The new "Twilight Zone" is an anthology series that shone briefly on American television from 1985 to 1987 on CBS. It was not a knockoff of the original Rod Serling creation, and he had nothing to do with it; Rod had been dead for ten years and wonderful though he was even Serling couldn't write from beyond the grave. By taking the same name it would always be compared with Rod's original series, but it stood on its own (at least the first and second season) as a landmark of imagination and quality in the swamp of mid-80's TV, expertly helmed by experienced producers and crafted by writers of considerable talent and merit.

The series followed the hour-long anthology format loosely over that first year. They had either two or three episodes within the time slot. What was different about this series was that it brought excellent short stories from major writers to the small screen virtually intact, something that had not been attempted on network TV since Serling's other creation, "Night Gallery," went off the air in 1973. Like "Night Gallery" on NBC, the "New Twilight Zone" would ultimately be dumped by CBS, and not because either of them were unpopular. They were canceled because they were so imaginative and so innovative that the dunderheads who ran (and still run) both NBC and CBS, who have no imagination and couldn't be innovative if they tried, failed to recognize that they had a unique and utterly original masterwork right in their own pocket.

The first New Twilight Zone episode aired September 26, 1985, an hour show with two half hour segments. The initial half-hour episode shown was "Shatterday," starring Bruce Willis; he plays a man who takes over his own life from his worst half. It was written by Harlan Ellison, who was also a part of the production staff on the series during the first year. Ellison resigned after the network broke it's promise to him over the "Nackles" affair; this is an interesting story, and I will recap it on the website at some point.

Seen today, "Shatterday" is noteworthy because Bruce Willis is in it; it was just before "Moonlighting" began it's first official season, and he was virtually unknown. The commentary on the new NTZ DVD set confirms that Willis was a new face to TV. Compared to the Willis of today he seems rather small and thin. The story has a schizophrenic feel, which is intentional considering that it's about a man who seems to have split into two different people. It's also the better of the two stories that fill this hour and an extremely effective little teleplay. Ellison's work has not been accorded the respect it deserves, and I consider him one of the pre-eminent writers of the past 40 years.

The second segment of the hour was called "A Little Peace and Quiet," written by James Crocker, who is a very nice man and a wonderful writer; I've apologized to him in-person for my trashing of this episode. It starred Melinda Dillon as a harassed housewife with a clueless husband and a bevy of obnoxious kids. One day while gardening she finds an amulet buried deep in the ground, and she soon discovers that it has magical qualities. It will freeze everything around her, and I do mean everything. She can finally get some peace and quiet when the kids are yelling or pollsters ring the doorbell. But she ultimately has to choose between eternal loneliness or planetary chaos.

If the show were to stand or fall on this first installment, I'm afraid it might have failed. The stories were good and well-acted, particularly the Willis episode, but nothing outright spectacular. Fortunately for us, the people creating the show had better things in mind and from this beginning it would go on to become one of the few series that people can still remember. I don't care for "A Little Peace and Quiet," but I get numerous emails every week from people who don't remember much about the series but do remember "Peace and Quiet" nearly word for word, and especially the end shot. I much prefer "Shatterday," but I don't think I have ever received an email from someone about that episode (because of this statement, I have since received an email from a "Shatterday" fan, but only one - UPDATES - I've received about 200 hundred emails from people who remember the episode very well :-)). It is this "memorability" that sets the series apart and aligns it with the original Twilight Zone.

"Her Pilgrim Soul," a teleplay that was written for the show, and then turned into a nearly novella-length story, by Alan Brennert, another superior writer whose work has not had the respect it deserves, was the finest hour for this series and pretty much for the rest of TV history. It is one of the best things ever done for a TV series; it competes with Truman Capote's sentimental and satisfying "A Christmas Memory" and Night Gallery's magnificent "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" for first place as the best program ever produced for television. "Her Pilgrim Soul" was a shining moment of superior entertainment on a medium that is often far too commonplace. There were many, many other fine segments in the New Twilight Zone's first and second year, and this website will pay homage to them all.

Alan Brennert's new book will be out in a paperback edition soon!

(Click on the cover to read about it)

See the Moloka'i page for book signings and rave reviews!

The New Twilight Zone was canceled in the middle of the second season; CBS executives couldn't see the magic in it and were more concerned with money than entertaining the public (some things never change). I personally sent in 10 or 20 letters to CBS, called them several times, did everything but dance on their desks to get them to renew the series, but in the end it was all in vain. I have heard from thousands of other fans out there that did the same. It makes me wonder exactly what or who the Nielsens use to measure a show's popularity and why the networks listen to them; they certainly aren't using an actual cross-section of the American public, and their results are seriously, tragically flawed.

CBS threw out the original production team that had been so concerned with quality, and brought in a cut-rate group (led by J. Michael Stracynski, who created the colorless, bilious and boring "Babylon 5)" which churned out some 30 1/2 hour episodes for the third season; the only reason CBS did this was to have enough episodes to sell the series into syndication. It certainly wasn't done with entertaining the public in mind, since the vast majority of the third season is truly awful stuff, and I don't consider it part of the New Twilight Zone series. I'll be including pictures and stories from it only if I can stand watching them long enough to do this, which is not stretching the truth.

The one lone episode of the third season that had real merit was "The Cold Equations," which is no surprise since Alan Brennert adapted the teleplay; it was meant for the second season, but when the show was canceled it was put off till the new production company was formed. Several of the third season episodes were not truly horrible, but they were virtually all written and produced on the level of a sub-par "Tales from the Darkside " episode. I'm not putting down "Tales from the Darkside;" it could be a decent show, but when it was bad, it was extremely, potently bad, and as the third season of NTZ wore on it resembled TftD at it's worst.

The production was so different from the first two seasons on CBS that these episodes stick out like a sore thumb. They really had no business being associated with the NTZ, because they have such an alien feel to them. They were shot in Toronto and in looks remind me of "Friday the 13th" episodes, with which they have quite a bit more in common than the NTZ. Some of the "Friday the 13th" episodes were excellent, too, in part because they were so different from TV here in the US, but they were all similar and had the same feel. But to so change the look and scope of NTZ, a TV series filmed for two years in the US, doomed the third season to be looked at in a different way no matter what they wrote for it. Unfortunately, the third season writers (led by, once again, J. Michael Stracynski) seldom rose beyond a floor-level mediocrity; better writing could have at least made the third season more tolerable.

They also fired Charles Aidman as narrator; official spin was that he was "unavailable" for the third season, but this is ridiculous; see the paragraph directly below as to why this is an outrageous lie. His voice had made the first two seasons so memorable and provided a valuable link with Rod's original series, and I'm sure they would have had to pay him more than the unknown voice that took his place. They brought in Robin Ward to do the narrating, whose voice is pleasant but hardly something you recall, and as I sit here typing this I can't bring to mind what it sounds like. You can't say the same about Charles Aidman's voice. Just one of the many "attention to detail" points the original production team did for the viewers.

For the syndicated version, they relooped Aidman's wonderful narration with Ward's, which absolutely shows that they were not interested in quality, but saving money. They would no longer have to pay Aidman residual's by doing this, and I'm sure his rate was higher than the unknown Mr. Ward. This was recently confirmed thanks to Harlan Ellison's wonderful commentary on "Paladin of the Lost Hour" on the NTZ first season DVD set. This is also why the bastardized syndication versions should be avoided at all costs. Get out there and buy the new DVD sets that Image has released, so you'll never have to watch those syndie versions again!

I'll be posting pictures, sound bytes (eventually) and story synopsis to the site. Feel free to join in the New Twilight Zone discussion list at Yahoo Groups.

Most of all I want this site to bring to life again an excellent series that never should have been canceled.