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What Would A Twilight Zone Season 6 Have Been Like?

posted 6 years ago by d31d1 (8)
9 replies | jump to latest

I found this link a while back which I thought made for some fun reading and made me think about this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/thenightgallery.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/the-case-of-the-missing-twilight-zone-season/amp/

I think we have some further idea by looking at early Night Gallery too. I’m sure if Twilight Zone came back in the 1960’s it would have been a half hour still (unlike season 4), but CBS might have finally forced Rod to make it in color at some point which is weird to think about.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

I'd say it's almost a guarantee that season 6 would have had one color episode. That year CBS made just about all their shows experiment with it for one episode. There is a Perry Mason episode from that season that's in color. They said on the DVD that if Perry Mason had returned for one more season, it would have had to follow CBS's edict of all shows being in color.

It would have been interesting to see the Twilight Zone have one bizarre color episode. Or maybe something where something strange happens in the episode and only one segment of it is in color.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

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Interesting that you should mention the PM episode that was shot in color. I watched it last night on Me TV! I was in shock. I knew nothing about that one. Not until last night.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

It is the one oddity in that series. It even has a special introduction on the DVD release.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

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LOL! That solves that mystery!
At first, when the opening credits started, and I saw it was in color, I thought that they were possibly playing one of the later TV movies from the 80s thru the 90s. Then I noticed William Hopper's name. Well, as you can imagine, I was completely confused.
Thank goodness for these message boards. People like you keep me informed! Thank you!

[–] doug65oh (205) 6 years ago

With the exception of the later films – which in and of themselves were great because Burr and Hale were together again – Perry Mason at a certain age simply does not look right in color! Nor, for that matter, did Bill Hopper.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

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I agree Doug! They just didn't look right.
I have to wonder if the quality of the color back then had something to do with it. Or? Perhaps things were set up more for black and white film?
TZ probably would have looked horrible in color then.
In any case, I did like the later Perry Mason shows too. They had their own unique charm. The color was right.

[–] doug65oh (205) 6 years ago

Ever seen this, Margo, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfW3Hurm6tg ?? It's not The Twilight Zone of course, but is a pretty good example of what color television technology was capable of producing ca. early 1963. Carl Reiner was considering taking the Van Dyke show to color that early. So they did this test.

Today we may look at it and say, "Why the hell not?" The answer came down to this: Switching to color in 1963 would have cost approximately $7,000 per episode ($225,000 or so for a full season.) Reiner also didn't care for the look, which does in ways resemble what you might get if a Jackson Pollack painting barfed all over your television screen.

Horizontal screen resolutions were somewhere between 480 and 512 lines per inch. ("Don't sit too close to the television" they used to say - because if you did, you just might be able to count every horizontal line!)

The ultimate example of "Oh my God that's just sooooo wrong! Give me the black and white!" has to be these, at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/addams-family-photos_n_4316085.html Nasty, huh?

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

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WOW! That's certainly interesting.......

Nasty? YES!

[–] Tristan_Booth (405) 6 years ago

Or maybe something where something strange happens in the episode and only one segment of it is in color.

Your segment idea is interesting, suggesting that the color would symbolize something--similar to the Wizard of Oz.