Rod Serling at 100
Original Airdates: Nov. 22-25, 2024
TVC 668.4: Ed welcomes back Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, director, and author Joseph Dougherty (thirtysomething, Pretty Little Liars, A Screenwriters Companion: Instruction, Opinion, Encouragement). Calendar year 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery). To mark the occasion, Joe’s latest book, Rod Serling at 100, takes a deep dive into the legacy of the Emmy Award-winning writer/producer, with a particular focus on Serling as a writer, and what Serling’s body of work continues to mean to Joe personally. Rod Serling at 100 is available from Fayetteville Mafia Press. Topics this segment include how Serling was among the first writers that got the general public to take science fiction seriously, and why The Twilight Zone is timeless because human emotions are timeless.
Why The Twilight Zone is Literature in Every Sense of the Word
Original Airdates: Nov. 22-25, 2024
TVC 668.5: Joseph Dougherty, author of Rod Serling at 100, talks to Ed about how The Twilight Zone operates on an ethical and moral universe (for the most part); why The Twilight Zone is particularly appealing to anyone who loves language; and why Joe believes that most of the hour-long Twilight Zone episodes are far better than most people remember. Rod Serling at 100 is available from Fayetteville Mafia Press.
Why Rod Serling’s The Loner is a “work in progress”
Original Airdates: Nov. 22-25, 2024
TVC 668.6: Joseph Dougherty, author of Rod Serling at 100, talks to Ed about “Dust,” “Mr. Denton on Doomsday,” “Mr. Garrity and the Graves,” and other Western-themed episodes of The Twilight Zone, and how Rod Serling’s disenchantment with the television industry can be traced to the failure of The Loner (CBS, 1965-1966), the existentialist Western starring Lloyd Bridges that, though set in post-Civil War America circa 1865, really served as Serling’s commentary for the divided nature of America in 1965. Rod Serling at 100 is available from Fayetteville Mafia Press.
Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, and director Joseph Dougherty, author of The First Cylinder, A Screenwriter’s Companion, and Rod Serling at 100: One Writer’s Acknowledgment
Rod Serling, Mike Wallace, and Dick Cavett
Original Airdates: Dec. 6-9, 2024
TVC 669.1: Part 2 of a conversation that began on our last program with Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, director, and author Joseph Dougherty (thirtysomething, Pretty Little Liars, The First Cylinder, A Screenwriters Companion: Instruction, Opinion, Encouragement). Joe’s latest book, Rod Serling at 100: One Writer’s Acknowledgment, takes a deep dive into the legacy of the Emmy Award-winning writer/producer, with a particular focus on Serling as a writer, and what Serling’s body of work continues to mean to Joe personally. Topics this segment include Serling’s apparent affection for Julius Moomer, the effervescent yet talentless television writer who served as Serling’s protagonist in the famous Twilight Zone episode “The Bard” (and who had previously appeared as a minor character in Serling’s live television drama The Velvet Alley); the similarities in structure between the Twilight Zone episode “Nervous Man in a Four-Dollar Man” and “Last Night of the Jockey”; and the contentious television interviews that Serling gave to Mike Wallace and Dick Cavett in 1959 and 1972, respectively. Rod Serling at 100 is available from Fayetteville Mafia Press.
William Windom as salesman Randy Lane, the protagonist in “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar,” the episode of Night Gallery that many consider to be among Rod Serling’s finest efforts
Rod Serling and the Night Gallery Conundrum
Original Airdates: Dec. 6-9, 2024
TVC 669.2: Joseph Dougherty, author of Rod Serling at 100, talks to Ed about “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar,” the first-season episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery that is widely considered to be among the very best pieces of writing that Serling ever did, and why Joe believes the episode itself “exists somewhere in a space between The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.” Rod Serling at 100 is available from Fayetteville Mafia Press.
Rod Serling: An Author of Television
Original Airdates: Dec. 6-9, 2024
TVC 669.3: Joseph Dougherty, author of Rod Serling at 100, talks about the opportunity he once had to adapt Rod Serling’s live television drama The Velvet Alley into a film, and how surprised he was to learn just how sparsely Serling wrote when Joe studied Serling’s script for “The Purple Testament” for style purposes as part of the Velvet Alley project. Also in this segment: Ed asks Joe about his experiencing working with acclaimed actor David Strathairn when Stathairn starred in Joe’s stage play Chester Bailey. Rod Serling at 100 is available from Fayetteville Mafia Press.
