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Volume 21 of The Twilight Zone DVD collection is a real keeper, beginning with "Mirror Image," a classic first-season episode starring Vera Miles as a woman whose sense of reality is shattered when she encounters her exact double in a bus station. Her fear of being "replaced" reaches a fever pitch, despite the efforts of a fellow passenger (Martin Milner) to calm her frenzied nerves. As the woman is taken away for psychiatric examination, her terror turns out to be entirely justified--emphasizing paranoia as one of Rod Serling's favored themes. The second-season entry "Dust" is pale by comparison--a lethargic tale of magic in the Old West that redeems a man about to be hanged for drunkenly running over a little girl with his wagon. He's saved from the noose by a bit of "magic dust," but the true pardon has come, of course, from the Twilight Zone. "Five Characters in Search of an Exit," scripted by Serling, is a third-season highlight in which the titular characters--clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and army major--are trapped in a giant cylinder, with no understanding of how they got there. The truth provides the kind of O. Henry twist that was Serling's specialty, and the performances by William Windom and Murray Matheson (as the belligerent major and carefree clown, respectively) offer a delightful study in dramatic contrast. Finally, "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" is a casualty from TZ's fifth season--a badly rewritten story (originally scripted by acclaimed series contributor George Clayton Johnson) starring veteran screen comedian Ed Wynn as an old man who's convinced he will die if his treasured grandfather clock ceases to tick. Robbed of its dramatic impact by a soft ending that compromises Clayton's original idea, the episode remains entertaining on the strength of Wynn's endearing performance. --Jeff Shannon
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