The Loner: The Complete Series

Worth the money

good series new dvd's

For all his concern, Rod Serling will be remembered forever. I never heard of this series when it aired, and I'm so glad I found it now. I was blown away how powerful a lot of these episodes were - especially in the turbulent 60s. Sadly, the racism and misogyny is still with us 60 years later. I have the utmost respect for Mr. Serling, and thank him for holding a mirror up to the America we were, we are, and we could be. The longer five star reviews here say as well as I could how incredible this show is.

Just about anyone who is a fan or at least knows of Rod Serling is familiar with his two well known TV shows. The "Twilight Zone" which ran from 1959 to 1964 and "Night Gallery" from 1969 to 1973. I recently discovered there was actually a third series created by Serling that aired during the 1965-66 season. And to make it more interesting it was a Western titled "The Loner". It would not go on to acheive the kind of critical acclaim that "Twilight Zone" did or even to a lesser degree that "Night Gallery" would. And while "Zone" and "Gallery" lasted 5 and 3 years on air "The Loner" would ride off into the sunset after just one season. Even so while "Loner" may not have been in the same league as Serling's two anthology series it was still a unique and good show for its genre.In a nutshell Lloyd Bridges (of "Sea Hunt" fame) starred as William Colton, aka The Loner. Colton had fought in the Civil War and when the war ended headed westward looking for some peace and calmness. Alone the way he meets and interacts with people during his travels. Some are strangers. Some he knew from before the war and some he had met during the war. But in each episode Colton is always moving on getting jobs here and there to make a little money for the provisions he needs while he is searching for that peace. In some ways this was your typical kind of tv western but in other ways it different at the same time.Of course not only did he create the show but Serling would also write the majority of the scripts as sell. There were 26 episodes total. Serling wrote somewhere around 15 to 16 of them. Like the typical tv westerns you have shootouts and showdowns and the occasional barroom brawl. The difference was the violence shown wasn't glorified. Whenever Colton used either his guns or fists it was always as the last resort with regret afterwards that he had to use them. The dialog and storylines in the series was certainly deeper and intriguing thanks to Serlings writing. And the episodes could deals with subject matters not always approached in the usual tv western. Racism and bigotry. The treatment of Native-Americans. Even looking at how the Civil War effected the country after the war had ended. It looked at serious issues that most tv programs would not tackle western or otherwise. But of course if you were Rod Serling, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, television writers of all time you had the freedom to approach such issues. And while it might seem strange that Serling would have developed a Western tv series it was not something new for him to write.During its 5 year run there was a few episodes that Rod wrote for the "Zone" that was set in the old west including "The Grave", "Dust" and "Mr Denton on Doomsday". All of these I rate among my favorite TZ episodes. During "Night Gallery" Serling penned a couple scripts set out west including "The Waiting Room" and "Dr Stringfellow's Rejuvenator". Again these are two of my favorite episodes from NG. So Serling had a touch for writing western as well as sci-fi, horror or drama.An added, and I might say appreciated, extra is the special feature included in this set titled "The Wandering Man's Burden: Making The Loner". Running about 30 minutes it looks at the history behind the series and what went into the production of the show.All in all this is a very good series that anyone who likes either Rod Serling or tv westerns will enjoy. I can recommend this set.

It's a mystery why some shows click and others don't. This one should have: Lloyd Bridges was a fine actor, surrounded by other good actors, and Rod Serling (who created and wrote most of the scripts) was as good for television as any scribe the medium had. Having watched most of the episodes, I suspect this series was too introspective for viewers who wanted their westerns as shoot-em-ups (which, like the western genre in general, was dying out by 1966, when "The Loner" was canceled). Because of his character's nature, Bridges is, in most of the episodes, more a reactor than a catalyst for the action; that, too, may have turned off some viewers. "The Twilight Zone" was a perfect vehicle for Serling's social conscience, because it was hidden inside such quirky tales. Although a period piece, "The Loner" is, by comparison, a far more straight-ahead drama: a series of character studies in which the guest stars were allowed to shine a bit more brightly. I also checked the '65-'66 programming schedule: "The Loner" had a weak lead-in and was then scheduled against NBC's "Saturday Night at the Movies" and ABC's "The Hollywood Palace," both of which were well established and very popular. In any case, through the marvel of DVDs, we can now see good things we missed the first time around. "The Loner" is one of them: a cut above most of the network offerings in that era. To top it off, it is graced by a catchy signature theme by Jerry Goldsmith, which, after a second hearing, is nearly impossible to forget.

The plastic dvd holder arrived damaged but the dvds were still intact so I am not returning, but I wished that they would have packed it better. So far I watched five episodes. They were good but I guess I was expecting more of a twilight zone slant to the stories.

This was an intelligent and thought provoking western--Serling's direct follow up to "The Twilight Zone".Loyd Bridges plays a civil war veteran trying to move on with his life, travelling the countryside encountering various people in need and situations that try his patience and his humanity.Although there is certainly gunplay involved, it is not the focus of this very well written and well acted Western.It was not the typical western shoot em' up so popular at the time this program aired, and because it was something very different from shows like "Gunsmoke", "Bonanza" and the other Western series of the time, audiences didn't know what to make of it, so the show only lasted one season. But it was a very well done program with more than half of the episodes penned by Serling himself.The quality of the DVDs are quite good and for such a reasonable price this DVD set is a real bargain.Highly recommended.