OK, so I am on LOA right now, due to the fact I do not have a voice, so I can not work. While I am waiting, sometimes not so patiently, I decided I should spend this time productively, or as productively as I can, since I don't feel good. I have not had a voice since 8/26, I guess I will blog more about that later, but in the mean time I have been sewing costumes and working on Christmas Calendars for my last 2 grandchildren. While I do that, I am catching up on some of my DVD's that I have. I have the complete Twilight Zone series, so decided to watch that. The whole time I was watching the episodes I kept thinking about how I wanted to share my thoughts, and decided my blog was the best forum for this. First of all, the stories hold up very well, even though the production value is very dated, I think the shows would still give today's generation chills just like they did us. I was surprised
at how many of the most memorable shows were in the first season. The show about the man who loved to read and was the only survivor of the nuclear bomb, and was happy because now he could read as much as he wanted, but at the end he broke his glasses, so now he had no people and no books. Then there was the show about the lady who was shopping and ended up being a mannequin that came to life. I remember being very scared of that show, and never being able to look at mannequins in the same way since. I remember being frightened of these shows when I was growing up, in fact, I was surprised I was able to watch them when I was little, but I definitely did, and definitely remember being scared. And there is that component to the shows, but for the most part they are morality tales. They also had a very pessimistic view of humanity. I guess it was the time, Cold War and all of
that. Even though there was an element of the supernatural, or science fiction, these were just tools to teach us a lesson about the downfall of humanity. I have to say the morality tales are the struggles today's society still have. The value of individuals over conformity, or technology, the difficulty of making the right decision, the bravery of overcoming fear. The shows also have a lot of the commercials and Public Service Announcements of the time. There was a lot of encouragement to worship at your church or synagogue, and support your favorite institution of higher learning. I had forgotten about these "commercials" and wondered why we still don't see them. I then realized that colleges probably don't rely on individual donors anymore, but more on grants from the government. How times have changed. Of course the commercials were all about the cigarettes. Rod Serling has a cigarette in his hand almost
every time you see him. As far as the acting, I have to say, almost everyone later became famous, or were famous at the time, but they all went to the same acting school, the William Shatner School of OverActing. Everyone is SOOOO intense. But again, that was what the stories were about, and again a sign of the times. It was a scary time. Everyone thought at any minute the world would end, either from our own hand by detonating "The Bomb", or at the hands or Martians, due to invade at any time.....There were also stories that lived on. I was SHOCKED, to hear "Are you looking at me???", spoken by a man talking to himself in a mirror in a show in the second season. Not to say that Martin Scorsese directly stole that and put it in Taxi Driver, but there it was, the exact line in almost the same situation. I have highlighted the shows that have stuck with me through the years here.
