Static

It's a interesting subject to discuss and share, all old people are nostalgic with their past time, I realize it with my father who refuses at any means the new technologies and correlated stuffs, thus happens with Ed Lindsay (Dean Jagger) who missed the opportunity to marry Vinnie (Carrie Mathews) in the past, he complains over the TV that replaced the radio, then he brings back a old radio and starting listen an old tunes of Tommy Dorsey from a radio station that actually close thirteen years before, just he hear this songs, when someone else enter in the room the broadcasting disappears catching just a static, however the ending is too moving, stay tuned !!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.25

In "Static", a deeply embittered resident of a peculiar type of retirement home is fed up with the TV-addiction of his fellow residents and dusts off an antique radio that got stored in the basement since many years. Alone in his room, he finds the frequency of a radio channel that seemingly broadcasts directly from the 1940s and instantly gets catapulted back to better and more glorious times. This is certainly not my preferred type of "Twilight Zone" episode, because it's sentimental and talkative instead of sinister and Sci-Fi like, but at the same time I must also acknowledge it's perhaps one of the most ambitious, thought-provoking and intelligent installments of Rod Serling's entire series! How much depth and symbolism can you put into one simple 25-minute story; - seriously? Serling and the genius writer Charles Beaumont evoke a few very depressing but also timeless and universal feelings here: we are ALL sad beings yearning for the nostalgia of lost years and endlessly regretting the non-grabbing of life's opportunities for whatever reason. Anything as simple as an (imaginary?) radio show can tear those old wounds right back open. It doesn't sound like a typic "Twilight Zone" premise, but it's subtly and absorbingly handled by the entire cast and crew of this nifty episode. And, to me, it also illustrates how timeless and immortal this TV-show is. Protagonist Ed Lindsay sees television as the modern demon that trampled his beloved radio, whereas now, more than half a century later, 40-ish dorks like myself curse the internet & social media for oppressing our good old-fashioned television set.

Although there isn't much narrative, and a conclusion that doesn't really satisfy, there's a lot I like about this. Ed Lyndsay (Dean Jagger) is an aging man living in a boarding house who finds 1940's shows on his radio. Ed listens to 'Im Getting Sentimental Over You' played by Tommy Dorsey's band and becomes nostalgic. Yet there seems to be no station actually broadcasting the shows he's hearing and reliving so fondly. He comments on TV turning the minds of the other boarders to mush. Very early on this episode shows TV as a dull medium with its cigarette advertising (as a one Mr Rod Serling used to do along with his announcements for the next week) and so many channels with only rubbish on them (even then!). Radio is shown as a more intimate, inspiring, and imaginative medium through Ed's point of view. Another aging boarder Vinnie (Carmen Matthews) becomes concerned with Ed's 1940's radio obsession, and for very personal, emotional reasons.

The message is to live your life to the full and to find yourself and happiness before its too late. I so love the Zone for the universality and timelessness of its meanings.

Now go and tune in to a TV that shows great early 60's sci-fi and get nostalgic.

This episode of the Twilight Zone rates as one of the best. No monsters, no UFOs etc., etc., just magic.

There is so much truth here that you could fill 2000 words.

Watch it and see.

One of my favourite all time Twilight Zone lines here: (yes I have a shortlist and wonder when the book is coming out; they did it with Scarface -- mark my words) A reference to the brain turning to Oatmeal watching too much Television.

I like the way it touches on many aspects of human nature and how we cope with loneliness -- under the pressure of growing old.

Dean puts in a fine acting performance.

Keep an eye out for a famous cast member from 60s TV series "Bewitched"

I remember my grandparents had one of those big console radios in their living room during the 50s when I was a little kid that is the object of this Twilight Zone story. It would be worth a fortune on today's market providing you could find parts to make it work. I remember it wasn't until the middle 50s that they got television.

The radio age in the USA was from the end of World War I until the end of World War II and it was an age of imagination because you heard the words and visualized the people all in your mind. It was an age that Dean Jagger grew up in and apparently let some chances pass him by back in the day.

So one is at the boardinghouse he stays in now and when others use it all they get is static. But when he uses it he gets things like Major Bowes Amateur Hour and a broadcast of Tommy Dorsey playing his theme I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. As there is a spinster woman played by Carmen Matthews also at the boardinghouse whom he might have married Jagger truly is getting sentimental.

This was a really fine Twilight Zone episode where only in a place like the Twilight Zone do you get a do over in life.