The Value of the Surprise in Television Stories

My favorite television program is one that began airing in 1955 and continued for seven seasons. This was Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This series and Twilight Zone greatly influenced the kinds of stories I like to write. The Hitchcock programs usually had a surprise ending. The authors of these stories skillfully told a tale that wasn't exactly the truth. Viewers were led along a path that placed them into a channel of thinking that was completely destroyed within a few seconds at the end. I was completely enraptured with the construction of this kind of story and patterned mine in the same way.

There are many reasons why authors write stories. They may be to inspire, to teach, to espouse a position, and others. I believe the stories that Hitchcock presented were intended simply to amuse viewers as to how badly they had been deceived. For example, a story may have painted a sympathetic picture of a man or woman only to show at the end that this person was capable of nefarious deeds. Or, the author may have led the viewer into expecting that a certain action was inevitable only to divulge at the end that something entirely different could take place. These endings presented unexpected surprises and provided entertainment for the viewer who didn't mind being deceived.

When one has viewed several of the Hitchcock presentations, he or she may understand that not everything is what it seems and may attempt to guess what will be the nature of the surprise. Nothing is accepted at face value. The viewer may watch a program with the thought, "What is the surprise? Who is the guilty party? What will be the final event?" I believe stories with surprises at the end provide enjoyable experiences for viewers. This is all the more pleasurable if viewers have made good guesses.

Twilight Zone presented stories with the same sort of genre. The main difference was that the subject matter in Twilight Zone often involved the supernatural while Alfred Hitchcock Presents usually depicted real-life situations involving crime, drama, and mystery. Both series of programs are still viewable on computer screens via the internet and YouTube. A good link for the Hitchcock programs is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047708/episodes. This link will bring up the titles of about 273 programs that were presented from 1955 through 1962. If, for some reason, one cannot view a program directly from this link, they can open YouTube and type the title. For example, if the above link won't show The Most Likely to Succeed, they will be able to view it by searching for this title in YouTube. There it is displayed in three parts.