Trevor Writes

In "The Watcher" (1.08, written by Donald S. Sanford, directed by John Brahm, November 1, 1960), a man forces a screaming young woman under water as she fights for her life. They're in a boat, presumably far enough from land, as he holds her under water long enough until she fights no longer. She is dead. The man sits back, studies his bloodied hands, then washes them in the water. His hands remain the focal point of this image. And as the murder weapon, they're an important part of this story. A school teacher by day, he tries to suppress his horrific urges, but Boris Karloff warns us, it's only a matter of time before he strikes again. The killer, Mr. Freitag (Martin Gabel) spends his off-time peering menacingly out of his bedroom window across the street, watching his neighbor, a very 1960 style of handsome young man Larry (Richard Chamberlain), and his girlfriend Beth (Olive Sturgess). Partially cloaked by the drapes of...

In the 1950s, the anthology was king. The dominant genre of the newborn television medium, it allowed viewers to chime in at their whim and catch an entire story in the span of an hour (or an hour and a half in the case of the prestige series Playhouse 90 , which famously presented Rod Serling's Emmy winning "Requiem For a Heavyweight", among other classic dramas). There were genres that dealt in half-hours like westerns and sitcoms; shows like Gunsmoke and I Love Lucy had returning characters people could fall in love with, but every story was episodic, wrapped up within the half-hour. Anthologies thrived because they could be made quickly and easily, and were an easy sell because of their disposal nature. As EC Comics' tales of horror and pulp genre fiction made an impact on news and books stands throughout the '50s, their influence spread to television. Science fiction anthologies arrived early, in Tales of Tomorrow (1951-1953) and Science Fiction Theatre ...