New Twilight Zone (1985-9) Season 2 & 3 DVDs

WillLon · 07-05-2005, 06:25 PM

Season 2 & 3 of The New Twilight Zone (1985-9) were released on DVD last tuesday 6/28/2005.

Anyone else buy them ?

I did and am just starting the Season 3 episodes.

I did a comparison to see if the DVD episodes "as broadcast" differ from the syndicated versions. I haven't found any website that has details like that, so I threw together a website with detailed notes.

/home.kc.rr.com/wl/index.htm

It's a work in progress. Your feedback is welcome.

Cheers.....

Ric Easton · 07-05-2005, 08:54 PM

I was at Best Buy last Tuesday looking for this. They just gave me a blank look. After some prodding and according to thier computer it's coming out tomorrow. We'll see...

Steven Gebs · 07-05-2005, 09:18 PM

How does season 2 and 3 compare to season 1?

I enjoyed season 1.....will I dig these later seasons?

WillLon · 07-05-2005, 10:27 PM

All in my opinion of course...

Season 1 is the best, particularly under the advisement of Harlan Ellison, until he left.

Season 2 seems a bit "soft" in story content for the most part [not all], though there are still several good stories. I think the producers wanted to pull back from the more intense episodes from Season 1.

Season 3 seems rather blandly executed, though several stories are good, most are at least interesting for 22 mins. Babylon 5 creator JMS is the story editor for this Season and wrote a several episodes himself, if that would sell it to more viewers...

Jeff# · 07-06-2005, 06:48 AM

I haven't purchased the 2nd / 3rd season combo deal of the the 1980s Twlight Zone yet (even though I got the 1st season), but I'm in no hurry: I've seen all of them before when they first aired anyway.

The 2nd season was the same as the first minus Harlan Ellison. The third season might have been produced in 1987-88, but it didn't air until the following year 1988-89, at least on the Philadelphia station I used to watch. The final year was less flashy because of a much lower budget, but as a result it more closely resembled the original series in terms of writing & even as a half hour, character development. And that was a good thing.

J. Michael Strazynski, on the other hand, did produce Babylon 5 a few years later and that was a series I could never get into because I just didn't care about those characters.

**HTF Ads**

todd s · 07-06-2005, 12:22 PM

Got my 10year old daughter into the show. She watches episodes from the 80's version and the original. As long as they are not scary.

Harry-N · 07-06-2005, 05:20 PM

I looked for this on release day, last Tuesday. My local Borders stores were reporting the store inventory as "order", so being a Suncoast/Sam Goody Replay member, I headed for a local Sam Goody. They didn't have it, so I looked upstairs in the same mall in the FYE store. They had it, but wanted full list of $69.99, so I passed.

Over the weekend, I was surprised to now find it in the local Borders, and had a 25%-off coupon to boot, so I bought it.

I remember the second season as being less intense than the first, and there aren't as many episodes as the series was bounced around on the schedule and preempted often. I'm happy to hear the original Charles Aidman narrations restored on the DVD set.

Season 3 was the syndicted one to extend the series long enough to be profitable for syndication. Jeff#, my recollections on that third season are that they ran immediately after the show left CBS, running in Philadelphia on Channel 17. As I recall, they usually aired on Saturday or Sunday evenings at around 6, 6:30 or so and at the half-hour length.

Kevin M · 07-06-2005, 06:22 PM

Yeah, wasn't season 3 on USA or something like that? I saw a few but wasn't impressed.....in fact I was very disappointed when they lacklustered one of my favorite Sci-Fi short stories of all time The Cold Equations...how could you screw up a solid gold classic Sci-Fi story like that? ...well they did.

Dave Jessup · 07-06-2005, 07:03 PM

I went looking for both the Zone boxes June 28th; Best Buy's in-house system indicated July 5th was the release date - but their website (correctly) stated June 28th. In regards this thread's subject, it was moot; they had no copies. (They did get my bucks for the vintage Definitive 3rd Season; salesman was kind enough to bring up a copy.)

I enjoyed these seasons when broadcast, look forward to watching them again. I've had the chance to run "Cat And Mouse" for my wife; she was delighted with the kicker, I think you all will enjoy that too.

I'd forgotten that Theodore Sturgeon had only recently passed away when David Gerrold's adaptation of his "Saucer of Loneliness" aired.

There was a year or so gap before the syndicated season aired. A note I have tucked into my tape of the last few CBS shows/first few syndicated shows indicates "The Curious Case Of Edgar Witherspoon" aired in my area 9-24-1988. It did, I guess, take some time not only for production of the 30 new shows but for the slicing, dicing, and audio-stripping of the first two years' shows.