 36: A World of His Own

Season Two (fall 1960 through spring 1961):

Episode 37: King Nine Will not Return.

Episode 38: The Man in the Bottle.
A clever genie grants a shop owner four wishes. How could anything go wrong with this scenario?

Episode 39: Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room
Episode 40: A Thing About Machines
Episode 41: The Howling Man

Episode 42: Eye of the Beholder
Donna Douglas (i.e., the lovely "Ellie Mae" of The Beverly Hillbillies) portrays Janet, a young lady whose horribly "abnormal" face makes her an outcast on a strange world. [TRIVIA: Curiously, Donna Douglas (then a Hollywood newcomer) didn't actually speak her character's words. Another actress (Maxine Stuart) handled that.]

Episode 43: Nick of Time
Episode 44: The Lateness of the Hour

Episode 45: The Trouble with Templeton.
A lonely old actor pines for "the good old days" when he, his beautiful young wife, and their trendy young friends were all perfectly happy. Suddenly, he's miraculously able to return to the past and mingle with them all again at their favorite haunts. But he gradually begins to perceive unsettling details that had escaped him all those years ago.

Episode 46: A Most Unusual Camera

Episode 47: Night of the Meek.
This Christmastime episode features Art Carney as a department store Santa who is fired for showing up drunk. But then he discovers a magical bag that that can dispense any gift requested.

Episode 48: Dust
Episode 49: Back There
Episode 50: The Whole Truth
Episode 51: The Invaders
Episode 52: A Penny for Your Thoughts
Episode 53: Twenty Two
Episode 54: The Odyssey of Flight 33
Episode 55: Mr. Dingle, The Strong

Episode 56: Static.
An old man retrieves his antique radio from the basement and soon begins hearing programs from long ago.

Episode 57: The Prime Mover
Episode 58: Long Distance Call

Episode 59: A Hundred Yards Over the Rim.
In the American West of 1847, a settler walks over a hill in search of medicine for his little boy. Beyond the hill he finds himself in the year 1961.

Episode 60: The Rip Van Winkle Caper

Episode 61: The Silence.
A wealthy man offers a talkative young man half a million dollars if he can refrain from speaking for an entire year. The young man accepts the bet, but there are tragically unforeseen consequences.

Episode 62: Shadow Play
Episode 63: The Mind and the Matter
Episode 64: Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up

Episode 65: The Obsolete Man.
Burgess Meredith stars as a librarian who is judged obsolete by a futuristic, totalitarian dictatorship. The punishment for obsolescence is death. But the crafty librarian won't die without enjoying a measure of personal revenge.

Season Three (fall 1961 through spring 1962):

Episode 66: Two.
This episode stars Elizabeth Montgomery and Charles Bronson as the only survivors of a nuclear war waged by their respective nations. Will they be able to overcome their mutual distrust and create a new society?

Episode 67: The Arrival

Episode 68: The Shelter.
After hearing a news report that enemy nuclear warheads are soon to fall, a man locks himself and his family inside their tiny fallout shelter. However, all the neighbors are clamoring to break into that shelter--the only one in the neighborhood.

Episode 69: The Passersby
Episode 70: A Game of Pool
Episode 71: The Mirror
Episode 72: The Grave

Episode 73: It's a Good Life.
Billy Mumy (i.e., "Will Robinson" on the sixties series Lost in Space) portrays a six-year-old boy who is a mutant endowed with virtual omnipotence. He selfishly dominates all the grownups of his mysteriously isolated community, who must always "think good thoughts" lest they be sent to the deadly "cornfield" by the young "monster" in their midst.

Episode 74: Death's Head Revisited

Episode 75: The Midnight Sun.
In the future a young woman collapses from the increasingly excessive heat caused by Earth's catastrophic nearness to the sun. This episode's ending is chillingly ironic.

Episode 76: Still Valley
Episode 77: The Jungle

Episode 78: Once Upon a Time.
A man in the year 1890 is disgusted with all the noise and the high prices of his era, and so he uses a newly invented "time helmet" to travel to the year 1960.

Episode 79: Five Characters in Search of an Exit

Episode 80: A Quality of Mercy.
In WWII an American soldier feels no compassion for the enemy. Suddenly he finds himself transformed into a Japanese soldier in an "enemy" camp, where he must deal with everything from the opposite perspective.

Episode 81: Nothing in the Dark
Episode 82: One More Pallbearer
Episode 83: Dean Mans Shoes

Episode 84: The Hunt.
We see an aging hillbilly and his hound leap into a pond; they do not emerge. Later we see the man and his beloved dog walking along a path until they encounter the keeper of "the gate to Heaven;" however, although the man himself is welcomed, the gatekeeper explains that dogs are not allowed in Heaven. Disgusted, the man declines to enter the gate and continues following the outer path with his dog until they encounter a second gate.

Episode 85: Showdown with Rance Mcgrew
Episode 86: Kick the Can
Episode 87: A piano in the House
Episode 88: The last rights of Jeff Mrytlebank

Episode 89: To Serve Man.
Initially, the Kanamits's arrival on earth seems harmless enough. After all, the nine-foot-tall aliens only want "To Serve Man." Alas, only belatedly do the earthlings discover the full meaning of that phrase.

Episode 90: The Fugitive.
Old Ben, who is more than what he appears, befriends Jenny, a girl who must wear a leg brace. Two aliens who want to take Ben away are pursuing him. But what will become of Jenny?

Episode 91: Little Girl Lost.
A little girl accidentally passed through an invisible portal and, along with the family dog that followed her, is now trapped in the fourth dimension. Will the grownups manage to rescue her (and Fido) before the portal closes forever?

Episode 92: Person or Persons Unknown

Episode 93: The Little People
Episode 94: Four O'Clock
Episode 95: Hocus Pocus and Frisby
Episode 96: The Trade-Ins.
In pursuit of immortality, an elderly couple attempt to purchase new bodies. Unfortunately, they only have enough money for one new body.

Episode 97: The Gift
Episode 98: The Dummy
Episode 99: Young Man's Fancy.

Episode 100: I Sing the Body Electric.
A Ray Bradbury-penned script. Three motherless children adjust to their new "grandmother"--who just happens to be a remarkable robot.

Episode 101: Cavender is Coming.
The redoubtable Carol Burnett guest-stars as an awkward young lady whose hapless guardian angel must rescue her in order to earn his wings. [Not a particularly memorable episode--indeed, scarcely worth mentioning but for Ms. Burnett's presence.]

Episode 102: The Changing of the Guard

Season Four (fall 1962 through spring 1963):

Episode 103: In His Image

Episode 104: The Thirty Fathom Grave.
A World War II submarine emits "intelligent" sounds after having been sunk two decades earlier. What--or who--is the source of those mysterious sounds?

Episode 105: Valley of the Shadow

Episode 106: He's Alive.
A would-be neo-Nazi leader is getting nowhere until he's paid a visit by a mysterious stranger, who appears to be... the Fuehrer?

Episode 107: Mute

Episode 108: Death Ship
Three astronauts land on another planet, where they discover a crashed ship that appears identical to their own. Inside the "alien" ship they discover the dead bodies of... themselves!

Episode 109: Jess Belle
Episode 110: Miniature

Episode 111: Printer's Devil.
A suicidal man is about to leap from a bridge, but a rather ordinary-looking "angel" talks him out of it. But this intervention is by no means divine! Actor Burgess Meredith is consummately wicked in this episode.

Episode 112: No Time Like the Past.
Yet another sci-fi yarn proving that it doesn't pay to mess with the space-time continuum.

Episode 113: The Parallel

Episode 114: I Dream of Genie.
What would you say if a magic genie granted you only ONE wish? That's the protagonist's dilemma. [Note: This genie is nothing like Barbara Eden!]

Episode 115: The New Exhibit.
This tale involves an erstwhile wax-museum caretaker who tends an assortment of his favorite "exhibits" in his own basement, with gruesome results.

Episode 116: Of Late I Think of Cliffordville

Episode 117: The Incredible World of Horace Ford.
A nearly middle-aged "overgrown child" gets to revisit his past and ultimately remembers that all his "good old days" really weren't so precious.

Episode 118: On Thursday We Leave for Home

Episode 119: Passage on the Lady Anne.
This tale involves a young married couple who've booked passage aboard an aging ship whose other passengers are all quite elderly and who initially urge the couple not to accompany them. Shades of the Titanic?

Episode 120: The Bard.
A magically conjured William Shakespeare serves as ghostwriter to a hapless hack who thereby finally finds fame and fortune creating TV-scripts. The Twilight Zone beyond the ensuing year.]

Season Five (fall 1963 through spring 1964):

Episode 121: In Praise of Pip.
Jack Klugman stars as "failed father" who's just received new that his only child, Pip, is dying in South Vietnam. The protagonist then gets a surprise when he encounters Pip as a ten-year-old boy at a carnival.

Episode 122: Steel

Episode 123: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.
This well-known episode stars William Shatner as a nervous man recuperating from a breakdown. His agitation grows anew when, traveling by plane, he espies a "gremlin" vandalizing the wing outside his window. Of course, that's merely his tortured imagination. Or is it?

Episode 124: A Kind of Stopwatch

Episode 125: The Last Night of a Jockey.
Mickey Rooney stars as a former jockey who's hit hard times. Fervently wanting to be "big," he belatedly learns to be careful about what he wishes for.

Episode 126: Living Doll.
The lead character (played by Telly Savalas) finds himself in deadly conflict with his daughter's all-too-chatty doll. [Unlike many TZ fans, I'm not particularly impressed with this supposedly terrifying tale.]

Episode 127: The Old Man in the Cave

Episode 128: Uncle Simon.
To inherit her uncle's wealth, greedy Barbara has tended him and endured his insults for decades. Finally he dies, and she is released from servitude... or is she?

Episode 129: Probe 7, Over and Out.
This "Adam and Eve in outer space" yarn is perhaps a bit too far-fetched and blatantly derivative to seem fully captivating.

Episode 130: The 7th Is Made up of Phantoms

Episode 131: A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain.
Desperately trying to preserve himself and his failing marriage to a much younger, disrespectful woman, an aging man experiments with a youth serum. At first it works, and his superficial young wife is predictably thrilled. But a gigantic irony awaits her.

Episode 132: Ninety years Without Slumbering
Episode 133: Ring a Ding Girl

Episode 134: You Drive.
A distracted man commits a hit-and-run crime. Thereafter, his car "comes alive," unpredictably honking, flashing its lights, and driving itself around town. [I deem this one of the silliest TZ scripts ever. This sort of nonsense is what gave Season Five a bad rep and likely hastened the series' demise.]

Episode 135: The Long Morrow.
This sci-fi/love story's ending has a twist that is surely among the most tragically compelling of the entire series.

Episode 136: The Self-improvement of Salvador Ross

Episode 137: Number 12 Looks Just Like You.
Marilyn is a reasonably attractive 19-year-old in a futuristic society where all citizens are expected to undergo "the transformation" no later than young adulthood. But Marilyn has "subversive" notions and attempts to defy societal expectations. This is one of the most intriguing episodes ever, and its story vaguely incorporates elements from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Episode 138: Black Leather Jackets.
An unusual approach to the oft-used scenario of an insidiously executed conquest of Earth by sinister aliens.

Episode 139: Night Call.
A lonely, elderly lady repeatedly receives frightening phone calls from she knows not whom. Belatedly, she discovers the bittersweet truth about her "unwanted" caller.

Episode 140: From Agnes, With Love.
This is a tale about a computer technician (played by the quintessentially nerdy Wally Cox) who must deal a room-sized computer named Agnes. The latter is in love with him. Here's an episode that truly shows its age. What was probably already seemed over-the-top in the early sixties now seems embarrassingly corny.

Episode 141: Spur of the Moment

Episode 142: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
An adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's well-known short story about a Civil War prisoner about to be hanged, this French-produced film (made in 1962) is the only utterly "independent" film included in the entire TZ series. I found the singing (played during the condemned man's protracted reveries) a bit cloying and, curiously, not at all "French"!

Episode 143: Queen of the Nile

Episode 144: What's in the Box?
The "box" is an uncannily prophetic TV set. This episode is pretty weak but for the diverting presence of the redoubtable William Demarest (i.e., "Uncle Charlie" of the popular sixties sitcom My Three Sons).

Episode 145: The Masks
The dying Mr. Foster insists that his greedy, impatient heirs don grotesque masks befitting their respective inner natures. Little do they realize the legacy each will face.

Episode 146: I Am the Night, Color Me Black

Episode 147: Sounds and Silences.
Roswell G. Flemington is a tiresome blowhard who craves loud noises, until.... [This rather asinine installment is likely one of the shows Rod Serling later had in mind when he reflected that about one third of TZ's episodes were "worse than mediocre."]

Episode 148: Ceasar and Me.
Yet another "sinister dummy" TZ episode! Ventriloquist Jonathan West proves to be the real dummy as the wooden "Ceasar" deviously sets him up. Incidentally, I found the perpetually hovering "nosy little girl" character especially irksome (meaning the child actor did a creditable job).

Episode 149: The Jeopardy Room

Episode 150: Stopover in a Quiet Town.
This is yet another "where is everybody?" scenario. A man and wife awaken in an unfamiliar little town where everything appears deserted, lifeless, and... phony. The only sound they can (occasionally) hear is that of a child giggling. Where are they, and can they ever escape?

Episode 151: The Encounter.
A troubled WWII veteran invites a young Japanese-American played by George Takei (i.e., "Sulu" of Star Trek fame) into his room. It comes out that the erstwhile soldier had unnecessarily "murdered" an unarmed "Jap" before taking his samurai sword, which--fatefully--he now shows to his young visitor.

Episode 152: Mr. Garrity and the Graves.
Garrity is a professional con man who dupes simple townsfolk into believing he can resurrect their dead loved (?) ones--unless they fork over some cash. I found the "surprise ending" to be rather far-fetched even by TZ standards.

Episode 153: The Brain Center at Whipple's.
Mean Mr. Whipple automates his business and "downsizes" all his employees until only he remains. (Or does he?) Here's an example of an episode seeming rather dated even though it deals with a still relevant theme.

Episode 154: Come Wander with Me.
A somewhat silly episode involving a country/rock singer searching for his next hit in an obscure backwoods setting.

Episode 155: The Fear.
A frightened young woman and a state trooper (who spends the night in her home) discover that the "gigantic" alien creature lurking outside her house isn't at all what they'd imagined.

Episode 156: The Bewitchin' Pool.
A young brother and sister discover that their soon-to-divorce parents' swimming pool conceals a portal into a far happier world. [BTW: I find it curious that both children speak with a conspicuous "country" accent while their parents do not.]

Concluding thoughts:

For any TZ aficionado who doesn't already have all the episodes via separate, previously published DVD sets, the Definitive Collection is the only way to go. Not only is there a wealth of special-features content, but the overall look-and-feel of this edition's menus (and associated audiovideo elements) admirably recaptures the eeriness of Rod Serling's original series. I appreciate the painstaking attention that Image Entertainment brought to bear with Twilight Zone: The Complete Definitive Collection.