The Big Tall Wish (Ep 27)
Has been boxer Bolie Jackson is on his last fighting legs. No one believes he has it in him any more, except for a young boy who idolises him. Going in to the ring with four busted knuckles, things are looking grimmer than ever. But Bolie hasn’t counted on the wishes of the young boy. A big tall wish for Bolie to win the bout when it looks like he’s beat. But Bolies a grown man, and magic doesn’t happen is this day and age. Not to him. There’s no second chances in life. No miracles. No sir.

Showdown with Rance McGrew (Ep 85)
Rance McGrew is a television show cowboy (or as Serling calls him in his introduction, “..a 3,000 buck a week phoney-baloney). He’s also a primadonna, a bad actor and hopeless with a gun. When his latest show is supposed to feature Jesse James shooting him in the back, the Cowboy Gods intervene and plant McGrew in the real old west to teach him a lesson courtesy of the bona-fide Jesse James.

A Piano in the House (Ep 87)
Theatre critic Fitzgerald Fortune is a nasty piece of work. He’s a rude, arrogant and spiteful man with nary a nice thing to say to anyone. For his wife’s birthday he buys her a player piano. You know, the ones that play themselves? Yes, those ones. But this isn’t just any old player piano. Oh no. No, no, noooo. This one is special. It’s been hand made in the Twilight Zone from the finest woods available to humanity and tuned to perfection. Go ahead, pick a tune, any tune, and give it a whirl. For when guests arrive and the music begins, you’ll soon discover the person you keep hidden deep from your family and friends, deep, deep down inside.

Night Call (Ep 139)
In the middle of a dark and stormy night, as the rain falls, and the lightning crashes, an old woman in bed is awoken from her slumber by the ringing of her phone. Picking up the receiver she is disturbed when there doesn’t appear to be anyone on the other end. What she is unaware of, is that this call is to be just the first of many, many more such calls, each one more mysterious and disturbing than the last. Watch this episode late at night, when the lights are out and there’s a storm blowing outside, for the best result. I swear, if I ever receive a phone call like the old bag in this show, I’ll freak right the f**k out.

Generally the same old same old, which is a good thing here. A bit of aliasing here and there, mostly affecting the Showdown with Rance McGrew episode. There’s some movement blurring the image a bit in the Big Tall Wish, but it’s minimal and just noticeable at worst. The fullframe black and white picture is relatively detailed for the age and factoring it’s a 40 year old television show, you can forgive the occasionally over dense blacks.

The mono audio is a bit hissy in the first episodes, and most episodes suffer from a bit of sibilance, but it’s nothing too worrisome. Dialogue is always clear, with the sibilance being the only real hiccup and variable with the shows. So all up, this dvd is generally on par with the preceding volumes of this set, though not quite up with the best so far.

The extra features on the dvd consist of a selection of text based screens. They contain a Rod Serling Biography, Season By Season Commentary, History Of The Twilight Zone and Reviews of the individual episodes on the disc. Sure, it’s not a comprehensive package, but there’s some good (but brief) reading, and the reviews are quite interesting.

Though not up with the best of the transfers the series has seen so far, though nothing to really complain about (I’m just being picky today) the stories are all very good quality and pack a few good moments in total with the theme “Their Just Desserts…� well realised. Standouts in overall quality are The Big Tall Wish and the creepy Night Call.