Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Plot

Twenty years after its network cancellation in 1965, the classic suspense anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents returned in a full-color, half-hour format. The new version was part of an overall revival of the anthology genre, which also yielded such series as an updated Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, and Amazing Stories. Although creator-host Alfred Hitchcock had died five years before his series' resurrection, the producers managed to include Hitchcock as the "host" of each new episode by utilizing a somewhat ghoulish bit of technology: Hitch's introductions and epilogues were excerpted from the original, black-and-white Alfred Hitchcock Presents, then computer colorized. (One suspects that, wherever he was, The Master enjoy a good laugh over his digital return from the grave!) The series debuted over NBC on May 5, 1985, in the form of a two-hour TV movie, comprised of new adaptations of four vintage Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes. The series proper was launched on September 29, 1985, with a remake of "Revenge," the episode which had opened the original series way back in 1955. During its first season, the new Alfred Hitchcock Presents was made up almost exclusively of such remakes, among them "Breakdown," "The Jar" and "Road Hog," with only a handful of first-run stories. The primary difference between the first and second Alfred Hitchcock Presents were (of course) the casts, the preponderance of overt violence and special-effects trickery, and a frequent avoidance of those censor-coddling Hitchcock codas, in which he assured the viewers that the villain hadn't gotten away with his crimes even though all evidence indicated otherwise. Canceled by NBC after 26 episodes on May 11, 1986, Alfred Hitchcock Presents was brought back by cable's USA network beginning January 24, 1987, serving up 54 new installments over the next 18 months. Gradually, the "remakes" subsided, as more and more new material was utilized. Also, the USA version took even greater advantage of the lowered censorship standards of the 1980s than the NBC version had. The last first-run episode, which aired July 22, 1989, was "South by Southwest," an affectionate spoof of the entire Hitchcock canon. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Episodes

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 01 (1985)
NBC's 1985 revival of the classic suspense anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents begins with the two-hour pilot episode, made up of four new versions of classic Hitchcock episodes from the 1960s: "Incident in a Small Jail," "Man from the South," "Bang, You're Dead," and "An Unlocked Window." Although Alfred Hitchcock had been dead since 1980, he still manages to introduce each episode, via colorized excerpts from the original black-and-white series. After this extra-length opener, the series proper gets under way with a remake of the original 1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents debut episode, "Revenge," with Linda Purl taking over from Vera Miles in the role of a traumatized rape victim. Indeed, virtually all of the episodes seen during the revival's first season are remakes of vintage Hitchcock efforts. The best of these include "Method Actor," an updated version of 1962's "Bad Actor," directed by Burt Reynolds and starring Martin Sheen in the old Robert Duvall role; "Final Escape," a gender-switch version of the 1964 nail-biter with Season Hubley replacing Will Hutchins as an escape-happy convict; "Breakdown," with John Heard as the paralyzed accident victim originally essayed by Joseph Cotten; and the Ray Bradbury shocker "The Jar," with Griffin Dunne stepping into the part created by Pat Buttram. Also in the manifest is "Four O'Clock," an abbreviated remake of a one-hour playlet that Alfred Hitchcock had directed for the 1957 anthology series Suspicion. Only handful of "originals" -- that is episodes expressly written for the 1985 version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- were seen during season one. These include "Prisoners," directed by series producer Christopher Crowe and starring Yaphet Kotto as a fugitive and Cristina Raines as his extremely willing hostage, and "A Very Happy Ending," with Leaf Phoenix (aka Joaquin Phoenix) as a deaf boy who holds the fate of a murderer (Robert Loggia) in his hands. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 02 (1987)
Canceled by NBC in 1986, the "new," full-color version of the classic suspense anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents was brought back one year later by the USA network. For its inaugural season on USA, the series served up 13 new half-hour episodes, fleshing out the schedule with reruns from the NBC version. As before, most of the new episodes are actually remakes of stories previously seen on the first incarnation of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, with the late Mr. Hitchcock actually introducing them via colorized film clips from the earlier show. These include "Specialty of the House," "Anniversary Gift," "Man on the Edge," and "The World's Oldest Motive." Of the original episodes (original to this revival, that is), highlights included "If the Shoe Fits," with Ted Shackelford in a dual role; "The Impatient Patient," starring frequent Hitchcock collaborator E.G. Marshall as a disgruntled invalid plotting to kill his annoying nurse; and "The Final Twist," featuring Martin Landau in the story of a group of homicidal movie special-effects artists. In addition to the above-mentioned performers, the "star lineup" for season two of Alfred Hitchcock Presents includes Marion Ross, Mark Hamill, Edward Herrmann, Pamela Sue Martin, Samantha Eggar, and Adrian Zmed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 03 (1988)
Originally telecast on the USA cable network, season three of the color revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents offers 24 new episodes. Unlike previous seasons, which were largely comprised of remakes from the old black-and-white Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the third season consists virtually in its entirety of "originals," specially written for the revival; indeed, only the episode "Prosecutor" is derived from the earlier series. The season opens with "A Very Careful Rape," starring Melissa Sue Anderson as an actress who uses cutting-edge technology to wreak vengeance on her rapist. Subsequent episodes are equally up-to-date in content, notably "A Stolen Heart," wherein the title "character" is held for ransom just before a transplant operation, and "Career Move," with David Cassidy well cast as a washed-up rock star who plans to revitalize his career in a macabre fashion. Other episodes are quite "traditionalist" in nature, as witness "You'll Die Laughing," starring Anthony Newley as a terminally ill comedian who tries to stage his suicide to look like murder, and the two-part "The Hunted," a cat-and-mouse thriller starring The Equalizer's Edward Woodward. And whereas the older Alfred Hitchcock Presents only rarely delved into the supernatural, the new version is top-heavy with such fantastic yarns as "Houdini and Channel Four," in which the ghost of the celebrated escape artist is summoned to rescue a contemporary kidnap victim. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 04 (1989)
The fourth season of the full-color Alfred Hitchcock Presents revival was also the series' third season on the USA Network -- and the final season in which new episodes were produced (16 in all). This year, only one of the episodes is based on an earlier installment from the first Alfred Hitchcock Presents of the 1950s and '60s; the rest are all originals. The games begin with "The Big Spin," directed by prolific Canadian character actor Al Waxman and starring Erik Estrada as a duplicitous cab driver who gets more than he bargains for when he "borrows" a lottery ticket. Other fourth-season entries include "Don't Sell Yourself Short," with David Soul in fable of Wall Street chicanery with a homicidal twist; "Skeleton in the Closet," a contemporary spin on the 19th century Lizzie Borden murder case; "My Dear Watson," an unofficial sequel to Arthur Conan Doyle's His Last Bow, starring Brian Bedford as Sherlock Holmes; and "Diamonds Aren't Forever," a James Bond takeoff featuring one-time-only "007" actor George Lazenby. The best of the batch, appropriately enough, is a brace of Alfred Hitchcock spoofs: "The Man Who Knew Too Little," starring Lewis Collins as an amnesia victim, and the series finale, "South by Southeast," all about a "lost" Hitchcock script chock-full of instantly recognizable movie references. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi