Saturday, November 21, 2009

TV Rebels: Rod Serling - Submitted For Your Approval

It's time another edition of TV Rebels. We originally had special permission to publish the first 6 essays on TV shows and actors that will be featured in the upcoming book TV Rebels: 100 People and Programs That Shaped the Medium by authors Lou Orfanella and Oscar De Los Santos...and then last year we got rights to 6 additional essays (for a total of 12!), so including today's essay, only two essays are left. We soon will give you the last one, which is TV Dinners. The book is in the works and will be released in 2010...so stay tuned for that and look for a review of the book right here before it comes out!

So without further adieu, we bring you the eleventh essay of TV Rebels:

Rod Serling: Submitted For Your Approval
by Lou Orfanella

In the early years of television, science fiction, terror, and horror all graced the small screen with various degrees of success. Boris Karloff's Thriller ran for two seasons in the early '60s. Science Fiction Theater was seen in syndication in the mid-1950s. Local stations around the country programmed A and B list horror movies with low budget wrap-arounds and creepy hosts, notably John Zacherley in Philadelphia and later in New York.

When the Rod Serling hosted Twilight Zone premiered on CBS in October of 1959 the science fiction anthology genre reached a new level. The Twilight Zone was a unique combination of terror, suspense, mystery, and irony that raised the sci-fi television bar to a new intellectual level. This likely surprised no one familiar with Serling's work. He was a well respected writer who had success in radio and with scripts for television anthology series like Playhouse 90 for which he wrote "Requiem for a Heavyweight," arguably his most famous piece. The scripts, many written by Serling, were often ironic slices of life and its often dark side and resonated in viewers' minds long after the final credits rolled. "Most of Serling's comrades had long since left television for other less censorious and more 'artistic' media, but Serling refused to abandon video: he believed in television. And-unquestionable-Serling liked the limelight" (Sander xix).

The combination of Serling's skills as a writer coupled with his desire to be in front of the camera is likely what helped The Twilight Zone achieve legendary status. His on camera introductions to each episode, delivered in a dry monotone, became as popular as the teleplays themselves. The content of the stories often shed light on cultural ills and human frailties. In "Escape Clause" a man granted immortality in exchange for his soul decides to challenge the death penalty only to be sentenced to life in prison instead. Aliens arrive on earth "To Serve Man" according to one of their books translated by earthlings, yet it turns out to be a cook book. In yet another of the series' most enduring episodes, "Time Enough at Last" the lone survivor of a nuclear attack believes he will finally achieve his dream of having ample time to read all he wants, only to break his glasses. Serling would return from the shadows at the end of each episode to offer a comment on mankind and society.

The Twilight Zone ran until 1964 with both the title and theme song becoming an indelible part of popular culture. To be "in The Twilight Zone" came to mean in a strange or inexplicable situation, and all one needs to do is vocalize a few notes of the show's spooky theme music to indicate danger on the horizon. Rod Serling, long a proponent of intelligent, literate television never replicated the success he had with The Twilight Zone. He returned as host and frequent writer of Night Gallery on NBC from 1970-1973 but audiences did not embrace it as they had his earlier program. The Twilight Zone was revived in the years after Serling's death (at age fifty in 1975) first on CBS, then in first run syndication and later on the UPN network, but never to the same popularity as the original.

When all is said and done, Rod Serling was The Twilight Zone. "As Stephen King wrote in Danse Macabre, a collection of his meditations on horror that was excerpted in TV Guide in 1982, The Twilight Zone 'generated a kind of existential weirdness that no other series has been able to match'" (Lasswell 150). Eulogized in TV Guide in 1975 Serling was called, "an angry crusader, pleading the cause of quality television...he was a charming man-involved, concerned, restless-and he made a great contribution to television. We are all in his debt" (Harris 231).

Works Cited
Harris, Jay S. TV Guide: The First 25 Years. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978.
Lasswell, Mark. TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television. New York: Crown, 2002.
Sander, Gordon. Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. New York: Plume, 1994.


Sitcoms Airing Tonight / Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows

Saturday, June 14

Mind Your Business - "The Golden Gears" (Bounce TV, 8:00PM ET/PT)
Alfonso and Kim get caught up with a multi-level marketing scheme; Lucille becomes a lovesick teenager while dating a man in a motorcycle club.

Complete TV Listings


Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows (Week of June 9)

Friday, June 13

  • David Spade (Rules of Engagement/8 Simple Rules/Just Shoot Me!) - Watch David on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
  • Dakota Johnson (Ben and Kate) - Dakota is a guest on a repeat of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at 11:35pm on NBC.
  • Natasha Lyonne (Russian Doll) - Natasha appears on a repeat of Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC.
  • Whoopi Goldberg (Whoopi/Bagdad Cafe) - Whoopi is a guest on CBS Mornings sometime between 7-9am.
  • Jon Hamm (Grimsburg/Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) - Jon stops by the studio to talk Your Friends & Neighbors on Live with Kelly and Mark, so check your local listings.
  • Sebastian Maniscalco (Bookie) - NBC's Today catches up with Sebastian sometime between 7-9am.
  • Joel McHale (Animal Control/The Great Indoors/Community) - Joel talks about The 1% Club on NBC's Today in the 10am hour.
  • Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm/Broad City/Baby Boom) - Drew is chatting with best friend duo Joy Behar and Susie on a repeat of The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
  • Morris Chestnut (Out All Night) - Drew is chatting with Morris about starring in Watson on a repeat of The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
  • Luke Kirby (Étoile) - Luke talks about Prime's Étoile on a repeat of Access Daily with Mario & Kit, so check your local listings.


New on DVD and Blu-ray

The Wayans Bros. - The Complete Series Frasier (2023) - Season Two Abbott Elementary - The Complete Third Season The Drew Carey Show - The Complete Series* (missing 4 episodes and some music has been replaced or altered) Bewitched - The Complete Series - 60th Anniversary Special Edition (Blu-ray)

01/28 - Wait Till Your Father Gets Home - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
02/04 - The Wayans Bros. - The Complete Series
03/11 - Frasier (2023) - Season Two
04/01 - Abbott Elementary - The Complete Third Season
05/13 - The Drew Carey Show - The Complete Series* (missing 4 episodes and some music has been replaced or altered)
06/06 - Shoresy - Season 2
06/17 - Looney Tunes - Collector's Vault - Volume 1 (Blu-ray)
07/08 - Bewitched - The Complete Series - 60th Anniversary Special Edition (Blu-ray)

More Recent and Upcoming TV DVD and Blu-ray Releases / TV Shows on DVD, Blu-ray and Prime Video / DVD Reviews Archive


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