The New Twilight Zone (from the 80s) beats them both.
Eh…some of the plotlines and retooling of the scripts were better, but even accouting for the poor videotape transfer the cinematography and narration were terrible. The series did have the same knack of picking up soon-to-be popular actors like Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, and Joan Allen as the original series though.
Stranger
This. They were different genres told in similar formats. I really can’t pick one series over the other, because I like both SF/fantasy and mystery.
I was an early teen when TZ originally aired. No matter what we were doing, we’d all be home and in front of the TV when the program started. We knew nothing of reruns, and thought we’d never get to see them again. I still get that feeling of anticipation when I catch one on TV . . . for that reason I’ll never buy the DVDs.
I never got that feeling with the Hitchcock series. Even when first seeing this thread, I thought it was weird to compare the two.
Sigh…another example of cherry picking.
I grew up in the 70s and watched a lot of late night TV and both of these shows were syndication staples (and completely new to me, having not been old enough to have seen them in prime time). I watched TZ religiously but never watched AHP and I think the reasons why were:
[ol]
[li]TZ consistently had scifi stories[/li]and
[li]Because of Hitchcock’s intros I thought AHP was always going to be tongue-in-cheek comedy[/li][/ol]
Both shows featured introductions by their creators but while Hitchcock’s intros were always the same style, his deadpan, dry British wit, Serling’s intros gave you an idea of the tone of each individual episode, whether it be light-hearted comedy, serious social satire, science fiction, mystery, horror etc. I’ve since watched some AHP and now know that his show was equally varied (and often quite good), but as a kid I thought it was always going to be old-time corny 50s TV comedy.
I guess I prefer Twilight Zone over Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I like the supernatural twists.
I like AHP, but sometimes I think the intros are the best part of the show.
I love them both, but for personal tastes and influence, I’ll give it to the Twilight Zone.
I liked them both equally (and even Night Gallery, although they have lots of clunkers).
The thing that would make AH better would be to take off the part at the end where AH says “and the bad guy got caught and punished”, which was part of the TV code of the era. I bet AH (the man) hated ruining the stories by having to say “evil doesn’t pay”, because that’s exactly what many of his TV shows (and movies) really say.
I like both shows. I agree with Stranger on a Train that “The Twilight Zone” had a greater variance of quality, but also seems to have had a much greater cultural impact.
I think AHP has held up better over time. A lot of Twilight Zone comes off as corny nowadays, at least for me.