The Twilight Zone - 'The 5th Dimension: Limited Ed. Gift Set' Combines '59 and '85 Shows on DVD

I would be surprised if that were the case. There's all kinds of legal stuff involved with ownership that I suspect would stop them from throwing them out. What they could do (which was done with the Seinfeld negatives) is that they conformed everything down to just the shots that were actually used in the finished shows, and then threw all the scraps out. Very little was saved except the released material, which figures since they shoot more than 20 times as much stuff than winds up in the final show. If they save under an hour of footage, and throw away 20 hours of material, that saves a lot of space... and they're never going to use the scraps.

What I'm curious about is that I know they did a blooper reel every years for Seinfeld, but those have never been legitimately released to my knowledge. Did they save those? We don't know.

I can think of some interesting 1985 Twilight Zone material that never saw the light of day, including one scene I worked on where a medieval knight/stuntman got hit in the face with a sword. I think they cut the whole thing out of the show because the producers were so freaked out about it. My favorite 1985 episode I worked on was the one about the guy who went back in time to see John F. Kennedy assassinated, and wound up saving his life. Very interesting show, but marred by bad casting (last-minute replacement due to actor problems).

 

GREAT EPISODE! from March 7. 1986
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734727/?ref_=ttep_ep20

 

*bump*

 

From the 1985 episodes, my favorite would be this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Card_(The_New_Twilight_Zone)

 

yes, that was excellent! took her, her family and even the house! LOL!

 

That's one of my favorite episodes too, although another one I like just as much is "The Once And Future King":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Once_and_Future_King_(The_Twilight_Zone)

 

yes! both superb.

 

I just started watching the original series (via this giant new box set), and I was disappointed to see that the episodes have been windowboxed. Were they presented this way on the previous DVD sets? It's really annoying, not to mention totally unnecessary for a show that was shot full-frame.

 

You need to check your player and/or tv settings. It was not re-scanned into widescreen.

 

I tried adjusting all the settings but nothing worked.... the episodes are still showing up windowboxed. Even the DVD menus appear in widescreen.
This is very weird... I watch TV shows on DVD all the time, and I've never encountered this problem before.

Strangely, out of the 8 episodes I've watched so far, one of them (Episode #5: "Walking Distance") was in full-frame format, but all the rest have been windowboxed so far. Why that one episode would show up correctly, but none of the others, is beyond me.


EDIT: I saw this quote in a review on Amazon; does this have something to do with the problem?

Only two other things I would say as a caution, is that be aware that ... 1) Although the original series has clearly been remastered (very nicely! It looks fantastic!) - the 80's series has clearly not had the same attention bestowed upon it. I know the technical reasons for this, not being HD, from reading other reviews (and I suggest you do the same) - but it would have been nice if SOME kind of attention had been paid to these great episodes, as well as the originals. 2) Be aware that the original series is now presented ANAMORPHIC. (!) What does this mean..? Well, I'm kind of surprised this has been mastered this way to be honest, since the 80's series here is still presented full screen (the way it was made - as was the original series!). It means that if you have a modern new widescreen display - and I'm sure most folks reading this will - you likely won't notice any issues, in fact you'll likely benefit from the 'extra resolution'. But. If you still have an old school CRT TV (or any similar aspect ratio display device) then you're kind of screwed, to be honest, with these discs, since you'll have to view them in anamorphic mode - and you'll be wasting screen real estate - ultimately having a black border around the image - so it won't fill your screen as it should. Again, this is only an issue if you have an older TV or 4:3 aspect ratio display. But if you do, it's kind of infuriating as to why this was done just for the original series and not the 80's series (which will still fill a traditional 4:3 CRT screen correctly). Well... C'est La Vie. Otherwise, a truly awesome box set and highly recommended.

 

Episode #13 ("The Four of Us Are Dying") is presented full-frame as well.

 

It has everything to do with your problem. That is your answer.

 

I thought so..... is there anything I can do about it, though?

 

No, as the reviewer said, you're screwed.
.

 

Arrghhh...

 

Are you watching them on a CRT tv? That's the problem.

 

The NEW TWILIGHT ZONE was narrated by Charles Aidman for the first two seasons that ran on CBS. For the third (budget) season that ran in syndication, Robin Ward did the narration. These narrations weren't always present at the start and ends of episodes. Sometimes just an end, sometimes just a beginning. The "Wordplay" episode only has an ending narration.

Now, just to make things complex, when CBS set about syndicating the three seasons for reruns, they edited things down to half-hours. Longer segments from the first two "hour" years were pared down to fit into a 22-minute show. Short segments were combined to build the times up to that 22-minutes. And they got Robin Ward, the third season narrator to redo all of the narrations for the episodes of the first two seasons, effectively tossing out the Charles Aidman narrations for that run.

You are remembering Burgess Meredith doing the narrations for TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.

Harry

 

that is truly a bummer!

that is truly a bummer!

 

The answer to the original series may have to do with the fact that this set may be a down-rezzed version from the Blu-ray set. With Blu-ray, all images are 16:9, so the side black bars are "burned-in", so to speak. When down-rezzing to a DVD, the result was a windowbox on a 4:3 TV. This is not unlike many COZI shows where they send out a 16:9 picture of 4:3 shows with black bars on the sides that most affiliates put inside a 4:3 frame, resulting in a postage-stamp in the middle of 16:9 screens.

Harry

 

happy I have my Definitive Edition DVD Sets.

 

Isn't this whole thing a non-issue if you're watching on a TV made in like the last 10+ years??

 

yes, but ppl still have tubes...

 

I've watched 35 episodes of this set, and while the majority of them have been windowboxed, I've counted 4 so far that were shown full-frame.
Very odd.

 

Anyone who still only has a tube TV yet spends $200+ on this Twilight Zone set has very strange priorities.

 

whatever works for them