Due on Blu: The Twilight Zone – Season One

Digitally remastered collector’s editions of the original Twilight Zone series have just been released here on DVD – two months ahead of the first season entering the Blu-ray dimension.

The Rod Serling classic has been around the block several times on DVD, but this is the first time the digitally remastered seasons have been available separately.

They were released first as a box set a year ago but the opposite strategy’s being adopted for the Blu-rays, which will come out a season at a time — starting mid-December, when the first will be a JB Hi-Fi exclusive.

You might wonder about the worth of paying a premium price for a 50-year-old black-and-white TV series.

But US reviewers have been ecstatic about the HD spruce-up.

“Image Entertainment has gone back to The Twilight Zone’s original camera negatives to make 1080p/AVC-encoded transfers—framed in the original TV 1.33:1 aspect ratio—that are sharp, surprisingly clean, and completely free of unnecessary tampering or tinkering,” Blu-ray.com reports.

“In a word: beautiful.”

Concurred Hi-Def Digest: “You’ll be able to see right off the bat that you’re getting an astounding visual upgrade. Absolutely astounding.”

The Digital Bits gave the transfer an ‘A’ rating and the extras an ‘A+’: “Image’s new high-def upgrade delivers truly stunning quality, packs in nearly all of the already comprehensive Definitive Edition DVD extras… AND adds a plethora of new content as well.”

The audio is restored 2.0 uncompressed PCM mono and the new extras include interviews, commentaries and isolated scores.