moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (09/30/85)
Well, it's back, with someone who sounds somewhat like Mr.
Serling doing intros; and both episodes shown last week were
directed by Wes Craven, who directed the highly-acclaimed
_Nightmare_on_Elm_Street_ this (last?) year. The first story,
"Shatterday", taken from a short story by Harlan Ellison, was
interesting, but not very involving -- something which kept my
attention, but if all the stories were like this one, I'll probably not
make a habit of watching The Twilight Zone. The second episode,
for the first fifteen minutes, struck me as another of those
light-hearted TZ episodes of the past -- a harried housewife finds
an amulet which allows her to live within a second of time, i.e. she
says the magic word "Shutup!" (I love that), and time (and everyone
around her) freezes as time stands still -- except for her, and she
can run around and do things until she wills time to begin again.
Some pretty original things happen during her escapades; and while
some of the early closeups of her frozen family were rather poor
(you can see the kids trying to stand still), later long shots, of an
entire parking lot of people standing still in various positions, is
pretty neat. And them about two-thirds into the show, the "twist"
ending becomes apparent, and believe me, it is a shocker. If you
want to know what it is, write me, but frankly, I'd rather save it
for you in case this thing comes around for repeats. A thinking
person's nightmare is what I would call the last episode, and so I
think I'll check out a few more episodes of the Twilight Zone
before making any decisions.
Glad to see the anthology series is on the way back to television
(to see how healthy it is, take a look at Paul Bartel's description
of his episode of "Amazing Stories" in this month's "American
Film" magazine) -- sounds like TV is finally starting to appeal to a
lot of people who considered TV a place for trash (which it still
is, by majority -- but so is film (_Invasion_U.S.A._ does not look
like quality programming to you, does it?)). Sturgeon's Law lives...
"A vicious firebrand of Law and
Order, his FOAMING WRATH is
MIGHTY!... Yet his heart flows
over with warmth and human
kindness to all the good and
honest people!"
"You're hurt pretty bad, Mister...
have some Wheaties!"
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>