Twilight Zone Companion (42 page)

Serling also must have chuckled when, during the 1962 California gubernatorial primaries, Governor Pat Brown said he was looking forward to the post-election TV logs reading, Richard Nixon Returns to Twilight Zone.

In the spring of 1962, The Twilight Zone was late in finding a sponsor for its fourth season. As a result, CBS programmed a new show, Fair Exchange, into its time slot for the fall. Suddenly and without prior warning, The Twilight Zone was off the air. Serlings agent frantically attempted to work out some kind of deal with CBS so that the series could remain on television.Meanwhile, Buck Houghton found himself without a job. At the same time, he received a very attractive offer from Four Star Productions. During the last year at least and maybe before that, he recalls, there were people that wanted me to work for them, and they were constantly saying, You cant tie your career to Rods kite. Pretty soon youll only be known as the producer of Rod Serling material, and I said, No, I produced a lot of material before I ever met Rod. But there were pressures to pull me away from there, and I knew that those pressures arose from the excellence of Twilight Zone, which in turn depended on Rod. So I thought, The hell with that, Ill stick with him. And indeed I did, right up until it came to a position of fish or cut bait where I was really faced with the prospect of within a month turning down the Four Star deal and then having Twilight Zone not renewed, and losing both wasnt a choice I could conscientiously face myself with. He accepted the position with Four Star.

Eventually, CBS decided to renew The Twilight Zone, but in a different format. Eighteen episodes of the series were ordered, each an hour in length, to begin airing in January, 1963, as a mid-season replacement. At the recommendation of Serling and Houghton, CBS hired producer Herbert Hirschman to supervise these shows.

With the close of the third season, The Twilight Zone was losing more than just a producer. Together, Rod Serling and Buck Houghton had made the series what it was. They had given it an energy and an excitement unparalleled in series television. The two had complemented each other perfectly: Serling a cornucopia of ideas, characters, and stories; Houghton the master craftsman who lent concrete reality to Serlings fancies. They were a winning team. But in 1962, Houghton wasnt the only one who was leaving. Serling was leaving, too.

After CBS dropped The Twilight Zone, Serling accepted a teaching post at Antioch College, effective September, 1962, through January, 1963. The series renewal made no change in this decision. Serling was tired of The Twilight Zone and burned out. Over the next two seasons, his involvement in the show would be greatly decreased. He would still host the show and contribute his share of scripts, but his input on the details of production would be minimal. Those decisions would be made by others.

Serlings reasons for going to Antioch pretty well illustrate his state of mind at the time. I have three reasons, he said. First is extreme fatigue. Secondly, Im desperate for a change of scene, and third is a chance to exhale, with the opportunity for picking up a little knowledge instead of trying to spew it out. … At the moment, my perspective is shot. I think that is evident at times in the lack of quality in some of the Twilight Zone scripts. And frankly, Id like to be able to do my best work all the time. Who wouldnt? For that matter, Antioch is liable to drop my option, too. Ive never taught before. If that happens, and if CBS doesnt go ahead with the hour show, I may just go fishing the rest of my life.

Speaking of the early days of the show, Serling once said, I think we had a very special quality on our show due to the personnel who worked on it. That makes the difference all the time. We used to finish up at two in the morning, have a beer in a place across the street and discuss the work. Everyone was interested, in other words. In the years to come, there would be no more two a.m beers with the crew.

Sensibilities other than those which had created The Twilight Zone would shape the series during its final two seasons, and this change would be apparent in the episodes produced. A number of memorable shows would be made, but none with the same innovation and freshness as those produced by Houghton and Serling in the first three years. Good or bad, after the spring of 1962, The Twilight Zone was a different show

.THE FOURTH SEASON: 1963

ROD SERLING

Several ironies attended the rebirth of The Twilight Zone in January of 1963. The first was that it replaced Fair Exchange, the same series that had replaced it back in the fall (not to mention the aptness of title; this mid-season switch was indeed a fair exchange). The second was that with its return the series featured a new name: Twilight Zone (sans The). Though CBS didnt know it, changing the shows name was particularly appropriate: with its new producer and expanded length, this series bore little relation to its predecessor.

During its first three seasons, The Twilight Zone had established a structure perfectly suited to its half-hour length. The ideal Twilight Zone notes Richard Matheson, started with a really smashing idea that hit you right in the first few seconds, then you played that out, and you had a little flip at the end; that was the structure. In order for the payoff to be satisfactory the material preceding it had to move quickly and directly; the more time it took to get to the payoff, the bigger the payoff had to be. The hour length could not possibly sustain this structure. As Buck Houghton put it, People will go along with an old gag. You say, Hey, Ive got this fellow who can walk through walls. Okay, what else you got? By the time the fortieth minute comes along, you gotta be walking on water to keep an audience.

Clearly, the new producer had a job ahead of him.

Herbert Hirschman was a man up to the task. Like Buck Houghton, he had worked his way up in the business and knew his job inside out. Earning an M.F.A. in directing and producing at Yale Drama School, he landed a job first as a script reader at RKO, then as a stage manager on Broadway, and then moved into live television. After serving for five years as producer-director of The Web, a half-hour anthology show, he went on to direct episodes of Studio One and alternately work as story editor, director and associate producer on Playhouse 90. Film shows followed; he produced the third season of Perry Mason, the Hong Kong series, starring Rod

Taylor, andfinallyDr. Kildare, casting Richard Chamberlain and setting the tone of the show. And then came Twilight Zone.

Luckily for Hirschman, production manager Ralph W. Nelson and director of photography George T. Clemens were staying put, allowing the show to maintain some sense of continuity. Clemens found Hirschman a man to his liking. Hirschman and I got along great, he says. He didnt try to change anything. He didnt come in with his own fixed ideas. He said, What youve been doing in the past has certainly worked. Im going to keep it that way. Clemens also found Hirschmans experience as a director a welcome asset. Whenever it came to a point where we had to make retakes or something, he wouldnt bring the director back, hed come down and direct it himself, which was great for us because then we werent dependent on one person.

The shooting schedule that greeted Hirschman on the hour shows was quite different from the half hours. Says George Clemens, It was six days. There was a day of rehearsal and a day of set pickups. So I would work eight days and then I would have four days with the weekend off.

Since the shooting of episodes was scheduled back to back, and since preparation was needed prior to each episodes shooting, Clemens couldnt possibly be director of photography on all episodes. At his recommendation, Hirschman hired Robert W. Pittack (who had substituted for him on Person or Persons Unknown) to alternate with him as director of photography every other episode.

As for scripts, when Hirschman entered the scene he had to start from scratchalmost. There was only one script that actually had been prepared, he relates. CBS gave me a script to read which fit into our format in a way. It was a story of a lot of scientists of the United States government vying with Russia to invent an anti-gravity device. It was a fascinating script by a very prominent screenwriter and it had been written as a pilot. The reason we finally didnt do it was that it was going to be so expensive to do, because of the various devices that had to be created when the government built this instrument, so that it could lift itself off the ground. It just got to be too cumbersome and expensive.

Meanwhile, Serling was off at Antioch, teaching Mass Media and Writing in Dramatic Form to undergraduates. But this was not turning out to be the vacation from writing he had intended. He was busy at work on the screenplay adaptation of Seven Days in May. In addition, Serling was turning out a number of Twilight Zone scripts. He would mail me his scripts, says Hirschman, and I would send him the other scripts that he himself hadnt written. Then wed discuss his comments and notes on the phone.

Serling was busy, and his full attention was not on Twilight Zone. We had a few fights, Hirschman admits. Rod was a tremendously talented writer and very, very facile. He was so much better than the average television writer that even half as good as he was capable of writing was better than most. I think it became easy for him. And our fights consisted of me saying, Rod, I think you can do better than this. The scripts were pretty good by television standards, I just thought he was capable of better work, and he had to be flogged and kicked in the ass, frankly, and argued with to bestir him to improve on what was already pretty good. So any arguments we had were basically in those categories where hed send me a script which, if it came from somebody else, Id have been thrilled with, but I knew he was capable of better things.

Serlings presence in Yellow Springs also complicated his role as host-narrator on the show. Whenever he had to fly in to L.A. on other business, Hirschman made sure Rod came in to the studio and got in front of the cameras. That was part of our day off, George Clemens recalls. Wed get Serling out here and do as many as we could, three or four at a time. Wed do things before the picture was made and hope that the things that he spoke about would come to pass in the picture. Hirschman directed all of these openings, which were filmed with Serling standing in front of a gray background.

Hirschman recalls yet another uncredited contribution to the show. I did, for good or bad, create the main title. You know, the clock ticking and the mannequin. I wanted to find some things that were interesting. I created that and I directed it. I supervised the making of the props and I came up with the notion of the things floating through the void. Rod wrote the narration and that sparked in me the symbols that I wanted to use.

Hirschman was determined that the hour shows have a fighting chance. He bought high-quality scripts from Matheson, Beaumont, Reginald Rose and Earl Hamner, Jr., and recruited Twilight Zone alumni directors Buzz Kulik, Don Medford, John Brahm and Abner Biberman. Production got under way at a brisk pace, as this passage in a letter from Hirschman to Serling, dated September 19, 1962, indicates: We are very busy here today shooting scenes with Hitler on one stage, a spaceship on another, and a leopard on a third.

The new Twilight Zone debuted January 3, 1963. Serling was less than ecstatic about the scheduling. The Thursday nine oclock slot will eliminate a sizeable young audience that we had in the Friday night berth, he wrote the network, adding philosophically, but Im sure one cant expect everything.

Others on the show had even greater misgivings. After about the fourth or fifth episode, recalls George Clemens, I said, Itll die very quick. I didnt think that the story material we had would carry for an hour.

But, as everyone realized, in the end that determination would have to be made by the audience.

IN HIS IMAGE (1/3/63)

Written by Charles Beaumont

Producer: Herbert Hirschman

Director: Perry Lafferty

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast: Alan Talbot/Walter Ryder, Jr.:George Grizzard Jessica Connelly: Gail Kobe Old Woman:Katherine Squire Man: Wallace Rooney Girl: Sherry Granato Sheriff: James Seay Driver: George Petrie Hotel Clerk: Jamie Forster Double for Grizzard:George Grizzard Joseph Sargent

What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isnt its the beginning. Although Alan Talbot doesnt know it, he is about to enter a strange new world, too incredible to be real, too real to be a dream. Its called the Twilight Zone.

Leaving his New York City hotel at 4:30 a.m., Alan Talbot enters a subway station. The only person there is an old woman, a religious fanatic who presses a pamphlet into his hands. Hearing odd electronic sounds in his mind, he pleads with the woman to leave him alone, but when she wont he throws her in the path of a speeding subway train. Niney minutes later, he arrives at the apartment of his fiancee, Jessica Connelly whom hes known for only four dayswith no memory of the murder. Together, they start the long drive to Coeurville, Alans home town, to meet his Aunt Mildred. During the drive, Alan dozes off, mumbles something about Walter and, strangely, upon awakening, tells Jessica he knows no one of that name. Reaching Coeurville, Alan begins Jessicas tour and is met with a number of nasty surprises: there are buildings which he has never seen before which seemingly have been erected in the week hes been gone; his key doesnt fit the lock on Aunt Mildreds house, and the stranger who answers the door claims hes never heard of any such person; the university

he works at is now an empty field; people he remembers seeing a week before have been dead for years; and in the graveyard, the tombstones marking his parents graves are gone, replaced by those of a Walter Ryder and his wife. Jessica doesnt know what to make of this, but she loves Alan and intends to stick by him. But driving back to New York, Alan hears the odd noises and is filled with a murderous rage. He orders Jessica to stop, leaps from the car and demands she drive on. She obeysunaware of Alan as he runs behind the car, insanely brandishing a large rock. Suddenly, another car rounds a bend and strikes him, putting a large gash in his arm. He looks down and sees, not blood, but lights, wires and transistors revealed just beneath his skin! Alan quickly covers the injury with a cloth, then has the driver drop him off at his hotel room. Looking in a phone book, he finds a listing for a Walter Ryder, Jr. He goes to the address and, disconcertingly, his key does fit this door. He steps inside and comes face to face with … Walter, a shy and lonely man who is his exact double! Walter explains that Alan is a robot that he created eight days ago. Although he left Coeurville twenty years earlier, he used his hazy recollections of the place to give Alan a fictitious past. His intention was to create an artificial man in his own image but with none of the defects. However, Alan is flawed: a week ago, he attacked Walter with a pair of scissors, then fled. Hes insane, and he cant be fixed. Desperate, Alan tells Walter of Jessica and insists despite Walters protests that its not possiblethat Walter make another Alan, a perfect one, for Jessica. He fishes the crumpled pamphlet out of his pocket and jots down her address, but the sight of the pamphlet triggers another fit; murderously, he attacks Walter. Later, answering a knock at her door, Jessica is relieved to see Alan, who reassures her that everything is going to be fine. Fortunately for her, this isnt really Alanits Walter. Alan is back in Walters lab, deactivated for good.