The Ray Bradbury Theater (1985-1986; 1988-1992)

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I'm a big fan of Ray Bradbury's short stories/novellas & have also enjoyed the filmed adaptations based on his work (notably The Martian Chronicles mini-series, Something Wicked this Way Comes, etc.). So, last year I was surprised when I recently found out about the anthology TV series The Ray Bradbury Theater - this ran on HBO from '85-'86, and the USA Network from '88 - '92. I was never even aware of this show when it was originally out, never having had cable back in the day.

Nostalgia probably has a lot to do with my enjoying the show so much. I.e., I am an '80's kid, and do remember similar anthology shows like the '80's Twilight Zone, Tales from the Darkside, Amazing Stories, etc.

So, a while back I started watching the show on the 5-disk DVD set. I am extremely impressed by the quality of the show itself, but the DVD's themselves are utter garbage. Not at all impressed by the presentation here - extremely sub-par:

- These episodes all have extremely poor PQ, a lot of which probably has to do with them cramming a lot of episodes on each disk. In Disk 1, they include 14 episodes, all of which are 25-30 minutes each. I'm sure if there were fewer episodes per disk the quality may have been at least a little better.
-No subtitles.
-No chapter breaks.

The show itself:

Excellent sci-fi/horror/suspense anthology show. Due to being a cable series, the show seems to have a bigger budget/production values than similar TV shows - and, has some familiar faces - i.e., Jeff Goldblum, Bill Shatner, Michael Ironside, a young Drew Barrymore, etc. Some of my favorite episodes (so far) have included:

The Crowd - creepy & disturbing
Marionettes, Inc.
The Town Where no one Got off
The Man Upstairs - great "modern" vampire tale set in one of my favorite cities, Paris.
Gotcha! - funny, bizarre, and creepy
The Woman who Screamed
The Coffin - great episode, with a fitting ending.
The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl
The Playground

My only issue with the series is the intro./opening, which simply shows Bradbury himself going into an office filled with fantastic knick-knacks/toys, and starting to type a story. Fairly boring & self-indulgent introduction, and I feel this could have been a lot more original. But, this doesn't mar my enjoyment of the show - and, that's what the fast-forward button is for - LOL.

Also, note that the shows aren't nearly as good as Bradbury's stories - but, are still decent adaptations.

So, the show would really benefit from a Blu release with cleaned-up PQ, etc.

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To add to my last post, some other notable episodes/adaptations from TRBT:

-Touched with Fire: Two pseudo-"insurance salesmen" (though, not really) are going around & gauging the likely-hood of irritating people getting killed, and then warning them about it. They focus on a shrill, ill-tempered woman (Eileen Brennan) who they're sure will die due to her eventually ticking of the wrong person. Added to all this is that it takes place during an extremely hot summer, which makes everyone more bad-tempered than usual.

This is a re-make of an episode of the original b&w Twilight Zone.

-Usher II: One of my favorite stories from the "Martian Chronicles" original book. This story focuses on a wealthy man (Patrick Macnee) who builds a huge house on Mars that recreates many of the stories & characters from literature, with a strong focus on stories by Edgar Allen Poe. When the "powers that be" find out about this, they want to burn the place down because it's "indecent", but not before the owner invites them over for a farewell party. Very disturbing & clever, especially the way androids & Poe's "The Pit & the Pendulum" and "The Cask of Amontillado" were seamlessly woven into the story.

-The Long Years
-Mars is Heaven

These above adaptations were also included in the superb 1980 TV mini-series The Martian Chronicles

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