User Reviews

"Static" is a homage to radio and comments on missed opportunities and second chances. Having to cope with damned videotape which limits what they can do within the fantasy realm so often crucial for Twilight Zone's power, those involved in the making of this episode also suffered from bad audio. When actor Dean Jagger would speak under his breath, lamenting angrily about the boob tube's commercials hawking products to those in his rooming house who were watching intently, you could barely hear what he was saying. I hated the efforts of those who put up the budget for forcing Rod Serling and company into using video because of monetary means; no matter how quality the writing, every episode suffers from the cheap look and sound of these episodes burdened by the process. Despite limitations, "Static" has a lot to say, about the downside to televisions, the yearning for years gone by, having to address mistakes in the past, and through the Twilight Zone, allowing characters to "go back and correct" errors in judgment that caused twenty years of lost love/happiness. An old curmudgeon, clinging to the past (one of the females in his rooming house he was to marry twenty years ago), sickens of those in the building's attachment to the television, finding an ancient relic of a radio still in decent shape in the basement. He begins to hear tunes and broadcasts from the radio (those singing are dead), but others in the same house never do. Ed Lindsay (Dean Jagger, expertly cast) tries to get others in the house, such as former flame, Vinnie (Carmen Mathews, showing the signs of aching fondness for a man who simply cannot return the favor) and friend, pipe-smoking, Professor Ackerman (Robert Emhardt) to hear the same things across the radio as he does, but the station which plays them went out of business some 14 or so years ago. So all of them in the rooming house believe he is imagining the broadcasts much to Ed's dismay. A change in behavior, a joy that has been missing, an extra skip in his step, and smile in his face, prompts those among him to question Ed's mental state. Vinnie believes his regret is the root cause of the broadcasts, concocted in Ed's mind, in a way forcing him to admit his failure in accepting love. In not marrying Vinnie, he has removed the happiness that could have been and no longer exists…his pining for yesteryear is given birth to the radio broadcasts and because this is the Twilight Zone, he might just get an opportunity to right the wrongs he caused. That was the beauty of this show, because the Twilight Zone didn't have to become rooted in complete realism, there were no limits on where characters could go and what they could overcome. "Static" is such an example. Not creepy or dark, this episode is more in relation to "Walking Distance" where you can go back in time and perhaps Ed has a chance to change things in his life for the better. The past has a way of opening doors once closed.

So many of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone episodes dealt with a nostalgia for the past that you could almost call it an obsession. In "Static", the main character Ed Lindsay (Dean Jagger) finds that he can connect with his youth by turning on an old radio to relive an era gone by as if it were still around. There's a point where the show almost becomes depressingly sad when Ed is confronted by his former sweetheart Vinnie (Carmen Matthews). Though not bitter, she accurately recognizes that twenty years had gone by that could have been spent building a life together. "I never throw anything away that's worth keeping" is Ed's angry response when he learns that his radio has been turned over to a junk dealer. Yet it didn't occur to him that he might have thrown away something even more valuable in terms of a fulfilling relationship with the woman he once loved. The story segues to a flashback (or is it the present?) in which a youthful couple enjoy dancing the night away while listening to the big bands and crooners of the 1940's. It's the kind of ending that the Twilight Zone used effectively every now and then that didn't rely on a supernatural element or a twist of irony to make it's point. Second chances don't come with preconditions, and often enough, they're there for the taking.

This is more a story about loneliness and what we humans do to each other. It's a story of what if and why didn't I? Time often takes away the spark and this happens here. The old radio is at the center of all this. Dean Jagger's character is fed up with the modern world and its shallowness, but he also has lost the potential joy he once had. There is a wonderful scene where he lies back and listens to some old comedy from the thirties on the magical radio. He laughs in a touching, natural way. He has regained some of his youth. The problem is that we don't get to live back there; or do we? My question is: Is what happens at the end in his imagination, or has he actually been transported? We'll never know. Is it a happy ending? I don't know.

The return to an innocent past is one of Rod Serling's fantasies -- or obsessions, if you will. Here, the desire is embodied in Dean Jagger, a resident in a boarding house of mostly old people, who have become bitter with the years.

Jagger begins to hear old programs from the past, broadcast by stations that no longer exist. The radio is an old, chest-level console -- the kind that families used to huddle around to listen to "music live from the Abalone Ballroom" and "Inner Sanctum" and so on. The set reverts to static whenever someone else tries to listen to it. Old-fashioned radio was for the 1930s and 1940s what television was to become for later generations. Nobody missed "Amos 'n Andy." In the end, Jagger's fantasy, involving a long-ago romance with a fellow boarder, comes true, as it would not in real life.

In its own inimitable way, it's a complete success. I can understand Serling's desire for the innocence of his childhood. He was raised in Binghamton, New York, one of those small towns in which everyone knew everyone else and they all went to the Fourth of July parade and fireworks.

I don't know if it could be understood well by anyone growing up with the tube though. I'm not sure they could IMAGINE a world without the tube.

In "Static" an old man with a penchant for the past finds an antique radio that airs radio programs from his youth, causing him to reminisce about the good old days.

I kind of hate TZ episodes like this, where the plot centers around someone's nostalgia for the past. I find this type of escapism to be the most irksome. This episode benefits from the fact that the main character's reasoning for delving into the past is that of lost love and not of lost youth. But this being shot on videotape makes it look completely awful. The script is also pretty slow moving. Very forgettable...

How people can sit and watch television without watching something specific that interests them is beyond me. Though Static's rather pointless, as he can hear it and they can only hear static, being the twilight zone. Lacking a punchline.

It's a memorable happy ending episode. Not many TZ episodes end happily. In reality, Dean Jagger is being sent back to just prior to WW2 (1940) so maybe this episode is not all that happy? I am saddened that CBS would make kinescope TV episodes in the 60's, a method that goes back to the early 50's, and it shows. Night Of The Meek is another episode made this way and as a result, it took it away from being a perennial TV classic. I was struck by the TV western scene were everyone is almost hypnotized to the TV and thought of today's society with it's smart phones and how even at family gatherings everyone is looking down at their phones and not talking to each other! Everyone that is except me, I was living overseas when smart phones took over so I'm the odd person out with the smart phones. I own one now but I use it mostly as a phone, not a computer. I could identify with Jagger's character at least in that way. BTW, it's funny that a TV show would do a tribute to radio since it was still a competing format with some TV shows still being made for radio like Have Gun Will Travel (another CBS property and one that Roddenberry work on a lot). I guess that by 1961 adults had all given up on radio except for the kids? I find that hard to believe since you can still listen to old time radio, at least where I live, with stations like Jones College radio but I do like Dean Jagger as an actor and I like radio a lot and it's a cool happy ending so I'm rating this one a 7 out of 10.

This is one of the few episodes of "The Twlight Zone" that was filmed using the kinescope process. It gives the show a grainier look but also appears more like live TV--and it's because this process IS filmed live.

The show is set in a rooming house filled with older people. One of them is an old curmudgeon (Dean Jagger) and he grumbles about how they all sit around all the time watching TV. Instead, he decides to dig his old 1935 radio out of storage and try listening to that instead. Oddly, however, what comes out of the radio is NOT from 1961 but old stuff from bygone days--because it IS 1935 as far as the radio is concerned. Everyone thinks he's crazy when he tells them about the old shows and he looks crazy when every time someone else tries to listen to the radio, all they hear is static. What follows is incredibly sentimental and a bit sweet--but also not very Twilight Zoney! In other words, there is no menace or bizarre twist--at least not THAT bizarre at the end. Good acting but not an especially great show.

A low-key episode that disappoints both the "social message" hipster crowd and the cheap-thrills love-me-some-overacting demographic. No politics here and certainly no action here, none whatsoever.

This is one of several Season 2 episodes shot entirely on video as opposed to film. While this approach may have hurt most of these video episodes, it seems to suit the peculiar mood and slow pace of this particular story. It feels like one of those older British TV plays except that it's shorter and with American accents. Like theater, but in a good sense, not in the overacting, annoying sense.

The choice of music i.e. "Getting Sentimental Over You" was as key to this episode as its romantic premise and the very good cast. In fact, this is where I first heard this song. Where else would I hear it? On MTV? In a Tarantino movie?

It seems possible that in the early 1960s, young writer Woody Allen saw this episode of "The Twilight Zone" which years later inspired him to write his 1987 classic "Radio Days". starring Dean Jagger and Carmen Matthews and featuring an ensemble cast of character actors Including (Alice Pearce), this is a story of a man locked in time, unaware of that new contraption call the television and stuck to the special radio station where he can go back and listen to the great artists of the past including Tommy Dorsey. Jagger was once engaged to Matthews, a devoted to an ailing mother, he broke off that engagement and the decades flew by. He now lives in her boarding house and spend every waking moment listening to the radio in memory of times gone by. But when the radio is all of a sudden taken and given to an antique dealer, Jagger is furious and when he brings the radio back we get to see what he is feeling when he turns on the mysterious channel that apparently doesn't even exist anymore.

Mixing in popular tunes from over a decade before, this mix of romance and nostalgia is a delight and something quite unique in the series that has maintained a cult following over the past 60 years. It is probably a lesser-known episode because it is simple and sweet and to the point, and a tribute to those of us who prefer the more innocent entertainments then the new things coming along. Jagger as always has excellent, and Matthews, best known for her stage roles, is very good as well. They both get to show various sides of their aging, embittered characters and a twist at the end shows what they once were. This is one that really deserves to be revisited by those who only saw it once to really be appreciated.

Cranky old bachelor Ed Lindsay (a marvelously cantankerous portrayal by Dean Jagger) gets magically transported back to happier times from two decades ago by an ancient radio that only plays songs and programs from the early 1940's.

Director Buzz Kulik relates the absorbing story at a steady pace and ably crafts a movingly bittersweet tone. Charles Beaumont's thoughtful script delivers a poignant message on the perils of getting too caught up on regretting your past mistakes as well as the need and desire for second chances. Jagger nails the loneliness and vulnerability lurking just underneath Ed's crusty shell. Moreover, there are fine supporting contributions from Ed's concerned old flame Vinnie, Robert Emhardt as the friendly Professor Ackerman, and Arch Johnson as the gruff Roscoe Bragg. A touching show.

Here we have an old guy who is annoyed by people around him watching TV. I thought that it took place at a nursing home, but apparently it was just an apartment or something. He finds an old radio that plays old songs. We all know what it's like to remember old technology. I'm only 29 and I remember using so much obsolete stuff. The fact that this holds up from 1961 is all the more impressive.

It features this woman who remembers how she proposed to him. Everyone else just hears static when only he can hear the music. The radio ends up being a time machine! He and the woman become their younger selves again. I admit it's kind of sweet, but the ending is pretty weird. It just comes out of nowhere. ***